Research Proposal

I believe that your proposal, and the defense thereof, is actually the MOST important part of the thesis. Here your are defining everything you are going to do and why, then after your defense you just have to do it. It is VERY important that you, your chair, and other committee members are on the same page here. If not, this could lead to major problems down the road (and I have seen this happen).

The Three Proposal Chapters

Introduction

The introduction section should be the easiest part of your research paper. It's main goals are to introduce the topic to the reader and give them an idea what the paper is about and why it is important.

Literature Review

This section of the paper should provide a relatively thorough background of the prior research on your topic. The best literature reviews begin with the broad research topic and slowly narrow toward the research that is the most similar to yours.

Methods

The methods section is the most important part of the proposal. It should include very important and specific information on how you plan to test the hypotheses that you previously developed.

The Method

Although the chapters will be ordered as above in your final research proposal, I recommend conducting this project by saving the introduction until last for several reasons. The slides below provide some general guidance on this process.

Develop a Research Question

First, you will need to pick a topic and develop a preliminary research question. For example, is the death penalty related to less crime?