Research Proposal

emember that a research proposal is a document intended to convince someone to fund or support your project. To this end, your proposal should address your research problem with background on the problem (history, solutions tried before, the context of the problem today); possible solutions that use at least two different disciplinary ways of thinking and methodologies; and what resources you would need to solve this problem (this could be research, information, and data, or it could be agencies, funding, grants, etc.). 

Your research proposal should include the following core elements:

1. Clear statement of your topic, including a brief history of the issue;
2. Clear statement of the problem, including its social implications;
3. Clear working thesis statement;
4. Discussion of your planned research approach, including your disciplinary lenses;
5. Working list of sources in APA format (4+).

Your proposal must be interdisciplinary – it must draw on at least two different disciplinary ways of thinking and methodologies. For example, you might examine the issue of police violence through the lenses of social history (how police violence has evolved historically) and social psychology (why police and civilians might psychologically respond to a situation very