Steps of Research Proposal

Ways to Select Research Topics

Vital topics under discussion Curiosity about something Problem solving Personal values Gaps in the research and theoretical literature

Types of Economics and Political Science Researches

Qualitative/Exploratory Research Qualitative research aims interpretation of a situation, set of behaviors, or a setting. Analysis must take place within a context. o Note: Different researchers may view the same situation and obtain different results. Qualitative research answers "how" and "why." Ex.: Why do two democratic nations fight each other? Quantitative/Explanatory Research Focuses on causal relationships and their impact (outcomes). Quantitative Research answers what questions. Descriptive Research Descriptive research describes data and characteristics about the population or phenomenon being studied. Descriptive research answers the questions "who", "what", "where", and "when." The research cannot describe what caused a situation. Thus, Descriptive Research cannot be used to create a causal relationship, where one variable affects another. Descriptive research classifies phenomena. o Ex.: We may simply wish to describe the participants in a study and how they act, believe, perceive the world, or look. Examples of research questions for descriptive studies: o What is the clients degree of satisfaction with the services provided by Starbucks? o What percentages of people living in Cairo have incomes below the poverty line?

Comparative Research Comparative research aims at making comparisons across different countries or cultures. Future Studies Predictive projects forecast future developments based on an analysis of current events and relevant theories.

Techniques for Narrowing a Topic

Examine the literature. You can repeat a previous study; explore unexpected findings from previous studies. Follow author suggestions for future research, extend a theory to a new topic. Define the aim or desired outcome of the study. You have to choose specific period, and the choice of period must based on reason or specific event. Specify the location or the place that you are going to tackle it in your research. 1-Title First of all, you need to select a research area and the title of your research paper. Often, titles are stated in terms of a functional relationship, because such titles clearly indicate the independent and dependent variables. A good title should: Indicate the type of study you will conduct. Address the main problem you are planning to investigate. Be concise, short, and descriptive. Convey to the reader the main focus of your research. Use the correct terms in the title; it is very important to use the correct term so that your title becomes more meaningful. Try to limit your title to a single sentence and exclude any words that are not essential to the overall understanding of the title. Note: Write the title beginning each word with capital letter and center-align it. Ex: The Impact of Privatization on Economic Development in Egypt: An Assessment 1990-2011 Ex: The Impact of Rewards and Benefits on Employees Motivation: Case Study of Vodafone Egypt Ex: The Iranian Regional Role in the Middle East 2005-2010
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2-Introduction
The main purpose of the introduction is to provide the necessary background or context for your research problem. In an introduction, you should: Create the reader interest in the topic. Lay the broad foundation for the problem that leads to the study. Add necessary data to build on your research. Add a reliable footnote(s) that supports the data.

The lead sentence: pay special attention to your first sentence. You must avoid: Long historical backgrounds Broadness Subjective judgments/ researcher bias (you must be very objective and neutral)

3-Research Problem
A problem might be defined as the issue that exist in the literature, theory, or practice that leads to a need for the study. You should choose a topic which can be investigated through appropriate and valid methods and for which research material is available. Give a very short summary of the research problem that you have identified. Effective problem statement should cover: o Why does this research need to be conducted? o Ex.: The importance of this research appears in Briefly describe the major issues and sub-problems to be addressed by your research. o Ex.: Related to., as the main research point of this study, are several sub-topics to be tackled. The research problem must clarify the key independent and dependent variables of your study/research: o Ex.: The relationship between corruption and economic development o Ex.: The relationship between economic development and democratization o Ex.: The change in leadership and its impact on the change in foreign policy Choosing the period of research, the departing and closing dates is part of the formulation of research problem. o Ex.: US- Egyptian relations (Which period?)

4-Research Questions
The research questions state clearly what the study will investigate.
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 Research questions must be derived from the research problem, which you have stated before. You are going to cover these research questions in your research body. Your research questions should not have been answered satisfactorily in other the work of other people. It really should be an original question that no one else has sufficiently answered.

5-Hypothesis
Hypothesis (a Latin word) is what you "suppose;" a thesis is what you "pose." Hypothesis is what you do before you examine, analyze critique, argue, and verify the evidence for or against your hypothesis. While a thesis is what you pose after deeper examination. A thesis is what you conclude to after you finish your research. Hypothesis is used to state the relationship between two variables (independent variable and dependent variable), and may be stated as: Directional hypotheses: we state the direction of the relationship between two variables; it may be either positive or negative. Null hypotheses: no relationship between the two variables.

6-Theoretical Framework
It should be clear what paradigm you are working within, what are the theories and concepts you will use it in order analyze your research and could help you to solve the research problem and reach to good conclusion or thesis. Therefore you have to choose: 1) The theories and concepts that related to your topic. 2) Define and mention each theory or concept you want to use; you have to define and mention it from different perspectives by different scholars. 3) Then specify the best perspective that relates to your research problem and could allow you to reach to an accurate conclusion.

7- Approaches
You have to choose one approach from the following approaches to use in your research A-Legal Approach Is the approach used to analyze the topic through tackling the legal documents related to it (Ex.: Analyzing the voting mechanism in the UN Security Council). B-Functional Approach It investigates a set of functions performed by such political structures as parties, legislatures, political executives, bureaucracies (governmental intuitions), and courts. There are four main functions of any political system: 1- Production: over-complete economy 2- Distribution: including both economic and political distribution
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A- Economic Distribution: does the system distribute the resources on equity basis? And how big is the gap between social classes? If it is a just distribution it will lead to equality, and if it unjust it will lead to economic deprivation. B- Political Distribution: whether the people have the chance to participate in the decision making process or not? The absence of people's chance to participate means political marginalization of people's will and voice. Political marginalization and economic deprivation cause rebellion. 3- Providing Security: the ability of the system to provide security against any internal threat to the citizens and prevent the state from any external aggression. 4- Foreign Policy: A- Cooperation: ability of the system to cooperate with many strategic countries in all fields. B- Conflict: ability of the state to resolve its conflict with the other states, through peaceful manners, and avoid the military confrontation. C- System Approach

8-Tools of Analysis
The research proposal must specify the tools of analysis that will logically allow answering the research questions. Types of Tools 1-Desk Analysis: including books, electronic books, articles in journals, academic periodicals (ex: Al-Siyysah Al-Dawliyah), previous studies, previous dissertation (Masters and PhD), news paper, official documents, and websites. 2-Observation: you can use this tool through your observation as a neutral actor.
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3-Participant Observation: you can use this tool through your observation and your participation as participant actor. 4-Interview: creating a set of questions and conducting interviews with different people having different trends on your topic (they might be officials, experts, researchers, or academics) 5-Questionnaire: A questionnaire is a research instrument consisting of a series of questions, prompts for the purpose of gathering information from respondents. They are often designed for statistical analysis of the responses.

9- The Literature Review

F ocus on scholarly (peer-reviewed) sources. You have to read all previous studies that related to your study, then classify them into different categories, and figure out what they are missing and how your proposed research can fill in the gap.

10- Research Plan

You have to create a plan for your research through providing a roadmap to the rest of the paper. The research body must be divided into chapters (can be from two to four chapters) and each chapter must be divided into sections (can be divided from two to four sections). Chapter one: 1.1 1.2 1.3 Chapter two: 2.1: 2.2: 2.3: Chapter three: 3.1: 3.2: 3.3: Chapter four: 4.1: 4.2: 4.3:

Preliminary List of References

You must write the references in the following order, as well as ranking them aphetically inside each of the following categories: 1) Documents 2) Books 3) Articles in journals or periodicals 4) Thesis 5) Newspapers
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6) Electronic websites 7) Others Note: You will not only write all the references that you used in your research, but also all the material you used to understand the topic, even if you did not cite directly from them; you can write it as: "see also" and then complete that citation as normal. Visit the following OWL website for a detailed guide on references according to the MLA citation style: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/

Footnotes/Endnotes
Note: Visit the OWL website above and study the reference first, in order to understand the footnotes or endnotes. What is the difference between footnotes and endnotes? Footnotes are written at the bottom of each page. Endnotes are written after you finish your research, which means after the conclusion and before the preliminary list of references. Look at the research structure to understand this well. You can either opt between footnotes or endnotes; this depends upon your preferences. Note: Use the tips below for your footnotes and endnotes and do not refer to the OWL guide on this topic. How to Write Footnotes or Endnotes? Footnotes resemble the references in their format except for two differences: A- First Difference: Do not reverse the name of author as in references "lastname, firstname", make it "firstname lastname." Ex. Samuel Huntington not Huntington, Samuel. B- Second Difference: You must write number of pages in the footnotes, but you are not required to write the number of pages in the preliminary list of references. For example in the preliminary list of references you write as the following: Book Format: Lastname, Firstname. Title of Book. City of Publication: Publisher, Year of Publication. Ex: Gleick, James. Chaos: Making a New Science. New York: Penguin, 1987. But in footnotes or endnotes you are required to write the author name as the following: Book Format: Firstname Lastname. Title of Book. City of Publication: Publisher, Year of Publication. Page number
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Ex: James Gleick. Chaos: Making a New Science. New York: Penguin, 1987.pp.1-5 or pp.1, 2 or p.3 These two differences are applied to all formats (periodicals-articles-videosdocuments-Dissertations-studies, etc.) Shortcuts for Footnotes If you are going to write the same reference in the next footnote, but you will use different pages, you will write it as following: o Ibid. p.2 or Ibid. pp.2-5 In case of more than two authors, you can write it as following: o Name of one author, (et al.). Ex: Michel Roksin, (et al.) If you are going to write the same reference in another footnote you will write the following: "Firstname Lastname. Op.Cit., p.2" or "Firstname Lastname. Op.Cit., pp.167-72" or "Firstname Lastname. Op.Cit., pp.167,168."