How To Write A Strong Research Proposal | Thesis or Dissertation

hey everyone welcome back to my channel if you are new here my name is amina and today we are talking research proposals probably one of the most asked questions that i get how do you write a strong research proposal now a proposal is probably one of the most important documents that you will write before actually starting your phd or your research program it defines a question and describes the approach that you are going to take to answer that question it also places your work within the realm of the research that's currently out there and show

sort of what your kind of approach is for i know what works and what doesn't work i have edited hundreds of research proposals that have been sent to me via the page doctor.com which is my academic consultancy and i've marked proposals that have passed and gone through to top universities all around the world and those that haven't and i can clearly tell you what needs to be included what should definitely not be included and sort of what the structure of a research proposal should be without a proposal there is no plan and without a plan

there is no project that is the key thing to take away you need a proposal if you're watching this video you're probably stuck you're probably thinking well okay i have to write a proposal i don't know where to begin i don't know how to do this so by the end of today's video you will walk away with a draft outline or a rough outline of a proposal and you'll be able to work on that and then possibly submit that to us at the page doctor to then be able to clean up and to tailor that

proposal to make sure that you get accepted into the program that you desire i post every wednesday and every sunday so don't forget to press the subscribe button right now while you're waiting to see more from me and content just like this the structure of a research proposal includes eight different sections and is approximately 2 000 to about 2 500 words maximum remember that number it should never be too short but also shouldn't be too long so it includes the following sections a title an abstract research background research questions the research methods i guess that's

your approach the significance a timeline of your proposed project and lastly a bibliography or a reference list so i'm going to be showing and breaking down each of those sections for you and telling you what should be included in each of those parts so starting off with your title now when thinking about your title think about what keywords define your project if someone were to search for your work what keywords would they have to look for in order to identify your particular project how would you describe your research what are the terms that you need

to include to be able to say right this is the work that i'm doing remember that this is the one section i would say that will definitely change the title that you propose in the beginning will be revised kind of changed as you go along depending on direction that your project takes in the end so if you know don't feel like it's the title that you're going to graduate with because it definitely isn't don't feel pressurized to develop the best title ever because like i said it's definitely going to change the second section is your

abstract now your abstract i've talked about quite a bit before the abstract is traditionally used to summarize your research talk about the content the research question and the method that you took and then the results and talk about the discussion but obviously in this case you're discussing a proposed research so you haven't actually done it yet so in this case the abstract is very short around 100 words and it's a statement that highlights the issue that you are concerned with and that you are going to be kind of discussing in this proposal so the third

section is your research background now this is a bit like a literature review but a bit more concise than a traditional literature review this sets the context for the research proposal what literature are you basing this research on you should have done a lot of reading to understand where your work is going to fit into the field and that is where you're going to describe what that field is what information does the reader need to know to understand your field what information does the reader need to know to know i guess what gap there is

in the literature the most important consideration here is trying to think about the current debates that are in the literature what is the current state of knowledge what do people say about your topic is there sort of one side that says this is happening and the other side's saying that's happening what is the stance that you are taking concerning the current debates in literature that is essentially what you are trying to summarize within the research background this should be a really concise section where you're highlighting the top papers that are relevant for your topic don't

underestimate the importance of this section you know you're submitting this to another expert in the field so they'll know what papers and what literature is the most important and they'll know whether you've done the most exhaustive reading or not the fourth section is your research questions now this is essentially defining what it is that you are seeking out with this research what are the central aims that run through your study like i said you need to really think about where your research fits into the field whether your questions are feasible have they been answered before

if yes that's not an original study it needs to provide new information to the field a new sort of insight and new direction and new consideration you should really have one or two main questions and then sort of a couple of sub questions that feed into answering that main overarching question the next section and probably the most bulkiest and most important section is the research method or the methodology section and here you're actually defining your approach now you said what the issue is you said with the gap in knowledge you said what you want to

like how you're going to do it now you need to define the methods how exactly are you planning on determining the answer to the question of your research you need to justify everything in this section why have you chosen quantitative over qualitative or why have you chosen a mixed method why have you chosen this cell type why have you chosen any method that you discussed you need to say why you've chosen it and really justify the choices that you made like i said i think this is probably the most weighty section and the section you

should consider the most as it can determine the success of your project it's all well and good to say we don't understand how this thing happens if you don't have a method to back that up or a method that you know would actually work and it's feasible then your projects can't run so it's important to have considered the methods very very well you also want to consider any limitations and i think people tend to miss this bit out they don't say what the issues and challenges are that they could be faced and i think people

miss this out because they think they don't want to say there could be an issue here but actually if you're trying to acquire data from a cell type that's quite rare or quite hard or if you're trying to get some interviews from people who have in a rural area for example you're gonna be faced with challenges and it's naive to assume that you won't so it's important that you say right these are the challenges that i could be faced with and this is how i'm planning to overcome them this shows that you've got the correct

sort of research mindset where you're considering challenges you're considering outcomes you're considering alternative options because let me tell you in research nothing goes to plan nothing so it's important that you know you've got that mindset where you're thinking about the plan b lastly in this part you also want to think about analysis so you know you're doing a questionnaire a qualitative analysis how are you going to be analyzing that are you analyzing that through a thematic topic are you analyzing that through t-test are you analyzing how are you planning to analyze your data this is

important because it means that you've considered the next step it's all well and good to have thousand questionnaires filled out but how are you then planning to collate that data how are you then planning to analyze that data and and have those final results and final comments ultimately remember that the research proposal is purely just a proposal you are not meant to be an expert you are not meant to know all the answers but you are meant to have considered and looked at the research out there and thought about what ways have people done this

before how could i approach this situation you will then have the option you know if you get accepted to discuss this in further detail and you know kind of build on that initial plan but it is important that you brought that independent thought to the table to show that you are a suitable and strong candidate the sixth is significance why is this work significant why is this work a project that this supervisor should take on how is your work original how does your work stand out from all the works out there before what new thing

are you bringing to the table and also how does the work build on what we already know so to be able to say that this work is significant you need to say right we know this thing and i'm going to be building on this thing and then that's going to be able to support future work so why is your work what work that you think people are going to be interested in and is work that is significant in the general field that you're interested in last or almost last penultimate but definitely not least is a

timeline again i find this gets forgotten about quite a bit but you know your project is a phd project in the uk anyway it's three to four years so what is that timeline that you are planning to hopefully uphold the first year could be maybe doing some preliminary studies it could be recruiting the participants it could be writing up a questionnaire doing some reading the second year could be actually you know running those interviews third year could be the analysis or reading interviews or whatever it is that you choose to do so that's what you

want you want to think about what that timeline could be now again this is going to be it's going to change 110 i can guarantee you that right now but again it shows that you've thought about kind of timeline things might not go to plan if they don't i'll do this instead this could happen if not this is going to happen this is going to happen first then that's going to happen you want a timeline it shows you've considered your methods considered your approach and considered how long of time it might actually take you last

but definitely not least is a bibliography here you want to detail the key pieces of work and the key literature that your work is based on so i would probably limit this to five to ten ten maximum what are the literature that you for example read and then based your questions on where was the gap in what you read and then thought ah i need to answer that what was that paper what papers let's say i had to read your review and i knew nothing about your topic what five to ten papers would i have

to read to understand the field then understand how your work is going to add to that field and build on that field and give that substance that is what you need to think again remember that the lecturer or the professor the supervisor that you're applying to will be an expert in that field and so do consider the amount of reading that you've done and make sure that you've done enough to be able to have picked out what those papers are so i really hope that you guys found this useful this is such a frequently asked

question how do you write a proposal but it really is i would say this is not a difficult thing to write at all especially if you know your literature and you know sort of the question that you're thinking about writing it's a very very you know simple structured consistently structured piece of documents so if you do want me to edit it and you do want someone to take a look at it professionally to make sure that you are on track and you've answered all of those questions correctly then do send it forward to the page

doctor.com for an edit and like i said don't forget to subscribe to see more from me i post every wednesday and sunday and i'll see you guys in my next video bye