Social Research Methods Series: Proposal Writing Guide

Carrying out educational and social research requires not only patience, persistence, pursuance and passion but also specific knowledge, skills and experience. It is not enough to have gone through lessons of research methods to be able to sustain a research process! This proposal writing guide is a product of a decade of dedicated research in the fields of education and social sciences by the author. It is based on knowledge acquired over years and everyday experience in guiding and mentoring students of research in Colleges and Universities in Kenya and around the world. The guide is structured according to the classical structure of research proposals used in most institutions of higher learning. The onset of the guide briefly introduces some selected parts of preliminaries including cover page, declaration, abstract, abbreviations and acronyms and table of contents. Other parts follow traditional research proposal writing outline which consists of three basic chapters, namely Chapter One: Introduction; Chapter Two: Review of Related Literature and Chapter Three: Research Design and Methodology. Further, Chapter Four presents Referencing Styles with emphasis on APA citation style. The last parts cover References and Appendices. Owing to the challenges related to teaching and conducting research, this guide provides a practical option not only to the students of research but also to teachers of education and social research methods and practitioners