In this video I will show you how to write
a research proposal what is the structure
of a research proposal what are the elements
and how to put these elements in a document
which you can submit somewhere so let's get
started hello my name is Tahir and welcome
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and Friday.This video was demanded by three
of my viewers junaid, Zia and Joe, hello guys
and I listen to my viewers and i reply to
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questions you can write in the comments below
so lets talk about research proposal a research
proposal is a document which outlines your
intended research so this is the simplest
definition of a research proposal why would
you need a research proposal so there are
two main reasons one is that this is part
of your phD admission application and the
second is that you have PhD you are working
as a lecturer or as a professor somewhere
and you want to apply for funding so in both
these situations the structure of the research
proposal will stay roughly the same however
the strategy will be different and this I
will discuss in another video, because in
this video we are only going to discuss the
structure of a research proposal although
some universities try to assist students by
giving them a template or a set of questions
so that they can answer those questions and
in this way they make their research proposal
but these are some of the elements which are
globally accepted as part of a research proposal
so the title of course a research proposal
has a title then there is a problem statement
then you have to prove that the research you
are intending to do is significant and I will
explain how you can do that then you also
need to prove that this research or this project
is achievable then the committee, the review
committee or the admission committee wants
to see that you have the passion and the motivation
you are self-motivated for a project, for
a research project which is PhD then on your
research proposal you have to describe the
methodology you are going to use for your
research also because it is not an indefinite
project so you have to describe your work
plan and your timeline and you also have to
prove that you know what you are talking about
so let's say assume a situation in which you
don't know anything about a specific research
area and you go somewhere and you say OK I
am going to do this and may be hindered people
have already done that then the only thing
you can get out of it is embarrassment so
how to avoid that now I will discuss first
all these elements what does it mean how you
can do that and then at the end I will show
you two more things first is how to put these
elements in a section of a document which
is your research proposal and the second thing
is a slide which will show you some general
tips about writing a research proposal so
lets talk about title title is mentioned at
the top of this list but you will reach the
title at the end of your proposal and by the
end of this video you will understand why
so the first and most important thing about
your title is that your title must be accurate
at this stage because at the later stages
of your PhD the title of your research will
change in most cases it will definitely change
but at this stage, you must be able to describe
this accurately the second thing is that you
should give your title a very interesting
angle you should present your title in a very
interesting way giving it an interesting angle
interesting point of view the third thing
is that your title should be a little bit
catchier not too catchy like YouTube videos
but a little bit catchier so that it gets
the attention of the committee now the next
important thing is that if possible your title
should contain some benefit some benefit to
humanity, some benefit to your organization
some benefit to general industry and the next
point is your title should be novel or modern
it should contain something novel your methodology
part of your solution and your title should
be easy to understand if you cannot describe
your research work in one or maximum two sentences
to someone then you don't understand it well
you should be able to present the title in
an easy to understand manner and this is also
important because some of your committee members
may not be from your field so they should
understand what are you talking about what
is your intending to do and the last point
is that you should not use any acronyms in
your title so these were some of the points
about title now the next element of a research
proposal is the problem statement this is
very important because you are trying to solve
a problem and in this regards what you need
to do is whatever you present in this problem
statement should base upon some data you can
get this data from department of statistics
like bureau of statistics or some other department
whatever is the relevant department but you
should make this foundation that there is
data available that there is a problem so
you should consider 4 important things about
problem statement number 1 your problem statement
must have a question a problem what is the
problem you are addressing in your research
and the second important thing is all the
negative points of the current situation what
are the negative points why there is a gap
in the research what are the problems due
to this gap so these are all negative points
so these you will mention in your problem
statement and the third very important thing
which you must mention in your problem statement
is that why does it matter why it is important
to solve this problem what are the benefits
and what is the size of the benefit again
some data if possible so this is the third
very important element and the last very important
element is that your problem statement must
not contain any solution this is problem statement
after all ! now the third element is significant
how you will prove that the research you are
intending to do is significant so the most
important thing you should note here is that
this you can only evaluate if you have done
the literature review now here is a point
if you are applying for a PhD position a comprehensive
literature review is not required but if you
applying for a funding, a comprehensive literature
review is required so I would recommend that
you at least do literature review using google
Scholar because you may not have access to
other databases so with this literature review
you should be able to realize that there is
a gap in research and this gap if filled because
not all gaps need to be filled some gaps are
useless there is no point of doing research
in some bizarre area which nobody has done
so you have to prove that this gap is important
and it has some benefits for the community
or for the industry which is the target industry
for your research so literature review will
give you an information about a research gap
and then you have to prove that this gap is
important to be filled the third thing you
can do here to prove that your research will
be significant is by showing that your method
or your approach is a novel approach and this
novel approach has certain advantages may
be for environment or for anything it depends
on your field so I am not going into specifics
I am trying to keep this video very general
so that students from any discipline can get
some idea so these are three important points
about significance and how you can demonstrate
that now the fourth element which you need
to address is that this is achievable your
intended research is achievable so the first
thing is that there must be some literature
some published peer-reviewed literature should
be available in that field of research and
sometimes people get it wrong they think that
if there is no literature, it is easy for
us to do the research but actually it is wrong
not everyone is Einstein and if there is no
literature available it would be difficult
for you to do research in that field so make
sure that there is some public literature
available but that literature must be peer
reviewed authentic literature a Journal article
for example so this is one thing the second
thing you should keep in mind that you must
keep the scope very limited if you say that
I am going to remove the hunger from this
world that is not achievable so therefore
if you keep the scope limited if you narrow
down your research topic that basically you
trying to achieve is that this goal is achievable
at least this part this narrowed down part
is achievable so don't keep your scope very
big because the committee will think that
is not achievable now the third component
of this is that you can do this OK this is
achievable a scientist has recommended this
method and he proved that this is achievable
then the scope is also limited but how will
you prove that you can do this you also have
to discuss this thing that you can do this
there are few things you can demonstrate here
the first is that if you have some published
work in that area some students are smart
they have publications while they are doing
masters so if you have these you can straight
away put your publications on the table and
that it the second thing you can do is that
if you have done some case study then you
can prove this that i have done this case
study so and so because some disciplines they
do research by using case studies and the
third thing which is most common you can do
this that you have done a very relevant coursework
so you can say that I have done a very good
course work in this particular field and i
am able to do this so this is these are some
of the ways you can show that this is achievable
and you can also do that now the next point
is that the people looking at your proposal
want to know that you are self-motivated and
you have passion for this passion for this
field of research you can simply state this
statement but that means nothing if you say
I am self-motivated, I have passion for this
it means nothing at all so you have to somehow
show that you are passionate about this field
so how you can do that you can prove this
by showing two things for example if you have
done some volunteer work in that particular
field you can say that i was volunteer for
this field so I am passionate about this then
if you have made some survey related to that
particular field for example using a survey
monkey website you can make a survey in 10
minutes so if you have made a survey and you
have conducted a survey in some disciplines
surveys are an important part of research
you can say that I have conducted these surveys
i have some results some data so i am passionate
about this field then it will be ok then another
thing which you can do is that if in the past
you have done some unsupervised work where
there was little or no supervision then you
can prove that you have done this project
unsupervised so you are self-motivated and
there are couple of ways lets say you are
writing blog posts about that particular topic
on various blogs online on internet or websites
you can say I have been writing on this topic
for lets say two years so this will prove
that you are passionate about this topic now
the element number six is that you have to
show the methodology what theory or paradigm
you are going to use for this research whether
you will be suing quantitative methods, or
qualitative methods if you are an engineering
student you will be doing some experiments
if you are a medical student you will be doing
some case studies If you are from a marketing
department you might be doing some surveys
so these are the things you should be mentioning
in this portion so the next point is about
timeline and work plan so its obvious you
have to give a timeline and i would recommend
that you make this proposal in Latex and you
can also make a timeline a beautiful timeline
in latex as well and i have made a video about
timeline I will put a link here you can watch
that video how to make a timeline and the
last point is that how would you demonstrate
that you know what you are talking about again
the very important thing all this proposal
is based upon some sort of literature review
and this literature review will give you the
ability to demonstrate that you know what
you are talking about and when you will put
your references into the bibliography and
if those references are of top researchers
or good Journal articles so it will demonstrate
that actually you have done a proper research
about this and you know what you are talking
about so this slid shows you some of the general
tips about writing a research proposal now
this is the last slide and here i have mentioned
to you what elements you should put in which
section of the actual document which you will
prepare as your research proposal so this
diagram is self -explanatory and there are
no hard and fast rules you could add some
more sections in the document for example
resources or the equipment you need or some
other sections but generally these sections
are enough for your research proposal so I
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next time.
