ABSTRACT
There are many myths which suggest that major discoveries are an outcome of spontaneity of an individual genius. However, reality is very far from this, and successful research outcomes are based on rigorous planning, discipline and teamwork. Successful research student requires to spend significant time in evaluating the work of others, identifying the problem, designing an alternate solution, recognizing the hypothesis, developing the tasks against a time frame, conducting the experiments and finally undertaking the analysis. When researchers in their excitement start their experiments a little too early without adequate planning or literature review, things often go wrong. Careful planning of the research and communicating this with others such as your supervisor is an essential aspect of research and this document is referred to as the research proposal.
Research proposals may be written for diverse reasons. A PhD student may write a brief proposal to declare their intent and the topic of interest to find a suitable supervisor. A formal research proposal is submitted after they enrol in their PhD program and this is expected to be detailed with list of tasks and milestones. There are also the research proposals that would be submitted when applying for scholarships, grants or employment. This chapter describes the reason and the process of developing a diverse range of research proposals.
