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