Tutorama: Week Six: Research Proposal - Part 1

Introduction
The proposal is your first step in your research paper writing. Its function is to provide space to begin brainstorming and narrowing down your research topic, generate ideas relating to the research topic and the essays read in class, and formulate questions you may wish to consider when writing your paper. The proposal is also an excellent medium for you to consider what main ideas you are going to have in order for you to begin writing your paper. It is also important for you to start considering what frame you will be placing around your topic. Another way to say it: consider what ideas you will use in to discuss your topic. Instead of an outline, which assumes that you are already have some idea of the structure of your paper, this assignment discusses what your paper might be about. As a result, you should see the proposal as an exploration of your topic, your ideas on the topic, your reasons for choosing the topic, and what you will need to do in order to complete your essay. Students often find that creating a research question is helpful because in-depth questions by definition, demand explorative answers. Within those answers, you may find that your topic narrowing itself, or you may find a new topic that is more interesting to you.

You may approach your proposal any way you feel, but please make sure you address at the very least the following: Indicate your topic, problem, or idea you will be exploring.

• Why does this topic interest you personally? (It is very important that you a topic that interest you because if you aren't interested, you will not do a good job.)
• What questions do you want to address in your paper?
• How do those questions or ideas intersect with what we have been discussing in class?
• How focused is your topic? Have you picked a specific theme, idea, author?
• Do you have any ideas on how you think the paper will be structured?
• If you have a preliminary position in relation to your topic and research question, indicate what that position is.

This week's tutorial will help you develop the research proposal. The proposal often causes anxiety in students because they mistake it for an outline of the research paper and feel they don't have enough information yet. In fact, the proposal is merely that, a "proposal". In it, you "propose" a topic of research, or state your intention to study a certain topic, begin to explore and formulate issues at stake in it in order to explain why it's an important or valid topic for research, show how these issues intersect with some of the issues you've discussed in class in relation to your subject, briefly describe what others say or would say about your topic and begin to lay out your own preliminary or tentative position on your topic.

Instructors find different uses for the proposal. Some ask you to write a 1-2-page proposal during the initial stages of research and use it to give students some direction to their research. Others ask for a more developed 3-4-page proposal, usually submitted just before or after the first rough draft of the research paper, and use it to help students develop more fully what others say about the topic and some of the issues at stake in their topic. Either way, you will probably be required to write at least one rough draft before submitting the final draft of the proposal to your instructor, so think of your proposal and its development in stages. As you conduct more research on your topic, you can give more shape to these stages, stages that will eventually be developed into sections or paragraphs in your proposal.

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