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Research Proposal Guideline

The next step in your research toward a final paper is writing a research proposal. These are the steps you should take. If you have any questions or problems about the assignment, or if you need to turn it in electronically or late, let me know BEFORE the deadline.

1- Check the basics: a. Make sure your citation formatting is correct. Meaning: if you are using MLA, make sure

your name, class, date, title, etc. appears on the first page of your paper in the proper format of the MLA (or whatever style you choose) guidelines.

b. Make sure your pages are numbered. c. Put a title in the middle and center of the page (this is the title of your research).

2- Body: a. Like any other paper, start with introduction and give me a brief background of your

research. b. Write background of your research means: tell me, roughly, why is your research

interesting and why should it be considered? Tell me about the beginning and give me a brief history of your topic. History of your topic does not need to go too far into the history, but far enough to create a clear understanding of the root causes of the problem for the reader.

c. This is a good place to ask questions that will become your thesis. The answer to that question will become your outcome/result/conclusion/solution/whatever.

d. For now, there is no need to stress out about what your thesis should be. Just see if you simply have any questions about a topic that interests you. After you do your reading and conduct your research you will have a much better idea of what your thesis will be.

3- Annotated bibliography: a. Pick three to five scientific, peer-reviewed, journal articles that are related to your topic

and you intend to use them for your final paper. Kind of like what you did for your article analysis for one article, but multiple times.

b. Evaluate the articles: offer opinions on each source as well as describing it. Do both. Describe the article in the shortest way possible and then offer your position of it. Do it for all articles, one by one.

i. Make sure you avoid “I” this or “I” that from this point forward. At this point, it is the author (you), the researcher (you, again), or “one” as a replacement for me, or I.

c. Concise description of work: give accurate and objective information about your article. Do not guess or assume. The article is in front of you and your reader should see the same information in your paper as in the article you cited.

d. Relevant commentary: provide opinion related to your topic and purpose. 4- Make sure it is 600 to 750 words long. 5- If you can remember how, utilize Mozilla FireFox and Zotero for ease and management of

your citations. If you cannot remember, let me know.