How to Write a Research Proposal and Project

Research Topic or Objectives

1. What is your research topic or, alternatively, what are your research objectives?

2. Why is your research topic (or why are those research objectives) important?

 
3. What is your research question or what are your research questions?

4. What does the literature have to say about your research topic/objectives and research quest ion (s)?

5. How are you going to go about collecting data relev-ant to your research question(s)? In other words, what research methods are you intending to use?

6. Why are the research methods/sources you have selected the appropriate ones for your research question(s)?

7. What resources will you need to conduct your re-search (for example, postage, travel costs, software) and how will those resources be funded?

 
8. What is your timetable for the different stages of the project?

 
9. What problems do you anticipate in doing the re-search (for example, access to organizations)?

10. What are the possible ethical problems associated with your research?

11.  How will you analyse your data? 

A. The four components of social research:

• question

• strategy

• design

• methods (of data & analysis

1) Is the research question arguable/interesting?

2) Does the research question address a social problem?

3) Is it too broad or too narrow?

4) Is the research question researchable (time, skills, theory)?

C. Strategy: a collection of philosophical and theoretical commitments that may influence decisions made about the research design and the choice of specific methods of data collection and analysis.
- quantitative
- qualitative
- mixed
Choosing quantitative, qualitative or a mixed strategy depends on: the topic, the question, training and skills, and topic related methodological traditions.

D. Design: provides a framework for the collection and analysis of data (scale, time-order, comparison).

E. Methods: questionnaires, ethnography, discourse analysis.

1) Idea 

2) Literature review

3) The Research Question

4) Strategy decision and design

5) Data collection (Methods)

6) Data analysis (Methods)

7) Writing up the research

1. Introduction:  An outline of the research area and its significance; the research questions and hypotheses.

 
2. literature review: A critical examination of what is currently known about the topic + stressing your contribution.

3. Research methods:  A presentation of how the data was collected and analysed.

4. Results: : A presentation of the findings.

 
5. Discussion:  Findings are discussed in relation to their implications for the literature and the research questions.

6. Conclusion: The significance of the research.

Do you know what the requirements for your dissertation are, as set out by your university or department' Have you made contact with your supervisor' 0 Have you allowed enough time for planning, doing, and writing up your research project'Do you have a clear timetable for your research project with clearly identifiable milestones for the achievement of specific tasks?  Have you bot sufficient financial and practical resources (for example, money to enable travel to research site, recording device) to enable you to carry out your research project" 

a.  Have you formulated some research questions and discussed these with your supervisor? 

b. Are the research questions you have identified capable of being answered through your research project'

 
c. Do you have the access that you require in order to carry out your research' 0 Are you familiar with the data analysis software that you will be using to analyse your data' O Have you allowed others to comment on your work so far and responded to thew feedback? O Have you checked out whether there are likely to be any ethical issues that might be raised in connection with your research

d. Have you allowed enough time for getting clearance through an ethics committee, if that is required for your research?