Research Proposal

Reasons of Preparing a Research Proposal

There are two fundamental reasons for preparing a research proposal such as
organizing the ideas and persuading the research project authorities, the sponsors.

Organizing Ideas: Written research proposal is crucial for clarifying thoughts on

research. Even the research idea can be considered as a genius idea, unwritten ideas, most
probably, have potential risks like being vanished or lose its value. Research proposal
provides eliminating these risks. Additionally, research proposal improve research
purpose’s consistency and rationality.

Persuading Authorities: With the help of research proposal, research subject’s feasibility
can be discussed by the research authorities. In practice, especially for academy related
researches, research proposal process includes:

 Writing the Research Proposal

 Reviewing and Discussion with Research Advisor
 Revision of the Research Proposal according to Research Advisor’s
Comments

If a chosen topic is impossible to research, it is crucial to identify its impossibility at the

very beginning of the research process; otherwise researcher will most likely find
himself/herself in a dead-end. Additionally, if a financial funding is necessary for the
research, research proposal has vital importance. (Whoever evaluate the research funding,
research proposal have a vital effect.)
 Contents of Research Proposal

1. Topic of the Research (10 points)

Very first step for the research is determining the topic. Even it is possible to
change the topic during the research, chosen topic at the beginning of the research
process should be strongly related to the research context.

2. Background (20 points)

This section of the research proposal should be formed to share the reasons of the
specific research topic. Determining research questions and sharing researcher’s interest
to the topic should be the main focus. Researcher has to prove that he/she is sufficient to
research the topic by combining his/her thoughts and the literature. The literature review
shared in this section of the research proposal should enlighten the arguments on the
specific topic. Literature review shared in the background section of research proposal
should not be considered as same as the research report's background section. In research
proposal’s background, literature review should only focus on enlightening the research
idea, however in research’s background, literature review should focus on enlighten
overall research topic and subjects.

3. Research Questions and Purposes (20 points)

To clarify the target of the research, research questions and purposes should be
shared clearly. What is your aim for doing your research? What are you trying to find?
For example, the following are some research questions. What is the current image of
media companies? What are the reasons for high prices for internet connection? How
advertisements affect teenagers?

4. Methodology (20 points)

This part of the research proposal should give a clear explanation for:
a. How to actualize the research purpose
b. Sharing reasons of adopting the methodology
c. Itineraries of the methodology.
 For adopting a research methodology, a researcher should ask:
a. Why do you choose the specific research universe?
b. What is the population of the research universe and what is the sample size,
why?
c. How are you going to collect data (survey, interview, etc.), why?
d. Which data analysis techniques will you use, why?

5. Time Schedule (10 points)

Time Plan helps researchers to check if their desired research can be actualized in
projected time span or not. To create a time plan, each research phase’s time duration
should be determined so the overall time schedule for the research process can be
obtained. Actual time duration of the research generally surpasses the planned time
duration of the research; however planning the research phases and time duration helps
researchers to work efficiently.

6. Resource Planning (10 points)

Comparing the existing resources and desired resources is vital to actualize the
research. Traveling, communicating, using stationery equipment and research tools, etc.
can be all classified as a research expense. For instance, if a researcher needs to conduct a
survey, there are several potential research expenses: expenses for communication to find
participants, expenses for conducting the survey, expenses to analyze the data from
survey responses, computer and software to analyze them etc. Researcher should have
feasible funds to actualize the research; and likewise, researcher should have access to the
feasible data. In practice, many researches couldn’t have been concluded because of
failure to access feasible data.

7. References (10 points)

Researcher does not have to share a long list of references at the research proposal
process. Several important references related to background study will be sufficient. Use
APA style. You can prepare References section of your proposal by using Referencing
menu function in MS Word.