How to write a research proposal

What is a research proposal?

If you’re in higher education, the term “research proposal” is something you’re likely to be familiar with. But what is it, exactly? You’ll normally come across the need to prepare a research proposal when you’re looking to secure Ph.D. funding.

When you’re trying to find someone to fund your Ph.D. research, a research proposal is essentially your “pitch”.

In short, it should be a concise and coherent summary of your proposed research.

You’ll need to set out the issues that are central to the topic area and how you intend to address them with your research. To do this, you’ll need to give the following:

• an outline of the general area of study within which your research falls
• refer to how much is currently known about the topic
• highlight any recent debate or conversation around the topic by other academics

What is the purpose of a research proposal? 

Essentially, you are trying to persuade your institution that you and your project are worth investing their time and money into.

It is the opportunity for you to demonstrate that you have the aptitude for this level of research by showing that you can articulate complex ideas clearly, concisely, and critically.

It also helps you to find the right supervisor to oversee your research. When you’re writing your research proposal, you should always have this in the back of your mind.

This is the document that potential supervisors will use in determining the legitimacy of your research and, consequently, whether they will invest in you or not. It is therefore incredibly important that you spend some time on getting it right.

How long should a research proposal be?

The answer to that question is: as long as it needs to be to cover everything you need to.

If this is for a bachelor’s or master’s degree, your research proposal may only be a few pages long. More commonly for a Ph.D., there’s a good chance it could be a pretty long document that spans a few dozen pages.

What should be included in a research proposal?

When you’re writing your proposal, keep in mind its purpose and why you’re writing it. It, therefore, needs to clearly explain the relevance of your research and its context with other discussions on the topic. You need to then explain what approach you will take and why it is feasible.

Generally, your structure should look something like this:

1. Title Page
2. Introduction
3. Literature Review
4. Research Design
5. Implications
6. References

Following this structure helps you to make sure you have a comprehensive and coherent piece that looks and feels professional, without missing out on anything important.

We’ll take a deep dive into each of these areas one by one next.

1. The Title page

If you already have a supervisor, they may ask you for other specific things to go on the title page so you should bear this in mind.

The title page might vary slightly per your area of study but, as a general point, your title page should contain the following:

• The proposed title of your project
• Your name
• Your supervisor’s name
• The name of your institution and your particular department

2. Introduction

The introduction is crucial to your research proposal as it is your first opportunity to hook the reader in. A good introduction section will introduce your project and its relevance to the field of study.

You’ll want to use this space to demonstrate that you have carefully thought about how to present your project as interesting, original, and important research. A good place to start is by introducing the context of your research problem.

Think about answering these questions:

• What is it you want to research and why?
• How does this research relate to the respective field?
• How much is already known about this area?
• Who might find this research interesting?
• What are the key questions you aim to answer with your research?
• What will the findings of this project add to the topic area?

Your introduction aims to set yourself off on a great footing and illustrate to the reader that you are an expert in your field and that your project has a solid foundation in existing knowledge and theory..

3. Literature Review

The literature review section answers the question who else is talking about your proposed research topic.

You want to demonstrate that your research will contribute to conversations around the topic and that it will sit happily amongst experts in the field. You can learn all about literature reviews and how to write them in our Research and Writing Guides.

There are lots of ways you can find relevant information for your literature review, including:

• Researching relevant academic sources such as books and journals to find similar conversations around the topic.
• Read through abstracts and bibliographies of your academic sources to look for relevance and further additional resources without delving too deep into articles that are possibly not relevant to you.
• Look for anything that has been cited lots of times in the discussion. This should help you to identify authoritative work that you need to read and document.
• Look for any research gaps, trends and patterns, common themes, debates, and contradictions.
• Make sure to consider any influential studies on the topic area as it is likely anticipated that you will address these in your research proposal.

4. Research Design

This is where you get down to the real meat of your research proposal. It should be a discussion around the overall approach you plan on taking, and the practical steps you’ll follow in answering the research questions you’ve posed.

So what should you discuss here? Some of the key things you will need to discuss at this point are:

• The form of research you’ll be using. I.e. is it qualitative/quantitative/mixed? Will your research be primary or secondary?
• What sources will you use? Who or what will you be studying as part of your research.
• Document your research method. How are you practically going to carry out your research? What tools will you need? What procedures will you use?
• Any practicality issues you foresee. Do you think there will be any obstacles to your anticipated timescale? What resources will you require in carrying out your research?

5. Implications

Your research design should also discuss the potential implications of your research. For example, are you looking to confirm an existing theory or develop a new one?

If you intend to create a basis for further research, you should describe this here.

It is important to explain fully what you want the outcome of your research to look like and what you want to achieve by it. This will help those reading your research proposal to decide if it’s something the field needs and wants, and ultimately whether they will support you with it.

6. Reference List

When you reach the end of your research proposal, you’ll then have to compile a list of references for everything you’ve cited above. Ideally, you should keep track of everything from the beginning. Otherwise, this could be a mammoth and pretty laborious task to do.

Your project may also require you to have a timeline, depending on the budget you are requesting. If you need one, you should include it here and explain both the timeline and the budget you need, documenting what should be done at each stage of the research and how much of the budget this will use.

Revision

This is the final step, but not one to be missed. You should make sure that you edit and proofread your document so that you can be sure there are no mistakes.

A good idea is to have another person proofread the document for you so that you get a fresh pair of eyes on it. You can even have a professional proof-reader do this for you.

This is an important document and you don’t need spelling or grammatical mistakes to get in the way of you and your reader.

Frequently Asked Questions about writing a research proposal

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