How to Write a Research Proposal
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How to Write a Research Proposal
The purpose of a proposal is to help one to focus and define a research plan. It is an indication to your faculty of your direction and discipline as a researcher. A Research proposal should be developed in such away that it meets certain standards where the researcher should present and justify a research idea he or she has and present the practical ways in which this research should be conducted. A research proposal should have an impact upon the reader to ensure that it becomes competitive to any other research proposal made. A high quality proposal, on the other hand, not only promises success for the project, but also impresses your thesis committee about your potential as a researcher. A good research project may run the risk of rejection simply because the proposal is poorly written and so it pays if your writing is coherent, clear and compelling. It has to be clear and well structured to ensure clarity in the message. A research proposal should state what research project one will undertake, how it is important and the method that you will use to conduct that research. First of all, you need to select a research area and the title of the research paper. The title must be concise and to the point. Secondly construct an abstract for your paper. This is a summary of the research work which includes a brief background of the research area.
It is effective to have an introduction to draw the researcher’s attention upon the paper. Therefore, the researcher should state in brief, what will be learnt from the research, the difference that it will bring and how important it is. The researcher should prove that the particular piece of research has not been done. He or she should also prove solid theoretical knowledge in the field, and build the theoretical bases of the project. It is also important to review a few articles and books in the fields and mention them in the bibliography list. One should avoid jargon when writing a research proposal. This is because the person who will read the research proposal may not be a specialist in that field. The research proposal should have the capacity to get the message across in clear, easy to grasp concepts and phrase, find arguments to convince the sponsor that he or she should give out the money for that particular research.
After the introduction, the researcher should construct a literature review and state the information used and that which would be used for the work. It helps to show that you have adequate knowledge of the topic. One of the challenging areas of writing a research proposal is that of methodology. It states what actions you are going to take to develop your research proposal. Methods used may be qualitative for example interviews, questionnaires or quantitative such as statistics. For some projects qualitative methods are more appropriate and for some others quantitative methods are more appropriate while for others a mixture of the two is preferred. The methods you select should justify your choice. It is advisable to know more about methodology on the internet or relevant articles before writing the research proposal and decides which methods suit your project best.
Once you have developed the methodology part in your research proposal, predict the results of your research. This is to show the readers that you have an idea of what the research will lead to. The final step is the conclusion. The capacity of your researched project should come out clearly from the body of the paper. The size of your research proposal is prescribed in the applicants form. If not then 1500 words are suggested which are approximately 3 pages in order not to bore your readers.