Instructions for Paper #3

Research Paper Proposal

Due 3/15/2016 at 6pm on Bb

 

The research paper proposal is where you give your “pitch” to convince your professor or TA that your proposed topic/approach is workable and to persuade them to approve the topic. The purpose of writing it is to give your professor, TA, and/or peers an opportunity to provide feedback on your topic, argument, and research goals. Perhaps most importantly, a paper proposal requires you to narrow your topic and begin formulating the argument you will make. This helps students by possibly directing away from a potentially unworkable topic and toward one that is answerable in a quarter’s worth of research. The point is to avoid the problem of finding out too late that your topic/research question is not going to work. However, to make the exercise meaningful, you need to do at least some real research before you write your proposal.

Format: Standard exposition with MLA or APA citation. You should have a title. You are writing for an academic audience in an academic form. Your essay length is 3-4 pages.

General Guidelines:

  1. Description/Justification for your topic
  • Given the possible universe of things to research, why did you choose this topic?
  • That is, what themes or issues will be central to your research?

 

  1. What is your Research Question? Writing a strong research question that is neither too narrow nor too broad is actually quite challenging.
  • Tell me about the significance of the question — what answering it might help make sense of or illustrate course themes, how your response might gesture toward larger, more generalizable phenomenon, etc.
  • For more empirical investigations, “why” questions are often a good place to start: for example, “Why did the UN support to creation of an Israeli state in 1948?” or “Why were Democrats able to pass healthcare reform in 2010?”
  • For more theoretical investigations, questions might take a different form, such as “Do Socrates and Aristotle agree on the definition and content of virtue? What are the assumptions and implications of their definitions? Whose definition is better, and why?”
  • Make sure that there are enough sources on your topic that you can actually do research: if you are having difficulty locating sources, you may want to consider changing your question.

 

  1. Thesis Statement: Your Answer to the Research Question
  • You will need to do some research before you can even begin to offer an answer here. For your paper proposal, you just have to do enough research to figure out the puzzle that remains unanswered: that will be your research question, and given what you already know, you can formulate possible answers.
  • How do you explain the outcome that you are considering?
  • How did (or does) the event/movement/legislation you’ve chosen affect future events?
  • Make sure your thesis statement addresses your primary research (“why”) question.
  • Explain what you think happened and make sure to point toward causal mechanisms.

 

  1. Preview your argument
  • Clarify what steps you will take to address your topic: identify sub-arguments you need to prove your larger argument true.
  • Connect your theory to your examples – how will you measure things like corporate power or worker cooperation?
  • Make sure that these steps will logically support the claim you make in your thesis statement.
  • This lets the reader in on how you’ve structured your argument.