Close Home Forum Sign up / Log in

Writing a short proposal. How to get it all in?

M

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.

H

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.

M

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.

24223