Primary Research Proposal

Read Major Project One and Two attached to write research proposal
Answer the questions below:
Write a proposal (400-500 words or so is probably plenty here, but it might be shorter or longer depending on the data you plan to collect and analyze. The goal for this kind of writing is to be efficient, so use bulleted lists & short paragraphs to explain how you will conduct primary research in order to answer your research questions. Your audience for this proposal is both yourself and Professor Baker, and your objective is to demonstrate you have a realistic and comprehensive plan for gathering and analyzing the primary research you need during the next few weeks.

Your proposal requires the following elements:

Research Question(s): State your overarching research question and all your sub-questions you plan to answer through primary research (it’s okay if these have evolved/changed since MP1). If you’ve developed new research questions since MP1, remember that “how,” “why,” & “to what extent” questions work the best.
Research Methods: Explain how you’ll conduct primary research. I’m expecting you to answer all of the following where applicable:
What will you actually do?
Interviews, focus groups, and case studies: How many people will you talk to/interview? Who will you talk to/interview and why? What will you ask? Interview questions & the informed consent form (filled out for your specific project, though participant signatures are not yet required) are required to be in an appendix. See this student example and others listed below for some ideas about what this should look like.
Text analysis: What exact genre, text, or multimodal examples will you look at if completing a genre, rhetorical, or multimodal analysis? Be specific here, including links where relevant. How many genre, text, or multimodal examples will you look at and why? What questions will you be systematically asking of each text/document/primary data source you look at? See this student example and others listed below for some ideas about what this should look like.
Observations/Ethnography: Who will you observe and why? How will you observe those persons and why? For how long and how often/many times do you plan to observe? How will you take notes (double-entry notesLinks to an external site. work best)? If you need more resources for this, check out thisLinks to an external site.. The informed consent form is required (filled out for your specific project, though participant signatures are not yet required) to be in an appendix.
Autoenthnography: The collection of new data is required. Reflecting on past experiences is NOT research; it’s reflection. What specific pieces of data, exactly, are you planning to collect and analyze? What questions will you be systematically asking of each thing you look at and analyze and why?
How will you analyze, quantify, and/or otherwise make sense of the data you collect? Be specific here. You should also draw on the ideas you developed in reading secondary sources.

As a reminder, I do not accept surveys as a primary research method in this course. They’re harder than you think, and I’ve seen too many students with inadequate data because of their reliance on poorly designed surveys. If you believe that using surveys will provide crucial, supplemental data to your other method(s), discuss it with me in office hours so that we can together ensure you have a strong plan. Surveys not pre-approved and designed with my help will not be considered in any way part of your Primary Research Proposal or Scholarly Research Contribution.
Ethics: Here I am expecting you to answer all the following questions. You might consider it a contract of sorts:
How do you plan to conduct yourself respectfully and ethically throughout the data collection, analysis, and reporting process?
Do you plan to solicit permission from social media account owners if analyzing social media accounts owned by others?
What happens if your data turns out to be contrary to your own beliefs or expectations, or contrary to what others have said in your secondary research? Will you suppress these findings or share them? How might your contextualize such findings?
Will you disclose your own biases? Consider, too, all that Wayne C. Booth, et al. (The Craft of Research – qtd. above) lists as “Thou shalt nots for ethical researchers”:
How will you ensure that you do not misreport, invent, or fake data results?
How will you ensure you don’t report data whose accuracy you don’t trust?
How will you ensure you don’t caricature or distort opposing views?
How will you ensure you don’t claim credit for the results of others?
Timeline: When will you conduct this research? In a bulleted list:
Set a schedule for yourself that includes specific milestones. When will you complete your interviews with which subjects? Your textual analyses? When will you conduct an observation you need?

Again, be specific. Consider, too, the class timeline and when your assignments are due. See this student example and others listed below for some ideas about what this should look like.

Appendices: Plan to include as appendices (meaning extra attachments to the proposal) any research instruments you’re planning to use (drafts of interview questions or textual analysis questions)

Last Completed Projects