Blog 3: Creating a Research Proposal

Picking a topic is the hardest part of creating a research proposal. When writing a research paper, you should pick a topic that you are genuinely interested in. This will make the research part of the process a lot less tedious. The seemingly countless number of sources won’t appear as daunting as you’ll want to know more about what you’re planning on writing about. Once you found a topic you want to write about, as suggested in Chapter 5 of the Bedford Book of Genres, “Exploring Topics and Creating a Research Proposal”, you should free-write about said topic. No limitations, no editing, just writing whatever comes to mind about the topic of your choosing. I believe this is the best way to start, as it gives you a basis for what you might want to write about in the future. Also in Chapter 5, there’s a lot of good techniques on how to get a research proposal started, such as creating a mind map, making a list, interviewing people, looking at scholarly sources, etc.