Project Materials

How to Write a Final Year Project Proposal

It’s your final year in college and as usual the faculty would require that you conduct a research project. But before you begin the research, you would need to write a project proposal.

Note that a project proposal is not same as a research project. While a research project is a document that is written by a student at the end of an academic degree; in this case, an undergraduate degree, a project proposal is a type of work that represents the basic plan of how the student hopes to accomplish the research goals of his final year project. The project proposal would contain a surface study on the research project.

A good research proposal is very useful in organizing time and resources to complete your final project in a way that ensures your objectives are realized.

Writing a project proposal is not as difficult as most people think. The difficult part is usually knowing what topic you want to base your final year research on. Once you have done this, the other things become easier. The Key to picking an awesome project topic is concentrating on the current problems in the society and trying to find a topic in your field of study that would solve those problems.

After you have picked a topic, the next thing you should do is research that topic and understand what the topic entails. It is advisable that you publish papers centered on your topic. This will enable you understand what path your research work should follow based on its format. Now, you can begin the process of writing your research proposal.

Steps to follow to write a proposal for your final year project.

Abstract

This is the first part of any final year research project proposal. It should be brief, clear, and easy to understand. The abstract explains what you will be doing, how you will do it, and why you are doing it.

Introduction

The introduction contains the background of your research proposal. It explains the problems your research would be solving. It also describes the practical approaches you’d be using to solve these problems. Your introduction should also be able to explain how the problems relate to your field of study. Your introduction should be easy to understand and should be backed up with facts. Try to make it an engaging research. Don’t be boring.

Purpose of the study

The goals of your project topic should be clearly defined in this section. You should be able to provide practical reasons why you think this project is important. This section will state hypothesis that need to be tested and questions that are to be answered by your research. You should begin this section with the statement ‘the purpose of this study is…’

Methods

In this section, you would provide a detailed explanation of your intended research approach. You would need to state whether it would be a quantitative or qualitative research. Basically, these are the methods you will use in order to prove your hypothesis. This section will also discuss the important variables that you will test in order to prove the validity of your hypothesis.

Instruments

This section will describe the type of research instruments you would be using to conduct your research. The research instruments may be interview, questionnaire or experiment. In some cases, a research may require more than one research instrument. The key to choosing a research instrument for your research is understanding your research topic and the questions your research poses. Your research instrument must enable you to gather the data needed to answer your research questions appropriately. Most undergraduate projects in the science department use experiments while the humanities and arts use questionnaires more often than not.

References

This is the last part of your research proposal. All academic writings require references and citations. This shows the readers that you value the work done by others that has helped you formulate the research proposal. It also shows the readers that you understand your project topic. Citations should include the names of authors, title of publication, date of publication and depending on your referencing style and any other necessary information.

I advise against writing the limitations of your research project in your proposal because you have not actually done the research, so you may have no backings to show that it is an actual limitation. So, unless your faculty says otherwise, do not include it in your project proposal. I will also recommend that you consult the guidelines for writing a research proposal in your faculty before you begin. Some faculties have specific criteria they look out for in a research proposal.

When you are done writing your research proposal, proofread it and ensure that it is free from grammar, punctuation and spelling errors. You can proofread by using a grammar or spelling checker. Such checkers are available online.