Research Statement • Guidelines

INTRODUCTION. The purpose of a research proposal is to communicate your research goals and intentions to others so that they can give you feedback and assistance. Therefore, a good proposal communicates to the reader, with enough detail and depth to demonstrate that you have clearly put a good deal of thought and effort into the proposal, the research question in which you are interested and the line of investigation that you intend to pursue. The clearer you make this to the reader, the better the help they can give to you, and the better your proposal will be.

There are several areas your proposal must cover, as follows:

1. An explicitly stated thesis or central argument.
A thesis or central argument is not a topic sentence (e.g., "My paper is about the lack of stable democracy in Latin America"), nor it is a fact-based claim that can be immediately verified by data (e.g., "In the United States, the voting rate has declined for the past twenty years"). Rather, a thesis is a claim (1) worth discussing—that is, significant and relevant to the field of comparative politics; (2) subject to logical and empirical support; and (3) genuinely debatable (in other words, there must be several viable alternative arguments to your thesis).

In addition, your thesis should be based upon a central research question. This question, moreover, should be a "why" question seeking an explanation or understanding of a significant social, political or economic phenomenon, rather than a "how," "what," "when," or "where" question that merely seeks a description of a phenomenon (HINT: Your thesis, in essence, is your answer to the central research question you pose.) Lastly, your thesis cannot be a purely or primarily ethical argument—or an argument about which

2. Description and Justification of Research
What are your overall goals? Describe the background and significance of your research project—in other words, tell your reader a little bit about the topic/subject area you’ve chosen and discuss why it is important. Be as specific as possible. Also, place your research in the proper historical and scholarly contexts. That is, tell the reader what previous research has been done in the area—what the important arguments are—and let the reader know how your argument will relate to the existing scholarly literature.

In this section, you must also address the question: What makes you think your argument is correct? In the social sciences, it is never enough simply to make a claim or argument that is unsupported or unsupportable by both (empirical) evidence and logic. Nor is it enough to provide only anecdotal support or to ignore evidence and other arguments that could weaken your argument. In your research statement, therefore, it is necessary for you to provide a preliminary justification for the argument you intend to make. For the purposes of this assignment, you should think through your argument and tell me, in as much depth and detail as possible (given the preliminary nature of this assignment), why you believe your argument is right.

3. Secondary Questions
List any secondary questions that you need to answer in order to move toward answering your main question. The development of your research paper can contain secondary descriptive questions that help develop your central "why" question. (NOTE: You may integrate this section in with the first section of the research proposal.)

4. Evidence
Describe your plan for finding evidence. What sort of evidence do you need? Why? How are you going to collect your evidence? Where do you plan to obtain your evidence? How are you going to assess the evidence you find, and decide what evidence is relevant assessing your central question, and what is irrelevant? (NOTE: You may integrate this section in with the second section of the research proposal.)

5. Bibliography
Provide an bibliography of at least 10 relevant references (library, internet and other) using the APA format.

CONCLUDING POINTS. Your research statement is not meant to be perfect or unchangeable. Indeed, I expect that it will go through some major revisions as you fully develop the argument in your draft and final paper. Still, it is important to think carefully and thoroughly about the requirements listed above. For most of us "good" papers do not just happen; instead, they are the product of a long, well-considered process. The research statement is meant to be starting point for this process.

You MUST organize your research proposal using the boldface headings above (even if you combine certain sections, make sure you still list all the headings). Your proposal must be neatly type, double-spaced and reasonably free of errors. WARNING! If you fail to turn in your research proposal when due, you should seriously consider dropping this course. Failure to keep up with the specific steps in the research process will make it difficult for you to pass this course.