Research Paper Proposal

A research proposal, naturally enough, is an explanation of what you are going to do as far as a research paper is concerned. The point of doing this proposal is to make sure your planned paper is focused enough and relevant enough to meet the criteria for this course. Furthermore, the proposal allows the instructor an opportunity to provide valuable feedback.

Your proposal should be 1-2 pages long, not counting the annotated bibliography you will submit later. Before you turn in your proposal, you should an extensive bibliographical search on your topic, using specialized bibliographies and indices, as well as on-line services. Your proposal should cover the following areas:

1.Title: Propose a tentative title for your paper.

2. Definition of topic: Explain your topic and identify the thesis of your proposed paper. Narrow down your topic to something approachable in a 5-7 page paper. Try posing questions that you wish to answer.

3. Outline: Provide a tentative outline/plan of your proposed paper. You may use either a topic outline or a sentence outline, or you may explain your plan in a short paragraph.

4. Introduction: Provide an introductory paragraph (ca. 150 words) to your topic. While the actual introduction to your paper will probably change significantly before your paper is finished, this sample will help get your mental gears moving. It may, in fact, offer some insight into the final form of your paper.

5. Identify the format of your paper: Since this paper is a traditional research paper of a prescribed length (5-7 pages of body) and format (MLA). State your intentions (length, number and type of sources, quality of secondary sources, any other information which may be relevant to the goal of the paper.

6. Keywords: Identify your key research terms and where those terms are located.

This is part of the bibliographic process. What are the keywords are you discovering that are central to your topic? Under what subjects do you find references in the media center? What words in a title let you know that an article will be relevant to your topic? What journals tend to publish articles on your topic? Who are the most reliable, important authorities, experts?

7. Status of bibliographic search: Here you must tell basically where you are in the research process. What did you start out knowing about this topic? Where did you go from there? You need to have looked up the topic in several indices or bibliographies and to have seen that there are enough books and articles about it. Are there enough references in the Gordon library for you to work with? A short paragraph will suffice, and honesty is the primary focus here. Be truthful about where you are. At the point of turning in your proposal, you probably will not have found everything you are going to find on your topic, but you should have made a good, solid start..

8. Anticipated Problems and Next Move: Where do you think are going to have the most trouble doing this project? What’s going to be the thing hardest to deal with? Are you going to deal with these problems? How? Where are you going to go from here? What other sources are there that you haven’t yet consulted?? What other aspects of the topic do you need to take into consideration? Again, a short paragraph or brief remarks will suffice.