Research Proposal

Length: 1-2 pages. (100-300 words)

Genre: Academic essay (use paragraphs for organization, but extensive proofreading is not expected)

Prompts

• What topic(s) are you researching further writing about and how does the topic relate to your community? 

  • Ideally, this will be an issue that impacts your community or a topic that impacts your community members. The topic will need to be complex enough for scholarly research. 

By now you have spent three to four weeks observing your community and need to start thinking about what about your community or observations you are interested in researching further. Consider some of the observations you have made and possible researchable questions or topics that may come out of that.

A good research question should do the following:

Be answerable. By examining multiple sources and interpreting the information, you should be able to get to an approximation of an answer.  In particular, it needs to be answerable through scholarly peer-reviewed research. While I'd love to know if the multiverse theory is true, you won't be able to answer that question with any sort of objective authority at this time.

Be arguable. You will need to take an arguable position for your paper. This doesn't mean "argument" in the sense of trying to convince someone by any means. But your paper will need to make a point even while looking at the complexity of the issue. 

Be complex. If the topic could be answered in a simple online or encyclopedia article like "What is depression?" or "What is homeschooling?" it's not complex enough for this paper. The question should be open and explorable. It shouldn't have a simple answer but, instead, should generate more questions and possibilities.

For example, if you were to ask "What is depression?" there will be an answer—a medically defined definition. Then the question is answered and there's no more to discuss. An open question, however, such as  "What are the impacts of depression on college students?" is explorable. There may be certain conditions in which it's worse; there may be other factors that put a student at higher risk. It's complex enough that you could continue to dig into more issues that might impact how depression is affecting students. It's not quickly or easily answerable, but there are some answers.

Be reasonable in scope. The topic will need to be broad enough that you'll be able to find research on it and narrow enough that you can discuss it with some level of complexity (see above) in a 5-7 page paper. If you find yourself skimming the surface of the issue, you likely need to narrow down your topic. For example, "what are the impacts of global warming?" will be far too broad to cover in a 5-7 page paper. A question like "how is climate change impacting Great Lakes fish species?" will work better.

Tips on developing a good research question

• Brainstorm several ideas before you commit to any.

• Your research question can be tangentially related to your community, as long as you can show how the issue relates.

• Do a preliminary search in Macomb's databases or Google Scholar to ensure that research has been done on this topic. You may need to tweak the keywords several times to find the right combination.

• Pick a topic you are interested in. 

• Pick a topic that you can be objective about. While you want to care about the topic, if it is something that you feel so strongly about that you will not be able to be objective during your research, either commit to working through your biases this semester or choose another topic. You will need to be able to address this topic with complexity, which will require being open to being wrong about your current ideas about this topic. The research may show that the issue is not as simple as you think.

Some examples of research topics from previous semesters and the community they relate to:

Community: Starbucks
Research question: What are the effects of caffeine consumption on study habits/effectiveness?

Community: Death Metal Concerts
Research question: Does frequently going to concerts or working in concert venues affect hearing?

Community: A specific church (that did missionary work)
Research question: What is the impact of missionary work on economically distressed areas in Africa?

Community: Roller Rink
Research question: What is the impact of aerobic exercise on health?

Community: Flower shop
Research question: Does working around flowers all day cause allergy issues for staff?

Community: Planet Fitness
Research question: What are the benefits of high-intensity interval training (HIIT)?