Research Proposal Assignment
Introduction to Research
Goal: To produce a professional experimental research proposal that could potentially warrant funding through a government or private agency.
Note: This assignment is unique in the CLS program. You have done library-based research papers in other classes. Now, however, you will read more critically, during your library search. Mistakes do find their way into published literature. If you base your research proposal on research that has errors in it, you are unlikely to warrant funding.
You will then ask a research question, something that should be known, but that you didn’t find answered in the CLS literature. In your experimental research proposal, you will seek to communicate the importance of your question and convince a committee of PhDs and MDs that the issue is important enough that they should approve money for your experiment to supply the answer.
The tone of this paper is very formal, no grammatical, spelling, citation or punctuation errors are allowed in the final paper. Read the entire assignment carefully.
Structure:
1. You will write a proposal (12 -15 pages) using the skeletal structure outlined below. The page margins will be approximately 1 in. X 1 in. and the proposal will be double spaced using the Arial size 12 font. APA format will be used for citing references.
2. Use APA style citations in the text and for the reference page. Don’t quote extended portions of other papers, paraphrase. Don’t list references that you don’t cite in the paper. In addition, supply a .pdf or working URL for each reference.
3. Only the literature review section of your paper is past tense. The rest is future tense, as in “this is what I will do if you fund my research.”
4. Your proposal must be saved in .doc format with the title:
YourLastname_ResearchProposal. For example: My proposal would be titled: Tiefenback_Research Proposal
5. All writing in the report should be IN YOUR OWN WORDS. You will Submit the paper as directed in the assignment. Canvas will check the similarity index on Turnitin. Your similarity index must be less than 25%.
6. References must be primary sources, review or research articles, from peer-reviewed journals. You should include at least 15 references, all less than 5 years old. Analyze and blend the information in the papers to describe the current state of knowledge regarding your topic. Again, your sources should be from peer reviewed journals. Do not use secondary sources like textbooks, encyclopedias or sites like WebMD. If you need to use an older reference to explain your topic, do not count that reference as part of the 15 required references.
Outline of proposal:
The skeleton of your proposal is below:
Clearly label each part. I will use this form to grade your proposal.
Research proposal grading:
Content Points earned/ Points Possible
Title Page ___/25
Acknowledgements ___/25
1. Abstract ___/100
a. Summarizing your topic of research
b. Data collection (what and how)
c. Data analysis (how)
d. Expected outcome
2. Introduction –Statement of the problem ___/100
a. Statement of the Problem and Rationale for Study
b. Objectives
c. Definition of Terms (if necessary)
3. Literature Review—Background to the problem ___/200
a. Focused on area of stated problem (no BS)
b. Refers to reasonable number of previous studies
c. Analysis of results and conclusions of previous studies.
4. Method—Research design ___/250
a. Subjects (Samples analyzed)
b. Procedures
c. Instruments
d. Presentation and Analysis of Data
5. Conclusion—Expected results ___/100
a. Interpretation of possible findings
b. Implication
c. Application
d. Re-iterate (without directly repeating) the importance of answering your question.
6. References ___/50
a. required number of sources all discussed in paper
b. in APA format
850 total for paper
Your overall grade will also include
A. 50 points/paper peer-reviewed __100__
B. 25 points each for posting your drafts on time ___50__
Description of sections
Title page: should be 25 easy points. Title of paper, your name, course, and date are the essentials.
Acknowledgements: another easy 25 points. Thank the folks who helped you out.
The above pages do not count for the page length of the paper. From here to the end of the conclusion are the pages to count for the 12 – 15 pages the paper is supposed to be. Don’t include figures in the page count either.
Abstract: Now we are getting harder. You should write this last. When you were looking up papers to use as references you probably scanned a lot of abstracts and then didn’t bother to open up the paper to read more. The abstract is all most people will read of your work. Sell your idea here. Your study is important. This is where you convince others to read on. The trick is you have to be brief. Strip your proposal to the bare essentials.
BTW: My husband sat on a national committee selecting papers for a Physics conference recently. The committee only read the abstracts of the submitted papers while making their selection of which papers would be presented. Abstracts make or break careers; they are that important.
Introduction: This is where you tell your audience what you are going to tell them and why it is important. See the list above for content, basically you state your question and tell why the study will be important to do.
Literature Review: You read at least one review paper; you can think of that as an example of what this part of your paper should look like. I’m expecting this section to run seven or eight pages. Primary literature must be analyzed and blended to describe the current state of knowledge regarding the topic. Do not include a historical overview of the topic. The committee evaluating your work is likely to already know about your topic. Data from cited sources should be included and clearly explained. You should use the cited information to develop central themes, and show how the information is interrelated with your proposal. Don’t be afraid to call out problems in your source’s experimental design or data interpretation. You want to tell your audience what they need to know to understand the state of the art in your topic. You will need to look up many papers to find information and techniques you will need to use. Do not pad this by including information that isn’t directly pertinent to your investigation. Do not use old or secondary sources. Use lots of in-text citations, every fact you state needs to be cited in the text. Do not use long quotations, paraphrase appropriately.
Methods: aka materials and methods. This is really important, take your time and do a good job. Tell in detail about the experimental design that will answer your question. Use your textbook for information on design; also use the papers you read as examples. This is to be a proposal to do something that you haven’t done yet. The literature review will be in past tense but most of the rest of the paper will be in future tense. It is something you are going to do.
When you discuss methods of doing the study and analyzing the data you will gather, convince me you know exactly what to do. You have read methods sections in the papers you have analyzed, copy their style and level of detail. [That means yes, you should tell me what pH the experiment runs at or what frequency you will use if they are important. (When I was in graduate school, my professor showed me a paper he was reviewing for publication. The guy did his experiment at the wrong pH and my professor rejected it from publication. Lab folk really do need to be accurate and specific.)] In this section you can refer to one of your reference’s methods, as in “Using the method of Author et. al……” and then describe what the Author’s method involves.
Do not skip over how you will analyze your data. Do not make up a data set but think about what numbers you will get and what statistical tests you will use to see if differences are significant. Convince me you know what to do with the raw data. I think this is really important.
Conclusions: What results might you get and what would that mean? You are expecting to answer your research question. If, say, you are comparing two methods and the results are close to the same what will that mean? What will make one method “better” than the other? What statistical tests do you do to know for sure? Re-iterate (without directly repeating) the importance of answering your research question.
Stop counting pages here. You must have 12 to 15.
References: Use at least 15 sources. They should be review or primary research articles. All should be from peer-reviewed journals. Most should be no more than 5 years old. You might need to cite one older article. Do not count it as one of your 15 references. Make sure you use APA format correctly. Do not include works that you don’t talk about in your paper.
Rubric: The six sections of the research paper will be graded according to these criteria.
Grade Focus
20% Support
20% Use of Language
20% Thoughtfulness
Contents and Relevance
40 %
100%
of possible points All statements are vividly clear and relate to specific topic Perfect use of APA standards. References meet guidelines. Writing is well-organized, unified and error free. Presents more than one well-defined idea about topic. Has developed a hypothesis or identified a problem and outlined an approach to test the hypothesis or resolve the problem.
90 – 99%
of possible points Almost all statements are clear and relevant A few text notes missing but references meet guidelines. Writing is organized, unified with a spelling or grammatical error. Presents one well-defined idea or more than one vaguely defined idea about topic. Has an incomplete hypothesis/problem and only has a vague concept of how to test the hypothesis/solve the problem
80 – 89%
of possible points Some statements are off topic or unclear. Discussion wanders. Lack of text notes or some references do not meet guidelines Writing is lacking in organization or contains a few spelling or grammatical errors. Presents more than one vaguely-defined idea about topic. Has developed an incomplete hypothesis or problem statement but has not outlined an approach to test the hypothesis or resolve the problem.
65 – 79%
of possible points It is difficult to tell what the point of the section is. Incorrect use or significant lack of text notes or most references do not meet guidelines. Writing is disorganized. Spelling or grammatical errors impair communication. Presents one vaguely-defined idea about a potential research topic. Does not present a useful hypothesis/solution to an identified problem.
0%
of possible points Section is missing