English Research Memo

Value: 10% of your final grade

Format: memo

The Research Proposal Memo

You will submit the research memo and audience profile (see p. 30), requesting approval for your final report topic. Research proposals are very common in professional or corporate environments where supervisors may ask an employee to write up a project proposal before that project is launched.

The purpose of this assignment, like any research proposal, is to ask permission to begin a project. For this assignment, you are asked to write a proposal for your analytical report.

Your research proposal is a formal document with seven major sections:

Introduction

The introduction should provide the background and causes of the problem.

The Statement of Problem

This section should describe the problem.

Possible Solutions

Since our goal is to write an analytical report where we will make recommendations, we will have possible solutions rather than one proposed solution.

Scope

This is your research questions. They should match the solutions proposed in your possible solutions section.

Methods

In this section, describe the primary and secondary research you plan to conduct. You will need 6 secondary sources for your final report. In addition, you may choose to conduct an interview, questionnaire or survey, or some combination of primary research. Your secondary research methods include what types of publications you will be looking for in your library and internet research and what academic fields, news sources and discourse communities write about the questions you are researching.

My Qualifications

Give your qualifications for the project. Since you are students, your qualification may be a strong interest in the topic.

Conclusion

Summarize your problem and encourage reader acceptance.

x An example of this research memo can be found on p. 543-544. Please note: since our goal is to write an analytical report, we will have possible solutions rather than one proposed solution.

Audience Profile

You must include an audience profile with your proposal. The Audience Profile tells me who your primary audience is. See p. 30 for the format for the audience proposal. See p. 28-29 for an example of how to write an audience profile.

Your Research Proposal and Audience Profile should be in the same document. Blackboard may not allow you to upload 2 separate documents so be sure to include both in one document.