What is a research proposal?
As a postgraduate student you may be asked to write a research proposal to support a project that is part of your course. A research proposal is useful because it gives you the opportunity to get valuable feedback about your intended research aims, objectives and design and helps you articulate what you’re interested in doing research on. A research proposal maps out a proposed central research problem or question that you plan to investigate and suggests an approach to its investigation.
Although you may be given specific requirements that you need to be aware of, all research proposals include the following:
- What you propose to research
- Why the topic needs to be researched
- How you plan to research it
Purpose and audience
Before writing a research proposal, it is important to think about the purpose and audience of this type of text.
Purpose
There are 2 key purposes of a research proposal:
1. To allow experienced researchers (your teachers and examiners) to assess whether:
- the research question or problem is feasible (that is, can be answered or solved)
- the scope is appropriate for MA by coursework (as opposed to a PhD)
- you’ve understood the relevant key literature and identified the gap for your research
- you’ve chosen an appropriate methodological approach
2. To help you clarify and focus on what you want to do, why you want to do it, and how you’ll do it. The research proposal helps you position yourself as a researcher in your field. It allows you to:
- systematically think through your proposed research, argue for its significance, and identify the scope
- show a critical understanding of the scholarly field around your proposed research
- identify the gap in the literature that your research will address
- justify your proposed research design
- identify all tasks that need to be done through a realistic timetable
- anticipate potential problems
- hone organisational skills that you will need for your research
- become familiar with relevant search engines and databases
- develop skills in research writing
Audience
The main audience for your research proposal may be your teacher and/or a client.
Your audience may or may not have a strong disciplinary understanding of your proposed research area. It is therefore important to create a clear context, rationale and framework for the research project you plan to undertake. Limit jargon and specialist terminology so that non-specialists can comprehend it. You need to convince the reviewers that your proposed research is worth doing and that you will be able to effectively ‘interrogate’ your research questions or address the research problems through your chosen research design.
You are expected to demonstrate:
- a clearly defined and feasible research project
- a clearly explained rationale for your research
- evidence that your research will make an original contribution through a critical review of the literature
- written skills appropriate to postgraduate research study
