what is research and how to prepare research proposal

xi.ii Steps in Developing a Research Proposal

Learning Objectives

1. Place the steps in developing a research proposal.
2. Choose a topic and formulate a research question and working thesis.
3. Develop a inquiry proposal.

Writing a skillful research paper takes time, idea, and attempt. Although this consignment is challenging, it is manageable. Focusing on one step at a fourth dimension will help yous develop a thoughtful, informative, well-supported enquiry paper.

Your beginning footstep is to choose a topic and then to develop inquiry questions, a working thesis, and a written research proposal. Ready bated adequate time for this part of the process. Fully exploring ideas will help you build a solid foundation for your newspaper.

Choosing a Topic

When you choose a topic for a enquiry paper, you are making a major commitment. Your choice volition aid determine whether you lot enjoy the lengthy process of inquiry and writing—and whether your final paper fulfills the assignment requirements. If you choose your topic hastily, you may afterward find it hard to work with your topic. By taking your time and choosing carefully, you can ensure that this consignment is non only challenging but also rewarding.

Writers understand the importance of choosing a topic that fulfills the assignment requirements and fits the consignment'south purpose and audience. (For more data almost purpose and audience, see Chapter 6 "Writing Paragraphs: Separating Ideas and Shaping Content".) Choosing a topic that interests you is likewise crucial. You instructor may provide a list of suggested topics or ask that y'all develop a topic on your own. In either case, try to identify topics that genuinely involvement you lot.

Later on identifying potential topic ideas, you will demand to evaluate your ideas and choose one topic to pursue. Will you be able to find enough information about the topic? Can you develop a paper about this topic that presents and supports your original ideas? Is the topic also wide or too narrow for the scope of the assignment? If so, tin can you modify it then it is more manageable? Yous volition enquire these questions during this preliminary phase of the inquiry process.

Identifying Potential Topics

Sometimes, your instructor may provide a listing of suggested topics. If and so, you lot may benefit from identifying several possibilities earlier committing to ane idea. Information technology is important to know how to narrow down your ideas into a concise, manageable thesis. You may likewise use the list as a starting point to assistance you identify boosted, related topics. Discussing your ideas with your teacher will help ensure that you cull a manageable topic that fits the requirements of the assignment.

In this chapter, y'all will follow a writer named Jorge, who is studying wellness care administration, as he prepares a research paper. You will too program, inquiry, and draft your own enquiry newspaper.

Jorge was assigned to write a research newspaper on health and the media for an introductory course in wellness intendance. Although a general topic was selected for the students, Jorge had to decide which specific issues interested him. He brainstormed a list of possibilities.

Tip

If you are writing a research newspaper for a specialized course, await back through your notes and course activities. Identify reading assignments and class discussions that especially engaged you. Doing and so can help yous identify topics to pursue.

Possible Topics

1. Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) in the news
2. Sexual education programs
3. Hollywood and eating disorders
4. Americans' admission to public wellness information
5. Media portrayal of health care reform bill
6. Depictions of drugs on television
7. The result of the Internet on mental health
8. Popularized diets (such equally low-carbohydrate diets)
9. Fear of pandemics (bird flu, HINI, SARS)
10. Electronic amusement and obesity
11. Advertisements for prescription drugs
12. Public education and disease prevention

Exercise i

Set up a timer for five minutes. Use brainstorming or idea mapping to create a listing of topics you would be interested in researching for a newspaper about the influence of the Cyberspace on social networking. Practice you closely follow the media coverage of a particular website, such as Twitter? Would you similar to acquire more virtually a certain industry, such as online dating? Which social networking sites do you and your friends use? List every bit many ideas related to this topic as you can.

Narrowing Your Topic

Once you have a list of potential topics, you lot volition need to cull one as the focus of your essay. You will too need to narrow your topic. Most writers find that the topics they listed during brainstorming or idea mapping are broad—likewise broad for the telescopic of the consignment. Working with an overly broad topic, such as sexual education programs or popularized diets, tin be frustrating and overwhelming. Each topic has so many facets that information technology would be incommunicable to encompass them all in a college research newspaper. However, more specific choices, such every bit the pros and cons of sexual teaching in kids' television programs or the physical effects of the South Beach diet, are specific enough to write about without being too narrow to sustain an entire research newspaper.

A good research newspaper provides focused, in-depth information and assay. If your topic is too broad, you will find it hard to do more than skim the surface when you research information technology and write about it. Narrowing your focus is essential to making your topic manageable. To narrow your focus, explore your topic in writing, acquit preliminary research, and discuss both the topic and the research with others.

Exploring Your Topic in Writing

"How am I supposed to narrow my topic when I haven't even begun researching yet?" In fact, you may already know more than than you lot realize. Review your list and place your top two or iii topics. Ready aside some time to explore each one through freewriting. (For more information well-nigh freewriting, run into Affiliate 8 "The Writing Process: How Do I Begin?".) Simply taking the time to focus on your topic may yield fresh angles.

Jorge knew that he was especially interested in the topic of diet fads, but he also knew that it was much likewise broad for his assignment. He used freewriting to explore his thoughts so he could narrow his topic. Read Jorge's ideas.

Our instructors are e'er saying that accurate, up-to-date information is crucial in encouraging people to make better choices well-nigh their health. I don't think the media does a very practiced job of providing that, though. Every time I go on the Internet, I see tons of ads for the latest "miracle food." 1 week it'due south acai berries, the side by side week it's green tea, and so six months subsequently I see a news story saying all the fabulous claims most acai berries and green tea are overblown! Advice about weight loss is even worse. Recall nearly all the diet books that are out there! Some say that a low-fatty diet is best; some say you should cut down on carbs; and some brand baroque recommendations like eating half a grapefruit with every meal. I don't know how anyone is supposed to make an informed decision about what to consume when there'southward and so much confusing, contradictory information. I bet even doctors, nurses, and dietcians have trouble figuring out what information is reliable and what is merely the latest hype.

Conducting Preliminary Research

Another way writers may focus a topic is to acquit preliminary research. Like freewriting, exploratory reading can assist you identify interesting angles. Surfing the web and browsing through newspaper and magazine articles are practiced means to start. Find out what people are proverb about your topic on blogs and online discussion groups. Discussing your topic with others tin too inspire you. Talk about your ideas with your classmates, your friends, or your instructor.

Jorge'southward freewriting exercise helped him realize that the assigned topic of health and the media intersected with a few of his interests—diet, nutrition, and obesity. Preliminary online research and discussions with his classmates strengthened his impression that many people are confused or misled by media coverage of these subjects.

Jorge decided to focus his paper on a topic that had garnered a great deal of media attending—low-carbohydrate diets. He wanted to find out whether low-carbohydrate diets were as effective as their proponents claimed.

Writing at Work

At work, you may need to research a topic quickly to detect full general information. This information tin can be useful in understanding trends in a given manufacture or generating competition. For case, a company may enquiry a competitor's prices and use the information when pricing their own product. You may discover it useful to skim a variety of reliable sources and accept notes on your findings.

Tip

The reliability of online sources varies greatly. In this exploratory phase of your research, you do not need to evaluate sources equally closely every bit y'all volition later. However, employ common sense equally yous refine your paper topic. If yous read a fascinating blog comment that gives you a new thought for your paper, exist sure to check out other, more than reliable sources as well to make sure the thought is worth pursuing.

Exercise 2

Review the list of topics yous created in Note 11.eighteen "Exercise 1" and identify two or iii topics you would like to explore further. For each of these topics, spend v to ten minutes writing well-nigh the topic without stopping. Then review your writing to identify possible areas of focus.

Set aside fourth dimension to bear preliminary inquiry about your potential topics. So choose a topic to pursue for your research paper.

Collaboration

Please share your topic listing with a classmate. Select 1 or two topics on his or her list that you would similar to learn more virtually and return it to him or her. Talk over why you establish the topics interesting, and larn which of your topics your classmate selected and why.

A Plan for Research

Your freewriting and preliminary research accept helped you choose a focused, manageable topic for your research newspaper. To work with your topic successfully, you lot will demand to decide what exactly you desire to learn near information technology—and subsequently, what y'all want to say most information technology. Earlier you brainstorm conducting in-depth research, you will farther ascertain your focus past developing a research question, a working thesis, and a research proposal.

Formulating a Research Question

In forming a research question, you are setting a goal for your research. Your main research question should be substantial enough to form the guiding principle of your newspaper—merely focused enough to guide your research. A stiff research question requires you not only to find information but too to put together different pieces of information, translate and analyze them, and figure out what you think. As y'all consider potential inquiry questions, enquire yourself whether they would be likewise hard or too easy to answer.

To decide your research question, review the freewriting you lot completed earlier. Skim through books, articles, and websites and list the questions you take. (You may wish to use the 5WH strategy to assistance you lot formulate questions. See Chapter viii "The Writing Procedure: How Exercise I Begin?" for more information near 5WH questions.) Include simple, factual questions and more complex questions that would require analysis and estimation. Make up one's mind your main question—the chief focus of your paper—and several subquestions that you lot will need to enquiry to answer your main question.

Here are the research questions Jorge will use to focus his enquiry. Notice that his master enquiry question has no obvious, straightforward respond. Jorge will need to research his subquestions, which address narrower topics, to answer his main question.

Topic:Chief question: Are low-carbohydrate diets as effective as they have been portrayed to be past media sources?
Subquestions:
Who tin can benefit from following a low-carbohydrate diet?
What are the supposed advantages to following a low-saccharide diet?
When did low-carb diets go a "hot" topic in the media?
Where practice average consumers get data about diet and nutrition?
Why has the depression-carb approach received and so much media attention?
How practice low-carb diets work?

Do three

Using the topic you lot selected in Note 11.24 "Exercise 2", write your main research question and at least four to v subquestions. Cheque that your principal research question is appropriately circuitous for your consignment.

Constructing a Working ThesIs

A working thesis concisely states a writer'due south initial respond to the main research question. It does non merely country a fact or present a subjective opinion. Instead, it expresses a debatable idea or claim that you hope to testify through boosted inquiry. Your working thesis is called a working thesis for a reason—information technology is field of study to change. Every bit you lot larn more nigh your topic, you may change your thinking in light of your research findings. Let your working thesis serve equally a guide to your research, simply practice not be afraid to modify information technology based on what you learn.

Jorge began his enquiry with a strong point of view based on his preliminary writing and inquiry. Read his working thesis statement, which presents the betoken he will fence. Notice how information technology states Jorge's tentative answer to his research question.

Main research question: Are low-carb diets equally constructive every bit they have sometimes been portrayed to be by the mass media?
Working thesis argument: Depression-car diets practice not alive up to the media hype surrounding them.

Tip

One fashion to determine your working thesis is to consider how you would complete sentences such as I believe or My opinion is. However, keep in heed that bookish writing generally does not use first-person pronouns. These statements are useful starting points, but formal research papers employ an objective vocalisation.

Exercise 4

Write a working thesis statement that presents your preliminary answer to the research question yous wrote in Note 11.27 "Exercise iii". Cheque that your working thesis statement presents an idea or claim that could be supported or refuted past evidence from inquiry.

Creating a Enquiry Proposal

A research proposal is a brief certificate—no more than one typed page—that summarizes the preliminary work you have completed. Your purpose in writing it is to formalize your programme for research and nowadays it to your instructor for feedback. In your enquiry proposal, you lot will present your main inquiry question, related subquestions, and working thesis. Y'all volition too briefly talk over the value of researching this topic and indicate how you plan to assemble information.

When Jorge began drafting his research proposal, he realized that he had already created most of the pieces he needed. Withal, he knew he likewise had to explicate how his research would be relevant to other hereafter wellness care professionals. In addition, he wanted to form a general plan for doing the research and identifying potentially useful sources. Read Jorge's research proposal.

Writing at Work

Before you brainstorm a new projection at work, y'all may have to develop a projection summary document that states the purpose of the project, explains why information technology would be a wise use of visitor resources, and briefly outlines the steps involved in completing the project. This type of document is similar to a research proposal. Both documents define and limit a project, explain its value, discuss how to proceed, and identify what resources yous will employ.

Writing Your Own Inquiry Proposal

Now y'all may write your own research proposal, if you have not done so already. Follow the guidelines provided in this lesson.

Primal Takeaways

• Developing a research proposal involves the following preliminary steps: identifying potential ideas, choosing ideas to explore farther, choosing and narrowing a topic, formulating a inquiry question, and developing a working thesis.
• A good topic for a research paper interests the writer and fulfills the requirements of the assignment.
• Defining and narrowing a topic helps writers comport focused, in-depth research.
• Writers conduct preliminary research to identify possible topics and enquiry questions and to develop a working thesis.
• A good research question interests readers, is neither likewise broad nor besides narrow, and has no obvious respond.
• A good working thesis expresses a debatable idea or claim that can be supported with bear witness from research.
• Writers create a research proposal to present their topic, main enquiry question, subquestions, and working thesis to an instructor for approval or feedback.

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Source: https://open.lib.umn.edu/writingforsuccess/chapter/11-2-steps-in-developing-a-research-proposal/

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