How to Write a Research Proposal

A research proposal is simply a short piece of writing that details

exactly what you’ll be covering in a larger research project.

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What is the goal of a research proposal?

In a research proposal, the goal is to present the author’s plan for the
research they intend to conduct.

In a research proposal, the author demonstrates how and why their research
is relevant to their field. They demonstrate that the work is necessary to the
following:

 Filling a gap in the existing body of research on their subject

 Underscoring existing research on their subject, and/or

 Adding new, original knowledge to the academic community’s existing

understanding of their subject

A research proposal also demonstrates that the author is capable of

conducting this research and contributing to the current state of their field in a
meaningful way. To do this, your research proposal needs to discuss your
academic background and credentials as well as demonstrate that your
proposed ideas have academic merit.

Your research proposal also has to cover these things:

 The research methodology you plan to use

 The tools and procedures you will use to collect, analyze, and interpret
the data you collect

 An explanation of how your research fits the budget and other

constraints that come with conducting it through your institution,
department, or academic program

How long should a research proposal be?

Generally, research proposals for bachelor’s and master’s theses are a few
pages long.

A research proposal’s goal is to clearly outline exactly what your research will
entail and accomplish.

Research proposal structure

A research proposal follows a fairly straightforward structure. Nearly all

research proposals include the following sections:
Introduction

Your introduction achieves a few goals:

 Introduces your topic

 States your problem statement and the questions your research aims to
answer

 Provides context for your research

In a research proposal, an introduction can be a few paragraphs long. It

should be concise, but don’t feel like you need to cram all of your information
into one paragraph.

In some cases, you need to include an abstract and/or a table of contents in

your research proposal. These are included just before the introduction.

Background significance

This is where you explain why your research is necessary and how it relates
to established research in your field. Your work might complement existing
research, strengthen it, or even challenge it—no matter how your work will
“play with” other researchers’ work, you need to express it in detail in your
research proposal.

This is also the section where you clearly define the existing problems your
research will address. By doing this, you’re explaining why your work is
necessary—in other words, this is where you answer the reader’s “so what?”
In your background significance section, you’ll also outline how you’ll conduct
your research. If necessary, note which related questions and issues
you won’t be covering in your research.

Literature review

In your literature review, you introduce all the sources you plan to use in your
research. This includes landmark studies and their data, books, and scholarly
articles. A literature review delves into the collection of sources you chose and
explains how you’re using them in your research.

Research design, methods, and schedule

Following your research review, you’ll discuss your research plans. In this
section, make sure you cover these aspects:

 The type of research you will do. Are you conducting qualitative or
quantitative research? Are you collecting original data or working with
data collected by other researchers?

 Whether you’re doing experimental, correlational, or descriptive

research

 The data you’re working with. For example, if you’re conducting

research in the social sciences, you’ll need to describe the population
you’re studying. You’ll also need to cover how you’ll select your subjects
and how you’ll collect data from them.
  The tools you’ll use to collect data. Will you be running experiments?
Conducting surveys? Observing phenomena? Note all data collection
methods here along with why they’re effective methods for your specific
research.

Beyond a comprehensive look at your research itself, you’ll also need to

include:

 Your research timeline

 Your research budget

 Any potential obstacles you foresee and your plan for handling them

Suppositions and implications

Although you can’t know your research’s results until you’ve actually done the
work, you should be going into the project with a clear idea of how your work
will contribute to your field. This section is perhaps the most critical to your
research proposal’s argument because it expresses exactly why your
research is necessary.

In this section, make sure you cover the following:

 Any ways your work can challenge existing theories and assumptions in
your field

 How your work will create the foundation for future research

 The practical value your findings will provide to practitioners, educators,

and other academics in your field
  The problems your work can potentially help to fix

 Policies that could be impacted by your findings

 How your findings can be implemented in academia or other settings

and how this will improve or otherwise transform these settings

In other words, this section isn’t about stating the specific results you expect.
Rather, it’s where you state how your findings will be valuable.

Conclusion

This is where you wrap it all up. Your conclusion section, just like
your conclusion paragraph for an essay, briefly summarizes your research
proposal and reinforces your research’s stated purpose.

Bibliography

Yes, you need to write a bibliography in addition to your literature review.

Unlike your literature review, where you explained the relevance of the
sources you chose and in some cases, challenged them, your bibliography
simply lists your sources and their authors.

The way you write a citation depends on the style guide you’re using. The
three most common style guides for academics are MLA, APA, and Chicago,
and each has its own particular rules and requirements. Keep in mind that
each formatting style has specific guidelines for citing just about any kind of
source, including photos, websites, speeches, and YouTube videos.
Sometimes, a full bibliography is not needed. When this is the case, you can
include a references list, which is simply a scaled-down list of all the sources
you cited in your work. If you’re not sure which to write, ask your supervisor.

How to write a research proposal

Research proposals, like all other kinds of academic writing, are written in a
formal, objective tone. Keep in mind that being concise is a key component of
academic writing; formal does not mean flowery.

Adhere to the structure outlined above. Your reader knows how a research
proposal is supposed to read and expects it to fit this template. It’s crucial that
you present your research proposal in a clear, logical way. Every question the
reader has while reading your proposal should be answered by the final
section.

Editing and proofreading a research proposal

When you’re writing a research proposal, follow the same six-step writing
process you follow with every other kind of writing you do.

After you’ve got a first draft written, take some time to let it “cool off” before
you start proofreading. By doing this, you’re making it easier for yourself to
catch mistakes and gaps in your writing.
Common mistakes to avoid when writing a research
proposal

When you’re writing a research proposal, avoid these common pitfalls:

Being too wordy

As we said earlier, formal does not mean flowery. In fact, you should aim to
keep your writing as brief and to-the-point as possible. The more economically
you can express your purpose and goal, the better.

Failing to cite relevant sources

When you’re conducting research, you’re adding to the existing body of

knowledge on the subject you’re covering. Your research proposal should
reference one or more of the landmark research pieces in your field and
connect your work to these works in some way. This doesn’t just
communicate your work’s relevance—it also demonstrates your familiarity with
the field.

Focusing too much on minor issues

There are probably a lot of great reasons why your research is necessary.
These reasons don’t all need to be in your research proposal. In fact,
including too many questions and issues in your research proposal can
detract from your central purpose, weakening the proposal. Save the minor
issues for your research paper itself and cover only the major, key
issues you aim to tackle in your proposal.

Failing to make a strong argument for your research

This is perhaps the easiest way to undermine your proposal because it’s far
more subjective than the others. A research proposal is, in essence, a piece
of persuasive writing. That means that although you’re presenting your proposal
in an objective, academic way, the goal is to get the reader to say “yes” to
your work.

This is true in every case, whether your reader is your supervisor, your
department head, a graduate school admissions board, a private or
government-backed funding provider, or the editor at a journal in which you’d
like to publish your work.

Polish your writing into a stellar proposal

When you’re asking for approval to conduct research—especially when

there’s funding involved—you need to be nothing less than 100 percent
confident in your proposal. If your research proposal has spelling or
grammatical mistakes, an inconsistent or inappropriate tone, or even just
awkward phrasing, those will undermine your credibility.

Make sure your research proposal shines by using Grammarly to catch all of
those issues. Even if you think you caught all of them while you were editing,
it’s critical to double-check your work. Your research deserves the best
proposal possible, and Grammarly can help you make that happen.