Transcript for:
Guide to Writing a Research Proposal

Hi, this is Laura Turner and today we're going to talk about how to write a research paper proposal. This is probably one of the most important parts of writing your research paper. This is the first point in which you are going to show your professor what you want to write about and then your professor will be able to tell you, you know, narrow down your subject or expand or whatever he needs to tell you. So you need to know what to include. So number one include your thesis.

Actually try to develop a thesis sentence for the topic that you're going to write about and include that in this proposal. Number two, get at least three points in this proposal that you want to use for your essay. Three different, specific topics that you want to talk about that relate to your thesis. Number three, I, especially if this is a research proposal, I would include at least three primary or secondary sources. Primary being...

actual books, secondary being journals or articles written about the books, that you're going to include in your research paper so that you'll actually have done some of the research in this initial preparation process. And then number four, draw a tentative conclusion already. Even though you haven't written the paper, know where you want to go with it. So you're going to have your thesis and your conclusion and your body and your research, and you pretty much have... have all of your stuff already written out for you so that you can make the writing process a lot easier.

So really work on your research proposal.