How to Make a Simple and Effective Research Proposal: a primer for law students

Jishnu Sanyal from NLU Delhi recently figured out what are research proposals, so he shares the basics for good of the young law schoolites.

“Research proposal” - just one of the innumerable alien phrases that a 1st year law student comes across in his first few weeks in law school. He is confused, and so are his batch mates. He resorts to asking other people about it, only to find that they are in dark as well. So he embarks on his quest for truth and finally the truth emerges.

Q. What is a research proposal?

Research proposal in context of a law student is nothing but a document which states the purpose of your research project and how you intend to carry out your research step by step (methodology). In law schools a research proposal is just another name given to a project proposal and therefore in many ways less formal than research proposals for PhD etc where the forms and procedures are generally well defined by the field of study. But nonetheless it forms a first impression about your project and hence is important. 

It is also important to master the art for you may have to make professional research proposals in future, be it for doing your masters, or while working as a research intern.

The format of a research proposal for a project goes like this:

1. Title – One should come up with a catchy title, one which grabs attention while trying to be concise and true to the subject at hand as possible.

2. Abstract – A brief summary of the project, it generally includes the research questions, the reasoning behind the study, the outlines or the chapters you are classifying your project under and findings one is expected to arrive at.

3. Research methodology - this part generally informs about the approach you are taking to address the research questions. The emphasis of this section is to describe specifically how you will collect the data (data collection) and in what way you are applying the collected data in your project.

Usual Sources of data for a law student are the secondary sources such as books, articles, newspaper reports, research papers, committee reports and a few primary sources of information such as the Constitution, various legislation, rules and regulations, any survey that you may conduct. Primary source is a source where you get first hand information. Secondary sources provide derivative information based on primary sources.

In most cases, a law student uses a doctrinaire analysis methodology, which is basically reading works of others and basing your analysis of the subject on what those sources say on that matter. Sometimes you may do a comparative study also, e.g. of Indian law on smoking and Bhutanese Law on the same.

4. Literature survey – this mainly outlines all the sources you have used in your research and what they have to say on the subject of research. It includes books, reviews, articles, and work of other researchers. It need not be exhaustive, just enough to show that you have read  and assimilated the literature available with respect to the topic.

5. Expected results – This section is meant to give a clear indication of what one could get from the research. It should be congruent with the data analysis and try to relate it with the research questions you have raised. Also in short try to discuss the impact of your research readers are generally inquisitive about the scope.

6. References/ Tentative Bibliography – list all the references cited in the proposal and some more sources that you plan to use in the paper or project.

Disclaimer - This is just a general outline. In case your teacher disagrees ... please follow the golden rule of doing what the teacher says. I shall soon add a template here which can be used to make research proposals.