Apart from a more quantitative evaluation of the research proposals in the previous post What is the most common weakness in formulating a research proposal in this and in the next post you will find a more qualitative examination divided into the next points:
1. Lack of connection with theory.
4. Clarity, structure and content of the research proposal background.
This post will focus the first point, lack of connection with theory.
As you can appreciate in the quantitative analysis, being linked to theory is likely the most common weakness. But what does being linked to theory mean? It means that your research will not be “alone in the Universe”, that your research will be part of other researchers´ work that has contributed to a major understanding of the reality being studied. In other words, and using the metaphor of a puzzle, you must be able to find a gap to be cover by your “puzzle part”, i.e. by your research.
Unless you are entering an undiscovered cave? (which I do not think is your case taking into account your topic research) a #criticallyreviewofliterature will provide you with previous works on your topic. To be more concrete, at this initial stage, you do not even need a very deep review. What you actually need is a so called “preliminary review”. In other words, you must perform a superficial search in some directory, like Google scholar, under the appropriate “keywords”. Actually, among the 11 steps required to do a successfull review of literature, finding keywords is likely the most important.
Have you already identified your keywords?
Related articles
- The used of the first/third person. Qualitative evaluation of research proposal. part 3 (researchmethodsgdansk.wordpress.com)
- What are the most common weakness in formulating a research proposal? (researchmethodsgdansk.wordpress.com)
- Qualitative evaluation of research proposals. Part 2 (researchmethodsgdansk.wordpress.com)
- What does #criticallyreviewofliterature mean? (researchmethodsgdansk.wordpress.com)
Xaquín S. Pérez-Sindín López 