Writing the Proposal Introduction
The supplied material breaks this section down further than it breaks down anything else in fourteen weeks. Taken in order the list is a drafting sequence — provided you notice the points where it hands you a decision and no criterion for making it.
Eight components, in the order the source gives them
Most of the supplied teaching source names things without saying how to produce them. This passage is the exception, and it is worth reading as a set of instructions rather than as a list of topics. Each item describes a piece of text you can sit down and write.
The word that recurs is concise, or succinct, or summary overview — six of the eight carry a compression instruction. The introduction establishes nothing. It states everything, so a reader knows the whole shape of the study before meeting any part of it in detail.
What each component actually asks you to produce
THE EIGHT COMPONENTS AND HOW TO TELL EACH ONE IS DONE
| # | Component | What you have to produce | Done when |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Succinct statement of the topic — the opening sentence | One sentence naming what the study is about. The source specifies its position: it is the opening sentence | A reader who stops after that sentence could describe your study to someone else |
| 2 | Explanation of the problem or issue motivating the research | The reason the study exists, expressed as a problem someone has rather than a subject that interests you | The problem is stated with a holder and a consequence, not as a topic area |
| 3 | Reference to the field or fields the research grows out of and aims to contribute to | The field named in terms recognised both inside and outside it — the source's own condition | Someone outside your discipline recognises the field name without explanation |
| 4 | Summary overview of the focus or approach of previous literature | What the existing work has concentrated on, in a few sentences. Not a review; an orientation | A reader can say what the literature has mostly been doing, before you say what it has not |
| 5 | Concise description of the gap within the literature | What is missing, unresolved or uncontested, stated in a form you can repeat at the end of the literature review | The gap sentence follows from the summary in component 4 rather than arriving unannounced |
| 6 | Concise statement of one of: research hypothesis, question, aim or objectives | One of those four forms, chosen and stated. The source's wording is "one of the following" | The statement exists in a single form and is not four overlapping versions of the same thing |
| 7 | Concise description of the methods and methodology | How you will do it, at the length of the methods section's own introduction — a summary of a summary | A reader can name your approach without being told how any instrument works |
| 8 | Concise definitions of any specialised terms used throughout the proposal | Definitions of the terms the rest of the document depends on | Every term you use in a non-obvious sense is defined once, here, before it is used |
Components are the source's, quoted in condensed form above and in full in the source callout. Columns three and four are this library's reading.
Read down the third column and the movement becomes visible. Components 1 to 3 place the study; 4 and 5 place it against what is known; 6 and 7 commit to what you will do. Component 8 does something else, dealt with below.
- Topic
- Problem
- Field
- Prior literature
- The gap
- Your statement
- Your approach
That is a funnel, and the same movement the whole proposal makes in miniature. The source does not name the movement; reading the seven that way is this library's, and it works mainly as a test — if any one of them cannot be written from the one before it, the draft has a gap in its logic, not just a missing paragraph.
The one worked example in the entire list
The condition is more demanding than it looks for a practitioner writing about delivery. Internal vocabulary — a programme name, an in-house framework — fails it, because it is recognised in one organisation rather than in a field. So does a construction that names your study instead of its field.
Fails the source's condition
- A name only your organisation uses
- A phrase invented for this study
- A field so broad it excludes nothing
- An acronym that needs expanding before it means anything
Meets it
- A name a reader outside the discipline would recognise
- A name existing literature is already indexed under
- A name narrow enough that a body of work sits inside it
- Wording that returns relevant results in a database
The last of those is the practical test, and it is this library's: if your field name returns nothing usable in a literature database, it is probably not the name the field uses for itself. See Literature Search Strategies.
The gap description you write twice
Component 5 carries a parenthesis that is easy to skim and that changes how the document is assembled: the gap description "will then be repeated at the end of the literature review section of the proposal". The repetition is not an oversight the source failed to notice. It is stated, in the source's own words, as what happens next.
What the two versions of the gap are doing differs even though the content does not, and separating the two jobs is the most useful thing to take from the repetition. The following distinction is this library's reading; the source states the repetition and not its purpose.
THE SAME GAP, TWO POSITIONS, TWO JOBS
| In the introduction (component 5) | At the end of the literature review | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is doing | Orienting — telling a reader what the study is for before they have read the evidence | Concluding — the point the whole review has been building towards |
| What it can assume | Nothing. It has to make sense to a reader who has read only the preceding paragraphs | Everything in the review. It can refer to specific work and specific disagreements |
| Test of a good version | A reader can state what is missing and why it matters, in one sentence | A reader who disagreed at the start of the section would find it hard to disagree now |
The repetition is the source's requirement. The division of labour between the two versions is this library's reading — the source gives no guidance on how they should differ.
One consequence is procedural. Because the two versions must agree, the introduction's gap sentence has to be revisited whenever the literature review changes — and it will change. Treat it as a placeholder you expect to rewrite. The substance is at Identifying the Gap in the Literature.
Component 6: four forms, and no criterion for choosing
The sixth component asks for a "concise statement of one of the following: research hypothesis, question, aim or objectives". Two things in that wording matter. The first is the word one — the source is asking you to pick a single form, not to supply all four. The second is that no basis for picking is given anywhere in the passage.
What can be done is to point at where the library covers each form on its own terms. Aims, Objectives and Questions in a Proposal sets out how the four words are used; Deciding Your Research Question covers the question as a design pivot; Formulating and Testing a Hypothesis covers what a hypothesis commits you to.
The eighth component, which is doing a different job
Before that, note what component 7 sets: a description of the methods "similar to what is provided in the introduction of the method and methodology section" — a summary of a summary, and therefore a ceiling on detail. Instrument construction and sampling belong in The Research Design Section of a Proposal, not here.
Definitions of specialised terms are not part of the funnel. They are an apparatus the rest of the document depends on, and the source places them last in the introduction and describes their scope as terms "used throughout the proposal" — which is a wider brief than the introduction itself.
Drafting order is not reading order
The eight components describe the order a reader meets them in. The source gives no drafting order, and writing them in the printed sequence is usually the slowest route, because component 1 depends on decisions made in components 5 and 6. The sequence below is practice rather than instruction.
A drafting order that reduces rework
Draft 5 and 6 first — the gap and your statement
These are the two decisions everything else in the introduction reports. Until they are settled, the opening sentence cannot be written, only guessed at.
Then 2 and 4 — the problem and the state of the literature
Write the problem that motivates the study and the summary of what the literature has focused on. Together they have to make the gap in component 5 look inevitable rather than asserted.
Then 3 and 7 — the field and the approach
Name the field to the source's recognisability standard, and summarise the approach at the level of the methods section's own opening. Both are short and both are constrained.
Then 1 — the opening sentence, written last
By this point you know what the study is, so the succinct statement of topic can be written as a statement rather than a hedge. The source specifies its position, not when you write it.
Then 8 — sweep the whole proposal for terms
Definitions cover terms used throughout the proposal, so this component cannot be finished until the rest of the document exists. Collect them last and place them where the source puts them.
The material also gives a separate account of what an introduction to a chapter or paper is for — a different genre, covered at Abstracts, Introductions and Conclusions Compared. Do not merge the two lists.
Checking the introduction before it goes in
Eight components, eight checks
- The first sentence states the topic and is a statement, not a preamble about the importance of the area.
- The problem has a holder and a consequence. "There is limited research on X" is a gap, not a problem — it belongs in component 5.
- The field is named in words a reader outside your discipline would recognise, and that a literature database recognises too.
- The summary of previous literature says what the existing work has focused on, without reviewing any of it.
- The gap follows from that summary, and is written in a form you can repeat verbatim at the end of the literature review.
- Exactly one of hypothesis, question, aim or objectives is presented as the thing the study answers to.
- The methods summary names the approach and stops. No instrument design, no sampling detail, no justification.
- Every specialised term the proposal relies on is defined once, here, before its first substantive use.
What to carry forward
- Eight components, all of them short. Six carry an explicit compression instruction — the introduction states, it does not establish.
- Seven of the eight form one movement from topic to approach. The eighth, definitions, is apparatus and sits outside it.
- The gap gets written twice and the source says so. Keep the two versions in agreement, and expect to revise the introduction's version whenever the literature review moves.
- Component 6 wants one of hypothesis, question, aim or objectives — one, not four. The source supplies no criterion for choosing, and no page should invent one.
- The field name has to be recognisable outside your discipline. Internal or invented vocabulary fails the source's own condition.
- Draft the gap and your statement first and the opening sentence last. The printed order is a reading order, not a writing order.
Frequently asked questions
How long should the proposal introduction be?
The supplied material does not say. It requires every component to be concise and gives no word allowance for the section, in a week that argues word limits are important. The only length figure anywhere in the material is a page range stated as one institution's own requirement, which is discussed at Proposal Word Limits and Section Balance — it is not a general standard.
Which should I use: a hypothesis, a question, an aim or objectives?
The source asks for one of the four and gives no criterion for choosing, so any rule offered here would be invented rather than sourced. What can be said is that the four commit you to different things — testing a relationship, answering something, stating an intention, decomposing an intention — and that the library covers each form separately. Choose deliberately, state one, and let the design answer to it.
If the gap appears twice, should the wording be identical?
The source says the description "will then be repeated" and does not say whether the wording should match. The two versions do different jobs: the first orients a reader who has seen no evidence, the second concludes an argument that has just been made. They must agree in substance; the second can be more specific because it can refer to the work just reviewed.
How much methodology belongs in the introduction?
The source sets the level explicitly — similar to what is provided in the introduction of the methods and methodology section. That is a summary of that section's own opening, so it is a ceiling rather than a target. Name the approach; leave instrument design, sampling and justification to the section itself.
Where do definitions go if a term is specific to my research design?
Both lists ask for definitions: the introduction covers specialised terms used throughout the proposal, and the research design list asks separately for terminology specific to the design. The source does not say which takes precedence for a term that qualifies under both. The workable split — general terms in the introduction, design-specific vocabulary in the design section — is this library's reading, not the source's rule.
Is this list the same as the introduction of the finished thesis?
No. This is the proposal introduction, and the supplied material gives a separate account of what an introduction to a chapter or paper is for, with a different purpose statement and a different structure. Keep them apart — the proposal introduction previews a study that has not happened, and a report introduction situates one that has.
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. The eight components quoted on this page come from the study notes for the week on writing up a research proposal, which are supplied as two textually identical files, neither dated, versioned nor marked current.
- The prescribed reading for that week 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
- Check my proposal introduction against the eight components and tell me which are missing.
- My opening sentence is a preamble. Rewrite it as a statement of the topic.
- Compare the gap sentence in my introduction with the one closing my literature review.
- I have written a hypothesis, a question and three objectives. Which one should the design answer to?
- Cut my introduction's methodology paragraph back to a summary of the approach.