Writing a Research Proposal
Full course description
This seminar, running for the last four weeks of period 4, prepares you for writing your bachelor thesis within the BA Arts and Culture. It assists you in the step-by-step development of a research proposal for your BA thesis, and allows you to acquire additional training in the formal and practical aspects of the bachelor thesis. You participate in twice-weekly meetings with a thesis supervisor and a small group of students who choose to work on a select ‘thesis theme’. In these seminars, you will work on a series of preparatory assignments, draft proposals and regular feedback, which take you through the necessary steps for drafting a research proposal. You will focus on narrowing down your thesis theme to a topic suitable for an individual project, formulating a precise research question, and articulating the academic relevance of your research question by relating it to ongoing scholarly discussions in the research field in which your topic is embedded. In addition, the thesis theme groups will help you in the selection of an appropriate theoretical framework and method(s), and get you started on selecting primary sources and compiling a bibliography for your research topic. Finally, you will continue your training in providing, receiving and processing feedback on draft proposals. All of these steps will be integrated in a final thesis proposal that forms the basis for your BA Thesis.
Course objectives
The seminar will be concluded and assessed on the basis of an elaborated research plan and design for the bachelor thesis.
At the end of this course you will have:
- Learned what are the constitutive elements of a research proposal.
- Acquired insight into what counts as an appropriate research topic and question for a BA AC thesis
- Learned how to achieve close coherence between research question, data or sources, theoretical framework and methods, and the literature review.
- Increased your skills in giving, receiving and processing feedback.
Prerequisites
Research and Writing 1 & 2 and ACU3014 Doing Research in Arts and Culture.
Corequisites
Recommended reading
- Booth, W.C., Colomb, G.G., & Williams, J.M. (2008). The Craft of Research. (3rd, rev. ed.). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
- Greetham, B. (2009). How to Write Your Undergraduate Dissertation. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
- Rawlins, J., & Metzger, S. (2009). The Writer’s Way. (7th, rev. ed.). Boston: Houghton
- Mifflin. Seale, C. (2012). Researching Society and Culture. London etc.: SAGE.
- Zinsser, W. (2006). On writing well; the classic guide to writing nonfiction. [30th anniversary edition]. New York: Harper Collins.
- Ridley, D. (2012). The Literature Review: A step-by-Step Guide for Students. London: Sage.