Tips on Writing a Health Research Proposal

Writing for academic purposes often requires tips on writing a health research proposal. Whether you are gearing up to write a research paper or complete your degree, these tips will be useful.

What you include in your proposal will be what your professor or instructor expects to appear in the finished paper. Therefore, it is important not to add extraneous information just to fill a word or page count requirement.

Let us take some of the fear out of the preparation.

Research Proposal Explained

Proposals are short documents that shine a light on your main topic as well as the method in which you intend to conduct the formal study. You will be enlightening the reader as to how you propose to test theories about health or expose new information when a topic poorly represents in the literature available.

Asking questions will help your efforts because it will guide your search for the answers. Whether you’ve chosen a topic that is heavily documented or a new issue that is trending, your research proposal will need to include the following information:

Introduction

An introduction is your first connection with the reader. Ensuring that it is interesting and relevant will be the key to drawing the reader in it. Consider including statistics that point directly to the size and validity of the health issue.

And, don’t forget that even though the proposal is a relatively short piece of work, modest reviews of the literature you will be using must include.

Literature Review

Your instructor will want to know that you have thoroughly investigated your topic and that you are prepared to delve deeper into the literature you have found. Make sure that there is solid, peer reviewed, research available as this will help you stand firm in your position.

Academic literature will give the paper the framework from which to base your theories and suggestions. It will also open your eyes to problem areas that might need further contemplation.

Methodology

This aspect of the health research proposal allows for some creative ingenuity. You can state a recap of the main study you are going to use, or delineate your process of research. Be sure to indicate whether you are using quantitative, qualitative, phenomenological, or a mixed method approach. Then explain why you have decided to use that process.

Your rationale must be firmly grounded in academic sources. Once that is covered, including the participant base you intend to utilize. And, if you need to solicit these participants, you should document the steps you will take to do so.

Follow that with a section on the research instruments that will be employed. Explain why you chose these tools or how you developed them if they are of your making. Do not forget to delineate how you will gather and compile data from this process and how you will analyze it.

Consider making each of these their headings in the proposal.

Timetable for Completion

Your professor will want to know how much time it is going to take you to investigate your topic and perform your study thoroughly. At the end of your health research proposal, you need to include a timetable for this completion. Be sure to state each major step and the time necessary to finish each.

Time tables can be in the bulleted format or a textual explanation style. Regardless of the design you choose, they are an essential part of your research proposal and should not overlook. Your instructor wants to see that you understand just how involved the process will be and that you are capable of completing it within a prescribed time frame.

Final Draft of Your Research Health Proposal

Now that you understand what will be included and documented within the final version of your custom research proposal, it is time to clean it up. Every good writer reviews his/her work before turning it in. There are no perfect writers and errors do occur.

Ensure that you have made no typographical or grammatical errors. You can use the computer’s review system as a first look, but always ask an educated friend or peer to review the piece for you as well. It will be easier for them to catch your mistakes.

Then go back another time to double and perhaps triple check your citing methods. Every professor has his/her preference when it comes to citing. Be sure you are following APA, MLA, or any other format your instructor has specified.

As one final review, it recommends that you read the paper aloud. That might seem strange, but hearing the flow of your sentence structure and verifying that you have everything in the right order is key to getting the grade you are striving for it.

Once you have completed these checks and reviews, you are ready to turn the paper in. You will soon be on your way to conducting your formal research project.