There are several times when your college career when you may have to write a research proposal. Generally, it is associated with research degrees, such as your PhD, although it is not uncommon for students getting their Master’s degrees to have to submit a research proposal, either. Nor is it uncommon to begin wondering and worrying about this prospect when they are still undergraduates because, truly, between its length, its importance, and what it means, and what it leads to, it can be an intimidating feat. However, it does not have to be as long as you understand the key elements involved in writing a proposal.

It is basically self-explanatory: you are proposing a research idea; the key is that it has to show that your research will be making a genuine, worthwhile contribution to your field of study. This may sound like a formidable task but if you commit to writing a structured, clear, and concise proposal, you will not have a problem. It is important to bear in mind however that your proposal will be judged alongside many others, so it will be something of a competition. If you are a competitive student, this has probably piqued your attention already; if not, have no fear: all you have to do to compete with every other candidate’s research proposal is to start out with a bang.

You can do that by writing a structured, interesting introduction. Here, you will not be writing a thesis statement as much as you will be writing a hypothesis for your research – that is your thesis. If you do not formulate a good, solid hypothesis, your research proposal may be doomed by the start.

Otherwise, writing your proposal will be quite a lot like writing a structured essay, something with which all college students are familiar. After the introduction, you set about proving your hypothesis; you should present your arguments and ideas in a clear, concise manner, and make sure that you mention what you believe could be learned from the research you are proposing. It is a good idea to try to prove something that has either not been proven yet, or that has not been proven conclusively. It is vital to keep the subject matter of your proposed research fresh and interesting; you never want to set about proving something that someone else already has.

This flows into your conclusion, where you should make an unbiased, neutral, and completely objective statement about the fact that your research is new and significant. You need to present your proposal thoughtfully and it should be about something that will benefit someone or something.

Next comes the hard part: your methodology chapter. Basically, this is where you will explain how you are going to prove your research proposal hypothesis, what steps you are going to take, et cetera. This is where many students run into trouble, but trust that you will have plenty of proposal help, from professors, to advisors and mentors, to experts in your field.

The sponsor of the post is MasterPapers.com.

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Tags: academia, Master's degree, methodology chapter, PhD, proposal help, Research proposal, thesis, thesis statement, writing