After reviewing the instructions, I think the entire proposal will be challenging. I haven’t done any work like this before so I can’t think it won’t be challenging. My biggest issue when it comes to work like this is just getting started. But the instructions do give clear ideas on how to start. By clear ideas I mean the example questions included in under “Preliminary literature review.”
“What problems are others attempting to answer?”
“Is there research being conducted in a different area that could have significance (transference) in your INF area of concentration or for a company you would like to work for?”
I think those two questions will be helpful in getting me started.
As far as the fun in this assignment, I might learn something that will help me advance in my career. Maybe doing some research will lead to something I hadn’t yet considered.
Great tip, Adam. Those questions at the bottom of the 2nd page of the instructions can help you narrow in on a topic and see what else needs to be known on the topic. They can also help you better utilize the articles you come across as you try to narrow down your topic.
In case it’s helpful, here’s how I developed my master’s thesis. At some point in graduate school, I realized I could use “this research thing” to explore how news stations discuss criminal suspects and what impact that can have on the audience. It turns out, there wasn’t much research on the impact of televised suspect descriptions.
Even so, previous research on television’s impact and changes in viewer stereotype and prejudice led me to some of the modern survey methods to measure explicit viewer prejudice. Once I had my measurement, it was just a matter of making sure I developed a sound experiment.
I also had to search the literature on CrimeStoppers programs and accepted descriptions of skin color, without relying on racial descriptions. And, I explored the psychological concept of Priming to better theorize how descriptions might impact the audience.