Week 4 - Project Proposal

Prev | Fiji Term Abroad | Handouts | Next

WEEK 4 - PROJECT PROPOSAL

Learning how to write a well organized research proposal is an important part of any methods class in anthropology. This skill is of course important for people planning careers in anthropology, but for others as well it is important as a tool for helping you think through the important issues you will likely be dealing with in pursuing a research topic. A proposal can be invaluable in helping you organize senior thesis research as well. Here we want you to write a proposal for your individual projects, following the format we have outlined below.

Assignment: Write a 2-3 page (double spaced) proposal for your final research topic . Give your proposal a TITLE. (It should be succinct, yet descriptive of the project.)
A Research Proposal: Central Ingredients

Statement of Problem: Think carefully about the topic, then try to think of some central questions you would like to pursue. Try to view your questions as part of a research problem–as some issue that is vital to find out more about. In other words, think about why it is important to find out about your topic and then try to describe this. The first paragraph or two of the proposal should describe the research topic. This may be in the form of a central question, or a set of related questions. You may end up with a hypothesis. Then you should also try to convey why these questions/hypotheses are important to study.

Summary of the Literature: You will NOT be doing this here, but in a professional research proposal, you would need to describe the work done previously on topics related to your central question. Usually these summaries are designed to show that a) other people are interested in the issues you plan to study, and b) that there are still some crucial holes in our knowledge of the topic, holes that your study can address.

Description of Methods: The second part of your proposal should describe your proposed methods. Talk about how you plan to gather the data: setting, population (which kinds of people will be involved), the role of observation, interviews, and/or questionnaires. The methods section should also give a sense of the chronology of the project–what you are going to do first, how long that will take, what you will do next, etc. Ideally you should have a week by week schedule for the project, allowing time for writing it up.

NOTE: The committees who evaluate research proposals often focus on one essential issue: IS THIS PROJECT DOABLE AS PROPOSED? There is a tendency for researchers to think they can do much more than is actually possible, and evaluation committees rarely fund proposals like that. By this time you should have some sense of just how much you can do weekly on this project, and your methods section and chronology should reflect that.

Conclusion: Reiterate your main points with an emphasis on why this project is important.

Budget: (not applicable to you)–a research proposal usually ends with an itemized budget showing how much money is needed.

Prev | Top of Page | Fiji Term Abroad | Handouts | Next