In 2-3 paragraphs, summarize your proposal and why you chose it..
You need to choose a topic. In Week #1, you will refine the topic by writing a proposal. Peruse the entire course before choosing a topic. Also, read the Week #1 Preparation materials to help you “fine tune” your topic and write the proposal. It is important to be able to well define your purpose and topic. Choose a topic, issue, problem that interests you because you will working on this for quite a while!
Another key issue to consider when selecting a topic and formulating your research question is to consider the professional relevance and application. Choose a topic and question that will have you contributing to key issues or questions in the field. This will help you advance, and lead, in the field and will enhance your ability to advance in your profession.
In this course, you will work independently to investigate a significant, real-world administrative or policy implementation problem. You will then write a professional paper (or report) that demonstrates that you have thoroughly researched and analyzed the problem and made feasible recommendations for addressing it. While you will have to complete your project independently, the instructor, your peers, and an advisor you choose will provide support, guidance, and feedback to help you complete the project successfully.
One of the most difficult challenges of this process is to identify and clearly define the topic and purpose of your research, analysis, and paper. The topic needs to be broad and significant enough to represent a worthwhile problem, yet narrow enough that it is feasible to address in about two months. Therefore, you are required to develop a project proposal statement in the first module of the course to ensure you have such a substantive yet manageable project and a clear vision for how to complete it. Ideally, you should have begun to define and develop the focus of your capstone prior to the start of the course and are simply refining it now.
Thesis: A thesis statement makes an assertion about the topic and often includes the particular perspective or position of the author. For example, if the paper addresses a controversial issue, the thesis statement would make an assertion that indicates the author’s conclusion or perspective about that issue. For instance, “Head Start practices should be revised to better engage the parents of the participants.”
Purpose: A purpose statement provides the reader with the purpose of the paper and what to expect in it. For example, the purpose of the paper could be to identify steps that could be taken to improve the benefits of Head Start.
If you need further guidance on narrowing your topic,
On the Importance Clearly and Compelling Defining Your Problem:
“The first section of a paper is the most crucial because readers form initial judgments of the quality of a paper, proposal, or whatever on-line, and initial impressions are unlikely to change if a dull or confused introduction is later followed by brilliant writing in other sections. When I once served on the NSF panel, reading several hundred proposals a year, I compared notes with other panelists, all of whom agreed that we had made pretty solid fund,” no fund” decisions from reading page 1, which rarely were altered by finishing the proposal. So, if you don’t capture interest in the problem section, you’ve probably lost the game before the first inning starts. Your challenge is to present the problem, the big picture context of what your work is and why, briefly in a manner that teases the reader into wanting to know the details that come later. This is very hard to do, but its success is so critical that this should be your most careful prose, word for word getting more attention than anything else you write.” –James A. Stimson, Professional Writing in Political Science: A Highly Opinionated Essay, n.d.