Do you need a scholarship, grant or admission in order to execute your research? Find out what your potential sponsors or Department expect to see in your research proposal before they can approve it. Sample Research proposal letter available.
If you write a bad research paper, chances are you may send it to a less selective journal, but when your research proposal is bad, you can’t get any sponsorship or admission if it is for a research-based masters study or PhD study.

Read also; /guidelines-on-how-to-properly-write-and-structure-a-research-paper-get-published-today/

Tips for a Successful Proposal Write-up

• Allow yourself enough time to write
• Know your audience, what their expectations are currently working on; it could be a grant agency, a scholarship organisation, the department you wish to further your studies and research with etc.
• Be sure it is in line with the research you have done before; the best proposal is a logical extension of the research you are doing or have done. You can include experimental details and preliminary data in your proposal.
• Seek opinion from someone you know that is enjoying good funding or consult any experienced agency that offer such services.
• Your idea should stem from what you did as either an undergraduate, graduate or post-doc student; you are not expected to “ invent the wheel “ right outside the box. Sometimes, collaborating with a senior colleague on selected research topics is often a good way to get started with some agencies
• Adhere to proposal submission instructions strictly; keep to dates and time.
• Be realistic enough to expect rejection; follow up with the grant officer to know why, there is always room for improvement till you finally get it right.
• You should ask for sufficient funds to do the job you propose; in the science field, $100,000 is a typical minimum per year.
• Note; Find out how many proposals have been submitted to grant agency and how many were funded in your field. Dividing number of proposals submitted by number of proposals funded should give you the odds for your own proposal being funded. In some organisations like National Science Foundation, the odds ranges from 10 – 40% depending on the field.

Sample Research Proposal Below;

Ethics of Proposal Writing

• Many journals have guidelines related to ethical conduct on the part of authors, be sure to read and abide by them strictly.
• Some provide boxes that you need to check to certify that you are not guilty of plagiarism and the authors listed have actually contributed to the work.
• It is unethical and even an offence to submit a paper to more than one journal at a time; it can cause your paper to be rejected by both journals.
• You can submit to one journal at a time, if you are rejected, you can then submit to another.
• You can submit a research proposal to more than one funding agency at a time but you have to disclose this information to the second party or all other parties involve.
• Don’t include table, figures or abstracts, data text etc that have been published in another article except you have obtained permission from the Copyright Holder.
• On the other hand you can use your own published data or text in your proposals, especially proposals that are for renewed o continued funding of an existing project.
• Different journals have rules about putting manuscript on the internet prior to submitting to them; they may consider it prior publication and it may jeopardize the acceptance of that paper.
• It is a must to list the funding sources for your work in the acknowledgement section, this is also applicable to oral presentation.
• You have to disclose any financial interest in the results of a paper in the manuscript submittal letter; these interests ranges from paid consultancies, stock holdings, advisory positions to patent interests, and board memberships.
• This disclosure is often published as part of the paper.