Your proposal should consist of the following:
1. Clear statement of research question – Very clearly state what you will be studying. Be
sure that this is understandable to someone who doesn’t know much about your field of
study. If needed, define terms. To test your explanation – give this to a friend not in your
major. If he/she doesn’t understand, try again!
2. Project Goal and Objectives - Goals and Objectives are often confused with each other.
They both describe things that a person may want to achieve or attain but in relative terms
may mean different things. Both are desired outcomes of work done by a person but what
sets them apart is the time frame, attributes they're set for and the effect they inflict. Both
the terms imply the target that one's efforts is desired to accomplish. (See page 4)
Example:
• Goal: Our after-school program will help children read better.
• Objective: Our after-school remedial education program will assist 50 children in
improving their reading scores by one grade level as demonstrated on
standardized reading tests administered after participating in the program for six
months.
NOTE: #1 and 2 are very important, actually the most important part of your proposal. The rest
of your proposal supports these statements. They don’t need to be long – one short paragraph
should be enough – but it is the most critical. The rest of your proposal will explain why you
want to explore this question, how you will do it, and what it means to you.
3. Background/Statement of the Problem/Significance of the Project - Be succinct. Clearly
support your statement with documentation and references, and include a review of the
literature that supports the need for your research or creative endeavor. A discussion of
present understanding and/or state of knowledge concerning the question/problem or a
discussion of the context of the scholarly or creative work. This section presents and
summarizes the problem you intend to solve and your solution to that problem. What is
the question that you want to explore in your research and why is this an interesting and
important question? In thinking about the significance, try to take the position of an
educated newspaper reader. If she or he were to see an article about your research in
the paper, how would you explain the importance of your project? **For most proposals,
this section will have references – please see #8 below.
If your project is a portion of a larger project, the background should describe the research
in general, on a large scale, but the Project Description should be all about what you are
going to do. This section should also include how your project benefits or impacts the
project as a whole and what knowledge is gained from your piece of the project.
4. Experimental/Project Design - Design and describe a work plan consistent with your
academic discipline. This may include scientific research in the physical or biological
sciences, use of population samples, experimental and control groups, or other methods
of data gathering and statistical analysis. The work plan may include archival research,
translating, ethnographic fieldwork, solitary thinking, or other forms of analysis and
synthesis of ideas and concepts in the arts and humanities. This section of the proposal
should explain the details of the proposed plan. How will you go about exploring your
research question? What will be your methods? If you are not the only person working on
the project, who else will be involved?
Be specific on what you will be doing. The reasoning behind the research opportunity is to
make sure that you have a meaningful experience. If the reviewer can’t tell what part of a
project you will be doing, he/she can’t evaluate your experience.
5. Project timeline – Give an overview of when you are going to do specific steps of your
project. This does not need to be a day to day list but depending on the length of your
project it may give an overview biweekly or monthly. Be sure to include time to
review/synthesize your data or to reflect on the experience. You should include time to
write the final report/paper.
6. Anticipated results/Final Products and Dissemination. Describe possible forms