What a Research Proposal Must Answer
Most of what decides a proposal is settled before you write a sentence of it, by the questions your reader is already holding. The supplied material states those questions outright — and then, a paragraph later, states the answers.
A proposal answers questions someone else is already holding
The supplied material opens its proposal treatment by saying what the document is for, and the framing is worth taking literally. A proposal is not a description of a project you have decided to do. It is a reply. The notes say it is "designed to answer the key questions asked of you, the researcher by your reviewers" — which means the questions exist before your draft does, and they will be applied to it whether or not you wrote with them in mind.
For a practising project manager this is a familiar structure in unfamiliar clothing. Questions one and two are the business case; question three is the delivery approach; question four is the schedule and resource assessment. What differs is question two: no delivery case is normally required to show that its output is new, and that requirement is the one most often skipped by writers coming from practice.
One consequence follows immediately. If the questions are known in advance, a proposal that fails is rarely failing on style — it is failing because one of four specific answers is missing, or present but not visible. Review becomes diagnosable rather than a matter of taste.
The four claims a good proposal makes
Immediately after the questions, the same passage sets out what a good proposal shows. These are not restatements of the questions in different words — they are the positive claims the document has to be able to sustain.
Read the first claim slowly. The standard is a real life problem — not a gap you noticed in a database, and not a topic that interests you. The second claim then attaches the knowledge contribution to that same problem: new knowledge "that will contribute to addressing this problem or concern". Novelty on its own does not satisfy the claim; novelty pointed at the problem does.
The mapping, question by question
The source states four questions and four claims. It does not state either count, and it does not connect the two lists. The connection is nevertheless exact: claim one answers question one, claim two answers question two, and so on to the end. This is the single most useful structural fact in the material, and it is the one thing on this page you should treat as the library's reading of the source rather than as the source's own statement.
THE FOUR QUESTIONS AND THE FOUR CLAIMS, PAIRED
| # | The reviewer's question | The claim that answers it | What has to be on the page for the claim to land |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | What problem or issue does the research address? | It addresses a real life problem, issue, concern or conundrum | The problem stated as a problem, not as a subject area — a reader outside your organisation must see who has it and what it costs them. |
| 2 | How will the research contribute to existing knowledge? | It provides new knowledge that will contribute to addressing this problem | A described gap in the literature, and an explicit sentence connecting what is missing to what you will add. Novelty alone does not answer this. |
| 3 | How will the research achieve its stated objectives? | It adopts a method and methodology appropriate to the research question | A design in which the method is visibly chosen for the question, not asserted alongside it. Appropriateness is the standard, not sophistication. |
| 4 | Is the research doable within the given time and resource constraints? | It can be successfully completed within the given time, resource and other research constraints | A timetable, a statement of what you need and can get, and a plain account of any special consideration — access, approvals, participant availability — that could stop the work. |
The four questions and the four claims are quoted from the supplied material. The pairing, the numbering and the third column are this library's reading; the source presents two lists and draws no line between them.
The practical value of the pairing is that it turns an assessment frame into a drafting frame. Each question tells you what a reader is looking for; each claim tells you what you must be able to say; the pairing tells you that if you cannot make claim n, question n is where you fail, and strength elsewhere does not compensate. A proposal with an outstanding literature review and no feasibility case still fails question four.
The fourth question is the only one about you
Questions one to three interrogate the research. They ask whether the problem is real, whether the contribution is new, and whether the design will get there. Question four changes the subject. It asks whether this researcher, in these circumstances, with this much time can finish — and it is the only one of the four whose answer depends on facts about you rather than facts about the field.
Questions 1-3 test the research
- Is the problem real and worth addressing?
- Is the knowledge new, and pointed at that problem?
- Does the design actually reach the objectives?
- Answerable from the literature, the argument and the method
- Improved by reading, thinking and redesigning
Question 4 tests the researcher
- Can it be done in the time you have?
- Can it be done with the resources you can actually obtain?
- Is there a special consideration that could stop it?
- Answerable only from your circumstances, access and calendar
- Improved by narrowing scope, securing access early, or changing the design
That asymmetry has a drafting consequence. The first three answers get better the longer you work on them; the fourth generally gets worse, because the time available shrinks while the design grows. Leave the feasibility case to the end and the proposal you have written may no longer be able to make claim four, with one fix left — cutting scope. See Assessing Research Topic Feasibility and, for the plan itself, Proposal Timetable and Resources.
Three reassurances, and two of them are about finishing
The same material returns to the reviewer at the end of its proposal treatment, and states what reviewers want reassurance about. This second list is shorter and it is weighted differently from everything that comes before it.
The proportion is the finding. The source spends most of its component lists on intellectual content — the problem, the literature, the gap, the design — and then says that two-thirds of what a reviewer wants reassurance about is whether you can get it done. Reassurance one carries the whole of merit, compressed into a parenthesis: important, new and appropriately conceived. Reassurances two and three carry resources and time.
THE THREE REASSURANCES AND WHAT EVIDENCES EACH
| Reassurance | What it is about | Where it is evidenced in the document |
|---|---|---|
| The research will fulfil the degree requirements — important, new and appropriately conceived | Merit | Introduction, literature review and the design section, working together. This is where questions one to three are answered. |
| The necessary resources are available | Feasibility | The resources statement and any non-standard requirement named in the design section — equipment, access, participants, approvals. |
| The research will be finished on time | Feasibility | The proposed timeline. In the section model, that sits under additional information — see The Four Sections of a Research Proposal. |
The three reassurances are quoted from the supplied material. The merit-and-feasibility classification and the third column are this library's reading.
Working the four questions as a drafting sequence
The source presents the questions as assessment criteria and gives no drafting order. In practice they work as a sequence, because each answer constrains the next, and this is the library's synthesis rather than the source's instruction.
Four passes, in order
Fix the problem before anything else
Write the problem as one sentence that names who has it and what it costs. If it can only be written as a topic — "stakeholder engagement in infrastructure delivery" — question one is not yet answered. Nothing downstream can be settled until it is.
Find the gap, then connect it to the problem
Question two is two moves, not one: what the literature has not settled, and why settling it would help with the problem in step one. A gap with no line back to the problem answers half the question. Identifying the Gap in the Literature works this through.
Choose the design as an answer, and show the choosing
Question three asks how the research will achieve its stated objectives, and the claim's standard is appropriateness to the research question. Write the sentence that connects them explicitly — a reader should not have to infer why this method suits this question.
Cost the design in time, access and resources — and be willing to go back to step three
Question four is a test the design has to pass, not a formality appended to it. If the plan does not fit, the answer is to change the design or narrow the scope, and the proposal is the cheapest possible place to discover that.
The fourth step is the one that most often loops back. That is the sequence working, not failing: a design that survives an honest feasibility pass is worth more than one never tested against a calendar.
Where each answer physically lands
The questions are not sections. The supplied material gives a separate four-part section model — introduction, literature review, methods and methodology, additional information — and states that the sections "accord with the key questions introduced above". They largely do, with one exception worth knowing before you build an outline: the feasibility answer, which the source itself frames as decisive, lands in the section the source treats as residual. That is examined in full on The Four Sections of a Research Proposal.
- Question 1 is opened in the introduction, in the statement of the problem and aims, and is carried by Writing the Proposal Introduction.
- Question 2 is opened in the introduction's gap summary and closed at the end of the literature review, where the source asks for the contribution to be highlighted.
- Question 3 is answered by the methods and methodology section, and previewed in the introduction.
- Question 4 is answered by the timeline and resource material, which the section model places under additional information.
Checking a draft against the four questions
Because the questions are stated in advance, a draft can be tested against them directly. The test below is a reading protocol, not a rewrite: mark the document, then decide what to do.
Four marks on a printed draft
- Mark the sentence that states the problem. One sentence, not a paragraph. If you cannot find one, question one is unanswered however much context surrounds it.
- Mark the sentence saying what is not yet known, then the one saying why knowing it would help with the marked problem. Two marks, or question two is half answered.
- Mark the sentence that says why this method suits this question. If the only available mark is a description of the method, question three is being asserted rather than argued.
- Mark the date by which the work finishes, and the three things that would have to be true for that date to hold. If the date exists but the three conditions do not, the claim is unevidenced.
- Mark every resource the study needs and does not yet have. Each is either secured before submission or named openly as a special consideration.
What to carry forward
- A proposal is a reply to four known questions, not a description of a project — the questions exist before the draft does.
- The four claims answer the four questions one to one, in order. The source supplies both lists and draws no line between them; the pairing is this library's reading, and it turns assessment criteria into a drafting checklist.
- Question four is the only one about the researcher rather than the research, and it is the only one that gets harder rather than easier as the design grows.
- Two of the three reassurances a reviewer wants are about resources and time. Evidence them as deliberately as you evidence the gap.
- Novelty is not enough for question two. The knowledge has to be new and pointed at the real life problem named in question one.
- This is the strongest material in the supplied teaching source. Where it points onward to a series of section-writing resources, those resources are not supplied.
Frequently asked questions
Are the four questions and the four claims two different lists, or the same list twice?
They are two lists in the supplied material, stated one after the other, and the source never connects them. Read carefully they map one to one in order: each claim is the positive form of the answer to the question in the same position. Treating them as a pair is this library's reading, but the alignment is exact and it is the most useful structural fact in the material.
Why is feasibility treated as a separate question rather than part of the design?
Because it asks about a different object. Questions one to three are about the research — whether the problem is real, the contribution new and the design appropriate. Question four is about the researcher's circumstances: time available, resources obtainable, and any special consideration that could stop the work. A design can be excellent and still fail question four.
How much detail does the feasibility answer need?
The supplied material does not quantify it. What it does say is that reviewers want reassurance that the necessary resources are available and that the research will be finished on time, which means a bare completion date is not sufficient on its own. In practice the answer needs a dated plan, the access or approvals the plan depends on, and an honest statement of anything non-standard the study requires.
What counts as a contribution to existing knowledge for a practitioner project?
The source's standard is knowledge that is new and that contributes to addressing the problem or concern already named. It does not require the contribution to be large. It does require it to be connected: a finding that resolves something the literature leaves unsettled, and that bears on the real life problem the proposal opened with.
If two of the three reassurances are about feasibility, should most of the proposal be about the plan?
No — the proportion describes what a reviewer wants reassurance about, not how to allocate space. Merit takes more words because it takes more argument. The point of the proportion is that feasibility cannot be handled in a sentence just because it is quick to state; it is two of the three things being checked, and it needs evidence rather than assertion.
Does answering all four questions guarantee approval?
The supplied material does not say so, and no page here should. What the four questions give you is a diagnosis: if a proposal is rejected, one of the four answers was missing or unconvincing, and the pairing tells you which claim failed. That is more actionable than a general instruction to improve the document.
References and source attribution
- O'Leary, Z. 2017, The Essential Guide to Doing Your Research Project, 3rd ed., Sage Publications, London — one of the general research methods texts cited across the supplied source.
- Naoum, S. G. 2013, Dissertation Research & Writing for Construction Students, 3rd ed., Routledge — cited in the supplied source as a reading on the shape and setting out of a research project.
- Bryman, A. 2016, Social Research Methods, 5th ed., Oxford University Press, Oxford — cited in the supplied source as a general methods reference.
- The supplied teaching source: weekly study notes and slide material for a master's-level research methods subject in project management, including the study notes on writing up a research proposal that supply the four reviewer questions, the four answering claims and the three reassurances quoted on this page. The notes are supplied as two textually identical files, neither dated, versioned nor marked current.
- The prescribed reading for the week that supplies this material is given in the source only as a four-page range in a text for which no author, title or year is stated anywhere in the supplied files.
Suggested questions for Ask KEVOS
- Take my draft proposal and tell me which of the four reviewer questions it does not answer.
- Write the one sentence that connects my research gap back to the real life problem I opened with.
- My feasibility section is one paragraph. Turn it into a claim with evidence behind it.
- Which of the three reassurances is weakest in my proposal, and what would fix it?
- Rewrite my problem statement so it names who has the problem and what it costs them.