Research Proposal Introduction Example

Hi there. I'm Brigitte. In this section one, we'll carry about the introduction to the research proposal. So let's start off by looking at the purpose of the introduction section. So, the purpose is to provide this general context to why you've decided to undertake this specific study. Now we encourage you to use something interesting here. Remember, this is the first thing that any reader will read about your dissertation. So you wanted the introduction section to be appealing. It's going to be less academic, you're not going to use big words and technical words for this. And because the main reason is to provide general context about why you're doing this study. But if you think about it, you really want to convince the reader to continue reading your dissertation.

So let's look at what it entails. I want to encourage you to think very carefully about the first paragraph. Remember, the first paragraph introduction sections actually your first paragraph in your whole dissertation. So you want a something powerful that will grab the attention of the reader. It can be something controversial about your topic, maybe philosophical can be a famous quote or a story. But, think of something that will immediately capture the attention of your reader, because your first paragraph is going to determine, whether it's going to continue reading or not.

Then you have to add some meat, and can briefly refer to the general context of your research study, especially what has led it to be undertaken. So, this will give the reader some insight about your decision to investigate this specific topic. But I want to encourage you, it's only going to be a few paragraphs, maybe a page. So keep it high level and avoid detail of the background of the study, or the details about the problem, because you're going to use this in the next section in your proposal.

While keeping it high level, will also avoid you starting to waffle about something be to the point, tell them why you've done decided to do this study. It is important that you also consider your audience for quantitative studies where you're going to use statistical analysis of data. And so forth, you want to set a formal objective tone. So when the reader starts to read it, they get to see that you mean business.

For a qualitative study, you can to investigate some people phenomenal issue, and therefore you want to set a formal tone. Remember, this is academic writing, but also a personal tone to the human problem. So, this is a good point or a good stage to introduce the human element of your study, if you're going to do a qualitative study. And then, if you have a mixed method study set a formal tone, but also highlight the complexity that you're going to deal with in your dissertation, because a mixed method study will include both quantitative and qualitative analysis. If you're not familiar with these two tones, begin to look into this a little bit later when it comes to your research questions as well.

And then, the length and a couple of notes. so for in BA, it's really only two, maybe three paragraphs. So it's typically half a page to maybe one page, for master's degree - one to two pages, and for PhD - two to three pages. But these are just general indicators. I think it's very important, say what you want, but don't waffle. So, your research proposal introduction should be a shortest necessary, that is really the word to explain to the reader why you've undertaken your study.

Also, just a couple of notes here, no high academic language or theories are introduced in your proposal introduction. Remember, you just want to tell the user why you've done the study, and it's not necessary to use big technical words for that. Also, except, maybe if you have a very specific reason, we're not going to use any references from academic sources, your scientific articles, remember that is your research. For the moment, you only want to tell the the reader why you've decided to do your dissertation. So avoid using references.

We often see students introducing references here to look important, and things like that. Well, this is not the place you going to have ample opportunity to show your research skills. And then, I always encourage students to provide a very brief layout of your study, which is one or two-sentence at the end of your research proposal introduction. Uh, tell the reader that you're going to do a quantitative analysis or qualitative analysis, or whatever the case is going to be that. They have at least some indication of what you're going to do, and what to expect in the rest of your dissertation. So, this is the introduction section plain and simple, straightforward, no high academic technical language. Tell the reader why you've decided to do this study.