NOTES ON RESEARCH PROPOSAL FINAL ASSIGNMENT

A research proposal will have a form quite similar to that of a research paper (such as we’re reading in primary research journals). It will begin with:
    - a clear statement of the purpose of the research.  This is an important – in fact, essential – part of the undertaking; without it the rest can’t be understood or justified.  The purpose may be introduced as a question, but from the question should emerge some potential answers that can take the form of more specific hypotheses.  A statement of this purpose-question-hypothesis is part of your introductory discussion.  The other main part of an introduction to your proposal is
    - some background in the form of conceptual discussion and relationships to previous research.  This part should be supported, as possible, by reference to research from the literature.  What have people done on this stuff and related questions in the past?  How does this inform you thinking and predictions? These background courses must, of course, be cited; follow format of citation from some primary research journal (e.g., Ecology).
    - the next substantial section of the proposal will be a set of methods by which you will collect data to answer questions, test hypotheses.  These should be pretty clearly laid out; I should be able to execute the study pretty much as you conceive of it from the information in the proposal.  Your methods should be clearly linked to your research questions or hypotheses (“In order to test whether x causes y, I will....”) Finally, you will need to provide a
    - discussion of potential results and what they would mean for your question or hypothesis.  This is probably the trickiest part.  It’s parallel to the results/discussion sections in a research paper -- but you don’t have the results yet. You should anticipate the potential range of results and consider how you would interpret them and what they would mean for your hypothesis.  It’s often particularly helpful to think in terms ways you would present possible results graphically, maybe even sketch out ‘example’ graphs of outcomes that would (or would not) be consistent with your hypothesis