As a starting point, you will want to use the articles you found for Paper #2, but you may also decide to use additional journal articles or academic texts in order to complete your paper.  You may organize the proposal in whatever way seems best to you, but a good organizational pattern would be to break your paper into sections with these headings: Topic, Review of Literature, Research Question, Hypothesis, Method, Predictions.
 
 

Basic steps for planning your research proposal paper State in a sentence or two what your basic TOPIC OF INTEREST is.  Tell me why you (personally) are interested in this topic in another couple of sentences. Write a brief REVIEW OF LITERATURE based on your previous papers.  In general, this review will probably simply be a very shortened version of your synthesis paper. Think about WHAT QUESTIONS REMAIN UNANSWERED from Paper #2.  Re-read your synthesis paper and look for gaps or holes in the research.  Remember, you are not looking for trivial things to improve but new concepts or ideas. Create an original RESEARCH QUESTION for your project. For example, if you studied advertising only towards children, perhaps you could propose an examination of the methods used on children compared to those used on adults. (i.e., What methods of advertising used on adults also are effective with children?) Based on your research question, formulate a HYPOTHESIS that could be tested using the methods of quantitative or qualitative social science.  Using the example from the previous point above, you might hypothesize: "Children's response to TV commercials will mirror the attitudes of their parents." Choose and DESCRIBE A METHOD for testing your hypothesis, providing reasons for your choices.  Look at the methods sections in the articles you have read for examples of how this is done. As mentioned previously, you must use a (quantitative or qualitative) social scientific method for this project rather than a critical or historical methodology. PREDICT what you would expect to find if this project were actually conducted?  Based on your prior research, what results do you think you would have?  What problems and ethical concerns do you think you could encounter?

1. All papers should conform to correct APA citation and formatting guidelines.  Your paper should possess a title page and a reference page, and may have appendices (e.g., a copy of an established survey instrument you would use), but none of these pages should be included in your page count.  Papers exceeding the page limits specified above will receive lower grades, so it is important that you edit well.
2. Don't forget to include and sign the "Statement of Academic Integrity" with your paper.
3. You need to turn in your rough draft when you turn in your final paper.
4. E-MAIL ME A COPY OF YOUR PAPER.  I can read both WordPerfect and Microsoft Word files.  Save your file as an .rtf or .txt file if you don't use either of these word processing programs.
5. Refer to your syllabus for an overview of all the writing assignments in this class, for information about how to choose appropriate articles for each of the assignments, and for other generally useful information.

For the final assignment, you can choose to work with those same classmates with whom you worked on Paper #2, or you can complete the assignment alone.  In some instances, even if you worked alone before, you might find other classmates who also chose a topic close to yours, and in those cases you might decide to work together (as a new group) to complete this assignment.  The benefits of working with a "team," as listed in the previous handout (for Paper #2) still apply, and I encourage you to do so if at all possible.

• If you are going to work alone, your paper should be 4-7 double-spaced pages, and use correct APA citation and formatting.
• If you are going to work in a dyad of two, your paper should be 5-8 double-spaced pages, and use correct APA citation and formatting.  As with Paper #2, each member of a group working together will need to turn in the rough drafts of their contribution to the paper along with the final draft of each paper.
• If you are going to work in a group of three, your paper should be 6-9 double-spaced pages, and use correct APA citation and formatting.  As with Paper #2, each member of a group working together will need to turn in the rough drafts of their contribution to the paper along with the final draft of each paper.
 
 

When planning your proposal, you may want to do the following: Decide what type of research method (e.g., laboratory or field experiment, content analysis, survey/questionnaire, ethnography) seems most appropriate to use to address the research question you have formulated. Look at how this type of research has been written about in published research articles. While you can propose a study based on the ideal situation that you would have a "generous" budget, time, and assistance, you should still try to be practical in your suggestions. Visualize actually conducting your study.  Walk through your procedure (perhaps literally) to make sure you aren't forgetting any details.

 

* If you'd like to see an example of the Proposal Paper Assignment, CLICK HERE.