Writing a Research Proposal THE BASICS

DEFINE THE PROBLEM In this section you explain what social problem you are going to study. Why is it worth studying? Does the proposed study have practical significance? Does it contribute to the construction of social theories?

REVIEW OF LITERATURE What have others said about this topic? What research has been done previously? Are there consistent findings, or do past studies disagree? You must have a minimum of 5 sources for this section. MLA in-text documentation is required.

HYPOTHESIS Written after the literature has been reviewed. Seeks to establish a relationship between multiple variables.

CONDUCTING THE SURVEY How will you actually collect data for your study? Who was given a survey? How were surveys distributed? Were all the surveys given out collected? Is there a possibility of error in your results?

DEFINITION OF VARIABLES What are the KEY VARIABLES (variables need to be in all caps) in your study? How will you define and measure them? Do your definitions and measurement methods duplicate or differ from previous research on this topic? If you have already developed your measurement device[survey], it might be appropriate to include a copy in an appendix to your proposal.

ANALYSIS OF RESEARCH This section analyzes the data that YOU collected. Present statistics, percentages, ratios to explain your data. Include charts and graphs to help define your data. Do not draw any conclusions [you will do this in the next section] in this section. Just present your data.

REPORT OF FINDINGS Report of Findings = Conclusion Does the data you collected support previous data? Do both sets of data help to explain your hypothesis? Why or why not? What can you conclude based off of your previous research and data collection methods?

Works Cited Has all of your research been cited in MLA format? Have you cited all of your sources?

Appendix Have you included your measurement device in the appendix?