Guidelines for Writing Academic Research Projects

Abstract

In an academic field, research project and/or thesis is an integral and mandatory component of the higher degree programmes. The guidelines on how to write research proposals are therefore expected to assist a student to identify and choose a viable research problem. Many research proposals are turned down each year because of content and methodological deficiencies. The research proposal serves to present the research question or problem to be researched on; discuss its importance to society; the research efforts of others who have worked on related research; suggests sources of data pertinent to solving the research question and how the data will be gathered, analysed and interpreted. A good research proposal is concise and focused although its length is dependent on regulations of different universities; it often ranges between ten and forty double-spaced pages inclusive of appendices. A research proposal has three main chapters or sections namely introduction, titerature review and research methodology.