KOFORIDUA POLYTECHNIC

DEPARTMENT OF APPLIED MATHEMATICS

FINAL YEAR PROJECT WORK GUIDE

HOW TO WRITE RESEARCH PROPOSAL

INTRODUCTION

The purpose of a proposal is to ensure that the candidates have done sufficient preliminary
reading /research in the area of their interest, which they have thought about the issues involved
and are able to provide more than a broad description of the topic which they are planning to
research.

The proposal is of course not a fixed blueprint. One cannot predict one’s findings beforehand or
mechanically stick to an argument since there will inevitable alter or even unseat one’s initial
expectations. There is no fixed formula for writing a proposal. Furthermore, academic traditions
in Ghana may differ slightly from other parts of the world.

THE OVERALL CRITERIONS IS;

You have to convince members of the scientific community that you have identified a scientific
problem as well as that you have a theory background and a methodical approach to solve the
problem within a realistic time frame and at reasonable expenses. With your research, you will
add a new aspect to the scientific discourse. Your research proposal should have at least 10, but
not more than about 30 pages. It should have proper layout (typeface and line spacing) as well as
a table of contents and page numbers. Remember that the members of the selection committee
may usually have to read a large number of research proposals. Therefore good legibility of your
proposal will be an advantage.

TITLE PAGE

On the title page, state your personal data like: name, academic title (if applicable), your position
at your institution, e.g. Junior lecturer (if applicable), your work and private address including
telephone and e-mail address.

Then the title of your planned research report should follow. Remember that at this stage, the
title can only be a working title. Nevertheless, all words in the title should be chosen with great
care, and their association with one another must be carefully considered. While the title should

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be brief, it should be accurate, descriptive and comprehensive, clearly indicating the subject
of the investigation. Note that you will only be ready to devise a title when you are clear about
the focus of your research.

You should also state the area of your research, eg. Political Science-Theory of international
Relations or Empirical Social Science etc.

You should give a realistic time frame in which you plan to complete your project, followed by
the name(s) of your supervisors, the institution department where you hope to do your research
and, if applicable, information about other academics with whom you plan to collaborate.

SHORT STATEMENT ON THE RESEARCH TOPIC

Give a short summary on the research topic that you have identified- not more than one page.
Focus on the new, current and relevant aspects of your topic. Remember, the most important
aspect of a research proposal is clarity on the research topic.

You should choose a topic which can be investigated through appropriate and valid methods
and for which research material is available. Your greatest challenge might be narrowing the
topic down. This challenge often occurs with topics that are still relatively unfamiliar. Do a lot of
general reading, and if possible, discuss your topic with your supervisor.

REVIEW OF RESEARCH LITERATURE

Give a short and precise overview about the current state of research project that is immediately
connected with your own. Name the most important contributions of other scientists.

The proposal should contain a clear and logical discussion of the theoretical scope or of the
framework of ideas that will be used to back the research. The proposal needs to show that you
are fully conversant with the ideas you are dealing with and that you grasp their methodological
implications. Your research review should indicate an open problem which then will be the
motive for your project. State clearly how your own research will contribute to the existing
research.

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YOUR OWN PREPARATION

Summarize the most important impact of your own work on the topic (if applicable). Attach
copies of your own publications that might be seen in relation to your research project.

OBJECTIVE OF THE RESEARCH PROJECT

Give a concise and clear outline of the academic (possibly also non-academic. Eg. Social and
political) objectives that you want to achieve through your project. Your proposal needs to show
why the intended research is important and to justify the effort of doing the research. Here you
outline the significance (theoretical or practical) or relevance of the topic.

Such justification may either be of an empirical nature (you hope to add to or extend an existing
body of knowledge) or of a theoretical nature (you hope to elucidate contentious areas in a body
of knowledge or to provide new conceptual insights into such knowledge). All research is part of
a larger scholarly enterprise and candidates should be able to argue for the value and positioning
of their work.

OUTLINE OF YOUR PROJECT

This is the central part of your research outline. It may well fill half of the space of your
proposal. You should give detailed information about your intended research procedure during
the given time.

Anyone who reads your proposal will want to know the sources and quality of evidence you will
consult, the analytical technique you will employ, and the timetable you will follow.
Depending on the topic, suitable research strategies should be defined to ensure that enough and
adequate empirical data will be gathered for a successful research project. You will describe the
intended methods of data gathering, the controls you will introduce, the statistical methods to be
used, the type of literature or documentary analysis to be followed and so on.

Consider your work to be a work-in progress and allow yourself a flexible planning: Stay ready
to revise the proposal according to new insights and newly aroused questions and keep on
modifying the working hypothesis according to new insights while formulating the proposal and
the working hypothesis but: once you have a useful working hypothesis, concentrate on pursuing
the project within the limits of the topic.

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TENTATIVE TIME TABLE

Give information about your estimated time table (if possible in table form) indicating the
sequence of research phases and the time that you will probably need for each phase. Take into
account that at this stage, it can only be estimated, but make clear that you have an idea about the
time span that will be needed for each step.

SELECTIVE RESEARCH BIBLIOGRAPHY

Here you list those academic works which you have mentioned in your research outline as well
as a number of other important works to which you will refer during your research.

ATTACHMENTS

Give a list of other documents attached to your proposal.

EDITING

Once you have finished the conceptual work on your proposal, go through a careful editing
stage, in which you make sure your proposal does not contain any grammatical/orthographical
mistakes or typos.

Check whether the title, the abstract and the content of your proposal correspond with each other.

If possible, ask someone within the academic community to proofread your proposal in order to
make sure the proposal conforms to international academic standards.

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CHECKLIST FOR A RESEARCH PROPOSAL

With your proposal application you will have to cover the following issues respectively to hand
in the following documents:

 Table of contents(Decimal System)

 Abstract
 Introduction into the General Topic
 Problem Statement and justification of the Research Project
 Hypothesis and objective of the study
 Literature and research review
 Research methodology
 Data collection, analysis and Evaluation of Data
 Expected results and output of the study
 Bibliography
 Appendix, eg. Tables, Graphs, Questionnaires etc.
 Timetable

PLEASE NOTE:

If proposals fail, it is often not a problem of writing the proposal according to formal standards,
but of explaining the intended project itself, ie. of the delimitation of topic, of the given research
questions, of the data collection etc. according to current academic standards, and of embedding
the own project into a broader academic view.

CRITICAL REMARKS OF THE SELECTION COMMITTEE

The following list of critical remarks of a selection committee on project proposals might help
you writing your project proposal in a better way:

 The proposal is not focused; the approach is too broad

 The proposal is predominantly declarative, but it cannot be operated practically as a basis
for research.
 The abstract is clearer and more interesting than the title allows expecting.
 There are some aspects in the title that are not dealt with in the abstract and in the
proposal
 It remains unclear why a research stay abroad is necessary for this project
 The subject related terminology is not precise.

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 LETERATURE ON SCIENTIFIC WRITING
Clyne, Michael G (1987a): Cultural Differences in the Organization of Academic Texts
English and Gernab. Journal if Pragmatics, 11.211-247
Clyne, Mucgaek G. (1987b): Discourse Structures and Discourse Expectations. Implications for
Anglo-German cademic Communication in English. In: Smith, Larry E.(Ed): Discourse across
Cultures. Strategies in World Wnglishes. New York: Prentice Hall, 73-83
Duszak, Anna (Ed): (1997): Culture and Stles of Academic Discourse. Berlin:de Gruyter.
Halliday, M. A. K. Martin, J.R. (`993): Writing Science. Literacy and Dicoursive Power.
Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Swales, John M. (1990): Genre Ananlysis. English in Academic and Resarch Settings.
Cambridge u.a.:CUP (Cambridge Applied Lingusitics Series).
Ventola, E. / Mauranen, A. (Ed) – (1997) Academic Writing. Intercultural and Textual Issues.
Amsterdam: Benjamins.

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