WRITING: The “INTRODUCTION” of a Research Proposal:

GOAL: The goal of the introduction is to explain what research you are planning to do, AND why it is important. Generally speaking, this will take from one to two pages at most, and will vary between 3 to 6 paragraphs.

STRUCTURE:

FIRST PARAGRAPH: This should describe the background for the research. This background has two parts. One is the real world problem which motivates the research. The Second is the research which has already been done on the problem.

SECOND PARAGRAPH: This should describe what research you plan to do. This is done as follows:

First you must explain the GAP – what is the area of research which has NOT been covered previously. The simplest type of GAP is when some research question has been explored in India but not in Pakistan, or in rich countries but not in poor ones, or some such. There are more complex GAPs.

Then explain how you propose to fill the GAP. What is the research that you plan to do. How this will improve our understanding of the world, because this research has not been done before.

THIRD PARAGRAPH: Explain why the research you propose to do is important. What do we hope to learn from the research and how it matters. Again there are two fronts for evaluating the potential contribution of the research. How will the research contribute to the existing literature. Also, how finding out the answers to your research question will help us in making policy, or in improving our understanding of how the world works.