Format and Length Requirements: Use standard memo format (single-space) (Google

Format and Length Requirements: Use standard memo format (single-space) (Google “memo format” and see student example). Place each heading flush with the left margin and bold it.
3 (full pages)-4 pages in length
Research projects, reports, and papers generally begin with a proposal to do research. The proposal serves several purposes:
as a planning document for the writer
as a decision-making tool for the audience (instructor, employer, thesis committee, book publisher, etc.) who decides if the project and its plan are feasible. The resulting document (s) will significantly contribute to the company or field of study.
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The audience of the proposal approves with qualification or rejects the proposal.
In the Proposal Assignment for ENG 3430, you will present what you plan to write for your research paper. You may choose the topic for your research paper, but you must select a topic of current interest within your field. Additionally, students earning a degree within the College of Business must incorporate some aspect of diversity into their paper topic. I must first offer preliminary approval of your topic through the discussion board.
The primary purpose of the proposal is to encourage you to begin your research early and to analyze your purpose and audience. It also will let me know that you have been working to narrow your topic to one that can be discussed in an eight to ten-page paper. You will need to have completed some initial research on your topic to confirm that you can find appropriate scholarly sources.
Although you will choose an appropriate audience for your unit 4 research paper, I will be the audience for the Unit 3 proposal. Once your proposal has been submitted and approved, you may not change your paper topic.
Use the headings below for your proposal. Follow the guidelines beneath each section to help you decide what information to include under each section.
Begin the memo with a brief paragraph that explains the subject and purpose of your research paper. Be concise but clear. Be sure that you have narrowed your topic to one manageable in eight to ten pages (double-spaced). Your Unit 4 research paper will be written for readers who want a well-documented, thorough discussion of a subject.
Background
This section sets up the background of the problem, situation, or topic you chose to research. This section is important because here you give me any background information on the subject I might need to understand your reason for researching this topic. Here you explain why the topic is essential in general and within your field of study. You tell what the current thinking is, why it is a current topic of discussion within your field, why your audience should be interested in your research, and how they will use the information. You will probably come up with other information that I might need to know. Also, in this section, you begin proving your credibility as a researcher to me, so you must provide researched and documented material.
Consider answering some of the following questions as you prepare this section:
Why is the topic important to your field of study?
How long has it been a problem?
What will happen if the problem/situation is not solved/dealt with?
What do you expect the audience to do after reading your paper?
What background information does the research paper audience need to understand the information in your paper?
Ultimately, this section should give me the background needed for me to see that the paper has value or relevance to your discipline or profession.
Note: This section should consist of at least three well-developed paragraphs.
Audience
Identify the primary audience for your paper. Your audience should be professional and will most likely be within your field. It cannot be a general audience. (For example, “teachers” is too broad and would not be approved. A more specific audience might be UHV students working toward elementary school certification or elementary school teachers within Victoria Independent School District who received accreditation within the last three years.)
Describe how much your audience already knows about your topic. Explain the major priorities and concerns of this audience. Analyze their attitudes toward you and your topic and explain how you will overcome any negative attitudes they may have. Describe their reason(s) for reading your paper and explain how you plan for them to use the information in the paper.
I’d like you to focus on the primary audience in your discussion.
Topics to Investigate
Identify the central ideas or significant topic areas of your paper. Then list the major questions you want your research paper to answer for your readers. You are providing a rough outline for the body of your research paper.
Indicate how deeply you will discuss each topic. Explain the scope of your study: what areas of the subject will you cover, what areas will you not cover, and why you have made those choices. Think of your audience’s needs as you work through this section.
Methods
In this section tell me how you plan to do the research in this section. Include specific information about where you will research and what sources you will use (journals, databases, internet sources, etc.). You may use various sources, but they must all be scholarly. You must include a working bibliography listed in alphabetical order of at least FIVE sources you have already read and plan to use in your research paper. At least THREE of these sources must be scholarly journal articles. You also need to include any sources you have cited in the background section of the proposal in this bibliography. You must include a short (one to two sentences) ANNOTATION of each source that describes its usefulness to your paper.
You may include one interview as a source, but you will need to include the interview questions as an appendix to your proposal and to your research paper. The questions should indicate the kind of information you expect to learn from the interview. Also, you should also include a discussion of the authority of the interview source. You may include one internet source but you’ll need to show its reliability and authority.
I will be checking the proposal to make sure that your sources are varied, scholarly, and current. You must NOT use sources older than five years. Use only sources that have been published within the past five years.
Finally, you can use APA (all majors but history and English) or MLA (history and English majors) format for your reference entries. Please review the following pages:
APA: https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_style_introduction.html Links to an external site.
MLA: https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_style_introduction.html Links to an external site.
Qualifications
Provide any background knowledge in this area, including personal reading you’ve done, classroom work/study, work, jobs, or other activities that demonstrate your interest and ability level. Also, mention any previous research you’ve done on this or a related topic and how you are personally affected by this topic.
Write a paragraph about your qualifications.
Work Schedule
This section should begin with a short discussion of the work schedule you will use to complete your research paper, highlighting any points of interest in the work schedule. Next, list the major tasks and the dates for completing this project. You don’t need to estimate hours. Don’t underestimate the importance of this section. This section shows me your plan for completing the project on time.
Request for Approval
Here you ask for my permission and for suggestions. The request for approval is usually formulaic. Use or adapt the following sentence:
“I ask that you approve my topic and my approach to it. I would appreciate suggestions on how you think I might best proceed.”
PAY ATTENTION: Units 3 and 4 go together. In Unit 3, you will propose, in memo format, the research paper that you will write in Unit 4. The proposal for Unit 3 will be three to four pages, and your research paper in Unit 4 will be eight or more pages (no less than eight full pages, not including the cover page, abstract, and references if writing in APA format).
Again! The Unit 3 assignment is to write a three to four-page proposal proposing the topic for your upcoming Unit 4 eight-page research PAPER. The proposal seeks to ask my permission for you to move forward with your Unit 4 research. And again, Unit 3 is the proposal for the research paper you will compose in Unit 4.
Any research aims to contribute something new to your field, not to rehash the same informational rhetoric that is either common sense or widely known. Pick something you are interested in, and narrow it down so that, in your research paper, you can fully exhaust your topic in eight or more pages. In the Unit 4 research paper, you only have eight pages to fully exhaust your subject. Your research must be very specific, narrow, and focused. Your research question will help you narrow your topic considerably.
In the research paper, we only have eight pages, not five hundred, so your topic must be as narrow and specific as possible. Use your classmates for help in narrowing down your topics. Offer suggestions and advice; help one another narrow and improve these research topics. Even after I approve your topic, there is always room for improvement and recommendations.
Research always begins with a question and perhaps even a hypothesis. You have a question about a topic/subject and a possible conclusion about this topic/subject that you would like to prove or disprove. This query is what I call the research question.
When you’re thinking about a topic, stop thinking about something you can easily Google and find out through a quick Wikipedia read. Think about a topic/subject that interests you. Then think about something within that topic/subject you want to uncover—a question you’d like answered, a conclusion you want to prove or disprove.
After you finish writing your composition, read it aloud and self-review your document. Then use the free online grammar checkers to spot other possible issues. Remember, these checkers are helpful but are not always accurate or correct. Use them cautiously and scrutinize their findings. Next, polish your work and submit it to the discussion board as a PDF for peer review.