Research Proposal Guidelines (final assignment) Address each of the following points with regards to your chosen research topic. Format: ✓ 12-point font. ✓ Doubled space. ✓ Single space (or 1.5)

spacing only for block quotes. ✓ Uniform margins. Word limit: below I have given a suggested word count for each section, these are suggestions for you to take if helpful (adjust them as needed), the total word count should not exceed 2700 words. 1. Title: do not just put "research proposal" or "final assignment", add an original title. 2. Introduction (~200-400 words) Briefly describe your chosen topic, puzzle, and research question. • Address your research aims and motivation. • After reading this section a reader should clearly understand what your topic is, what is puzzling about it and how you have translated that puzzle into a research question. ● 3. Literature review (~500-1000 words) • This section is your critical engagement with the literature which signals to the overall argument you are attempting to put forward. • It is not a summary of previous research but the foundation upon which you will justify your contribution (aka the "research gap"). • After reading this section a reader should be convinced of two things: (1) you are knowledgeable on your chosen topic, (2) your research is addressing something new, it matters to have your voice added to the mix. 4. Theoretical framework (theory) (~800 words) Resulting from your critical literature review, what is the argument you will attempt to put forward that explains your research question and links it to your hypothesis/es? You must give detail of any causal chains, hypothesis/es, in depth explanations, and relevant examples / illustrations. ● • After reading this section a reader should be clear on the argument you are putting forward, what has been taken from previous research and what is new about it. While you might think that your argument can be stated in a just a few sentences, this is the section where you take time to convince and persuade (through academic evidence) your reader of what you are proposing. 5. Research design (~500 words) • What are your DV and IVs? How are they measured? What are your control variables? Why are they included? • Which data are you planning to use? Why? What is the research method approach you find most suitable for your research (theoretical / qualitative / quantitate / mixed)? Explain and justify your choice. After reading this section a reader should know how the research project is going to unfold, the path from turning it from a proposal into a thesis/paper is clear. Furthermore, the outlining of each of the variables, the data and the methods are consistent with (hence, a consequence of) the previous sections of the proposal. If you are doing exclusively theoretical research, sections 3 and 4 could merge into one, but the information asked for is still to be covered. Refer to the material from week 8. 6. Reference list (not part of the word count) In correct bibliographical Harvard style