Research Proposal
What is the topic? Why is it significant, an interesting problem, a relevant issue, etc.? Who is your audience within or related to your discipline?
What have you found out from preliminary research: what questions are being asked by scholars researching this issue now?
What kinds of research (methodology) is being done to study it? What are some theories/arguments you have found so far in this body of research? What are some ways you could narrow the topic?
What is your tentative research question based on this analysis of the issue? What methodology and resources will you use: Synthesize secondary research only? Also apply theories/conceptual lenses from previous research to analyze primary sources?
Who do you think you could address about this topic to make an interesting and helpful argument?
The purpose of the study/article
The research/data gathering methods/kinds of sources analyzed (whatever is applicable to explaining the type of research done)
was there a hypothesis? if so, what?
if people were involved–who, and how many?
if texts, census records, other documents were involved, what kind and what time frame did they cover?
if the data was analyzed in a certain way, using a certain method, theory, or criteria, explain what was done?
Finally, explain the main results, findings, recommendations, etc.
What are the implications/ significance/ “so what” of the findings?
Try to get the main findings and implications/ significance expressed in a couple of sentences you can use in your final paper:
In a study of x, where of x did y for z reason in v way, researchers found that x experienced more whatever than blank, suggesting that whoever should whatever in order to achieve blankety blank.