A research proposal is a document proposing a research project, generally in the sciences or

academia, and generally constitutes a request for sponsorship of that research.[1] Proposals are
evaluated on the cost and potential impact of the proposed research, and on the soundness of
the proposed plan for carrying it out. Henceforth, this piece of academic writing will discuss the
research proposal.

When writing a research proposal, it is important to consider the proposal's purpose, contents,
and structure. These considerations vary depending on the subject matter. However, a good
research proposal must adhere to the following general principles: Shows awareness of the
subject area, Addresses all requirements when applying for funding and Demonstrates clarity
in writing to capture the importance and purpose of the research project.

While academics write research proposals to request sponsorship for their projects, students
write them as part of their dissertations, thesis or school applications. Indeed, research
proposals serve different purposes. The primary purpose of writing these proposals is to
convince the target reader, such as financiers or educational institutions, that the project is
important.

A proposal needs to show how your work fits into what is already known about the topic and
what new paradigm will it add to the literature, while specifying the question that the research
will answer, establishing its significance, and the implications of the answer.[2] The proposal
must be capable of convincing the evaluation committee about the credibility, achievability,
practicality and reproducibility (repeatability) of the research design.

Four categories of audience with different expectations may be present in the evaluation
committees, namely academic colleagues, policy-makers, practitioners and lay audiences who
evaluate the research proposal. Tips for preparation of a good research proposal include; ‘be
practical, be persuasive, make broader links, aim for crystal clarity and plan before you write’. A
researcher must be balanced, with a realistic understanding of what can be achieved.

Being persuasive implies that researcher must be able to convince other researchers, research
funding agencies, educational institutions and supervisors that the research is worth getting

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approval. The aim of the researcher should be clearly stated in simple language that describes
the research in a way that non-specialists can comprehend, without use of jargons. The
proposal must not only demonstrate that it is based on an intelligent understanding of the
existing literature but also show that the writer has thought about the time needed to conduct
each stage of the research.

A research proposal must contain key components to make it successful. These key
components include;

Title — The title should be unique and must capture the key concepts of the study. It explains
what the project is about.

Abstract — The abstract summarizes the project's significance, hypothesis, objectives,

procedures, and implications.

Table of contents — The table of contents lists the main content, including the headings, sub-
headings, page numbers, chapters, and references.

Literature review — This component highlights relevant literature on the topic area, including
the contributing authors.

Method — This section outlines the researcher's approach to the research.

Discussion — Here, the researcher explores the underlying significance of the research and its
possible implications.

Budget — This section outlines the estimated project costs.

Researchers must include all these important sections within their research proposals.

The title should be memorable and specific to grab the reader's attention. It should make a
lasting impression on the reader to encourage them to read through the entire proposal. As
already stated, the title must capture the main concepts of the investigation. An example of an
excellent title is: An examination of the factors that influence college students' consumption
behavior for smart devices.

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The abstract contains a summary of the research proposal. It provides a quick overview of the
research problem, objectives, methodology and findings. Typically, an abstract is short,
comprising only a few sentences. Consider the example below:

The contents or formats of a research proposal vary depending on the requirements of

evaluation committee and are generally provided by the evaluation committee or the
institution.

In general, a cover page should contain the (i) title of the proposal, (ii) name and affiliation of
the researcher (principal investigator) and co-investigators, (iii) institutional affiliation (degree
of the investigator and the name of institution where the study will be performed), details of
contact such as phone numbers, E-mail id's and lines for signatures of investigators.

The main contents of the proposal may be presented under the following headings: (i)
introduction, (ii) review of literature, (iii) aims and objectives, (iv) research design and methods,
(v) ethical considerations, (vi) budget, (vii) appendices and (viii) citations.[4]

Introduction, It is also sometimes termed as ‘need for study’ or ‘abstract’. Introduction is an

initial pitch of an idea; it sets the scene and puts the research in context.[6] The introduction
should be designed to create interest in the reader about the topic and proposal. It should
convey to the reader, what you want to do, what necessitates the study and your passion for
the topic.

Some questions that can be used to assess the significance of the study are: (i) Who has an
interest in the domain of inquiry? (ii) What do we already know about the topic? (iii) What has
not been answered adequately in previous research and practice? (iv) How will this research
add to knowledge, practice and policy in this area? Some of the evaluation committees, expect
the last two questions, elaborated under a separate heading of ‘background and significance’.
[8] Introduction should also contain the hypothesis behind the research design. If hypothesis
cannot be constructed, the line of inquiry to be used in the research must be indicated.

key component of the research proposal is the most time-consuming aspect in the preparation
of your research proposal. As described in Chapter 5, the literature review provides the

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background to your study and demonstrates the significance of the proposed research.
Specifically, it is a review and synthesis of prior research that is related to the problem you are
setting forth to investigate. Essentially, your goal in the literature review is to place your
research study within the larger whole of what has been studied in the past, while
demonstrating to your reader that your work is original, innovative, and adds to the larger
whole.

As the literature review is information dense, it is essential that this section be intelligently
structured to enable your reader to grasp the key arguments underpinning your study.
However, this can be easier to state and harder to do, simply due to the fact there is usually a
plethora of related research to sift through. Consequently, a good strategy for writing the
literature review is to break the literature into conceptual categories or themes, rather than
attempting to describe various groups of literature you reviewed. Chapter 5 describes a variety
of methods to help you organize the themes.

It is important to note that a significant challenge related to undertaking a literature review is

knowing when to stop. As such, it is important to know when you have uncovered the key
conceptual categories underlying your research topic. Generally, when you start to see
repetition in the conclusions or recommendations, you can have confidence that you have
covered all of the significant conceptual categories in your literature review.

However, it is also important to acknowledge that researchers often find themselves returning
to the literature as they collect and analyze their data. For example, an unexpected finding may
develop as you collect and/or analyze the data; in this case, it is important to take the time to
step back and review the literature again, to ensure that no other researchers have found a
similar finding. This may include looking to research outside your field.

This situation occurred with one of this textbook’s authors’ research related to community
resilience. During the interviews, the researchers heard many participants discuss individual
resilience factors and how they believed these individual factors helped make the community
more resilient, overall. Sheppard and Williams (2016) had not discovered these individual
factors in their original literature review on community and environmental resilience. However,

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when they returned to the literature to search for individual resilience factors, they discovered
a small body of literature in the child and youth psychology field. Consequently, Sheppard and
Williams had to go back and add a new section to their literature review on individual resilience
factors. Interestingly, their research appeared to be the first research to link individual
resilience factors with community resilience factors.