A Decent Proposal
How to write a research proposal (and why it will help you)
A paper proposal is a strange beast. It is neither as simple as a blog post nor as detailed as a formal paper. Nevertheless, it has a form and function–and students frequently struggle with both.
That’s understandable!. Many students have never actually written a formal research paper, much less a proposal. As a result, they’re often confused about both the purpose and the structure of this early assignment. So let’s clear up this confusion.
Professors ask students to write a research proposal for two reasons. First, we want to help students overcome what we call “ideational paralysis”. Novice researchers at both the advanced undergraduate and early graduate levels often view writing an original research paper as daunting. The basic questions can be the easiest ones: “What topic should I choose?” and “What is my research question?” Asking students to write a research proposal moves these questions to the front burner.
A research proposal is a spur to thinking about these basic questions well in advance of carrying out the actual research. The point is not for the student to solve these problems in the proposal. Rather, putting effort into a proposal allows the instructor to help the student solve the problem of topic choice early in the term while there is still time to dedicate to such decisions.
Second, writing a research proposal ensures some amount of quality control. Left to their own devices to conduct research independently during the term, a group of students will turn in highly varying samples of aesthetic and substantive quality of work. A proposal is a “mini-paper” in the sense that its form structures how the full paper will eventually be written. By introducing all students into a process of thinking through these issues logically and structurally, instructors hope to tamp down that variance–and curb the number of papers that flame out.
This process of planning may be strange at first, but it’s a common practice in almost all creative endeavors. A sculptor, for example, might first molds a basic model of their work, providing a framework upon which they eventually fill in literal gaps with clay. Once the clay has taken hold, they then carefully and laboriously whittle, shave, and sculpt their blocky creation into its final form.
So, too, should the research paper proposal provide such an architecture for students to refine. The old contractor’s maxim is “measure twice, cut once”--researchers should follow a similar ratio of planning to execution. In the end, careful planning will save time and effort.
(That can be the case even if the planning process reveals that the original idea just wasn’t going to work. It’s much better to have an idea that seems good fail quickly instead of sinking months into a promising but fatally flawed concept. Planning should serve as a stress test that filters good ideas from bad.)
What this framework looks like, exactly, may vary upon the needs of the instructor. The elements vary relatively little, however. Proposals of three to four pages (~2,000 words max) should include the following elements:
Introduction
Broad overview of literature
Expectations (hypotheses, in early form)
Design or analysis plan
Let’s begin with the introduction. Much like an eventual “full” paper, the proposal should be structured around a research question. The introduction, while shorter than the version appearing in the full paper, should contextualize the research topic. It should be an introduction both to the topic that the paper involves and to the specific paper itself. The introduction should communicate the gist of your idea and why it matters. The introduction to the final project will tell the reader all they need to know about the findings, but at this stage you will lack a full summary of results – and rightfully so because the research has yet to be conducted. Don’t waste words here describing what you think might happen. Instead, lay out the logical, narrative flow of what you propose to accomplish in the proposal and in the work itself.
Next comes the lit review. Your purpose isn’t to tell the entire story of how previous research has engaged your topic, but to demonstrate that your project will have some guiding logic rooted in previous scholarship–that you’re not just selling a cock-and-bull story. In particular, you should be able to demonstrate that you understand how your research question fits within this parent literature. Unlike the literature review, however, this is not an exhaustive effort: this is about demonstrating proof-of-concept – that you’ve read enough to know your ideas are on solid footing.
The expectations, or, more formally, the “theory section,” will, again, necessarily be brief. Your task is to justify the relationships, whether causal or associational, that you are proposing to test. Explain why you would you expect some independent variable or experimental treatment to affect a dependent variable. Present some plausible logic that structures the answer to your research question. Include at least one hypothesis. A research question without a hypothesis doesn’t do anyone much good.This is your opportunity to think through why you believe two quantities are related. (And, again, it doesn’t have to be perfect–it just needs to be a good start.)
Developing your hypothesis in the proposal will guide how you will construct your research design and analytical strategy. What you can accomplish in a research paper is constrained both by the ambition of your research question and the extent to which you can supply the data necessary to answer it. Because your hypotheses will guide what data you will need to collect, writing up your hypotheses will shape how you approach the back half of your research paper.
The details will vary by method:
If you are submitting a proposal for an experiment, then your design or research plan will include listing the details of your experimental protocol. You wouldn’t need fully formed treatments, but you would ideally have the experimental matrix that describes the various conditions in your experiment and the type of materials or treatments with which you expect subjects to interact.
If you are writing a more traditional observational research paper using, say, survey data, then you would describe the survey data that is available to you and list the instruments that will comprise your independent and dependent variables. You might conclude by indicating the sorts of models that you would use to analyze that data in an effort to demonstrate that you understand the tools necessary to complete the eventual paper.
Finally, if you’re writing a qualitative paper, you should be clear about the sorts of observations in the evidence that would tend to confirm or disconfirm different explanations.
The takeaway: Your proposal doesn’t have to be perfect, but it does have to exist. Don’t worry: your professor (probably) isn’t looking for you to have everything nailed down. Just start refining as soon as you can–the more iterations you can cram in, the better your process will be.
The practical: Break down your proposal section by section. If your adviser has provided one, work within the template they have given you–and make sure you actually answer each question fully. Pre-writing (that is, jotting down notes and bullet points that you will expand later) can really help you fill in these blanks. This is also a great time for revision, including walking away from a draft for 24 hours and then coming back with a fresh mind.