Due Date: May 23rd at midnight
Research proposals are designed as a place for you to start thinking about the shape of your project. It is on your proposal that you can ask the central questions that will guide your research, develop some initial ideas for answering those questions, and suggest some possible resources (primary and secondary sources) that can help you on your questions.
Remember that it is a PROPOSAL–that means it’s presenting possible ideas but you project could go in different directions once you’ve completed more research.
The proposal is also aimed to get you thinking about the project wholistically early on in the semester.
My role in reading your proposals is to help you find other sources, assist in the reshaping of your research questions/ideas, and give you other potential avenues of research to explore.
The shape of your proposal depends on the format you have chosen for your final project. I’ve provided details below for each option.
All projects, regardless of topic or format, need to be based on:
- 2 shorter primary sources (under 5 pages in length) or one longer primary source (5+ pages in length). You can use more sources if you’d like.
- 4 secondary sources (books or articles). This is the minimum and you’ll likely want to use more.
For help in finding these materials see:
Proposal and Project Formats
Remember that you can choose the format of your final project from one of the below options. Each page contains details about what is needed for your proposal AND your final project.