The purpose of this task is to assist students to plan, prepare and write a scholarly paper at an appropriate standard for this level of study. It should demonstrate an ability to communicate ideas and information at a professional level, and be written it in a form that can be used to build on for the final research report.
You have worked with your research question(s) for several weeks by now, you mayhave an idea of how you want to study that question(s). If so, start drawing up a brief plan. Use the following heuristics to generate information to design your study to guide you to do so.
Study your question-
- What object (people, places or things) does it suggest you need to study?
- What kind of study does the question suggest (empirical--e.g., ethnography, case study, descriptive study, experimental; historical--oral or archival or both; theoretical; discourse or textual analysis, etc.)?
- What data do you need to collect? (artifacts, texts, people doing something, interviews, etc.)
- How will you analyse the data? (qualitative? quantitative? hermeneutics? discourse analysis? historical? etc.)
- Be very specific in both the data you will examine and the ways in which you will analyse it.
- Look for scholarship that is similar to the kind you wish to design to see what other researchers have identified as data and how they studied these.
The research proposal should typically include (but not limited to): a cover page; a TOC (Table of Contents); an introduction to the proposal, in your own words, that introduces whatyourproposal is all about; Research Question and Purpose; Methodology; Planning and organisation; Conclusion that summarises key aspects including why this research matters; Referencing using APA style. [For more details see the Marking Guide at the end of this document