My next issue.

The university I am applying to requires that the proposal be no more than 1000. I am finding it very difficult to do justice to the research idea and put in enough detail to show I have thought it through with such a limited word count. I have completed a first draft and got it down to 995 words, but I am dissatisfied with certan sections (like methodolgy) as I just don't have room to convince them that I have found a realistic way to do this. It is qualitative research and all I have room to do is drop words like "survey" and "thematic analysis". I have devoted about a third of the thing to the stages of research (methodology), a third to background (which is telling them what they already know, but I felt is was essential to set the scene) and a third to motivation for research (so, the phenomenon that I identified that needs further exploration and links to existing studies and theory). The rest is the research questions (v brief) and existing interests and experience. I am not counting my ref list in the word count.

Does this sound to be the right sorts of proportions, or have I given too much to one section and not enough to others? Have I missed something essential (the guidelines are very vague "Research proposal: please state what you can bring to the project; research methodology/critical approaches, experience, original contribution to knowledge, key themes/concepts/ideas, bibliography etc.").

Any thoughts on this would be most welcome.

I'd cut back the background (200-250 words max) and beef up the research questions/aims and objectives.

Out of interest, what is your general field? That might affect the advice.

Psychology, if that helps.

Luckily my research questions can be stated in two, relatively brief sentences. I am not sure I could add to that even if I tried. Some of the background provides the rationale for the research and I think I might be confounding my background with my motivation for research. I have cited relevant studies and theories in both. I wonder if that matters.

Oh, and I have stated the broad aims of the study as the end of the background. I am not sure that I have a good reason for doing that. I think I might have been in essay-writing mode and thought that would be a good introduction to all the gumpf I then went on to talk about.