The Role of Trade and Investment in Poverty Reduction

Choosing a topic: First, think of topics that interest you. Then narrow your focus. Use your own experiences, perhaps there is a problem you’ve already solved that can be done on a broader scale. Need some inspiration? Check out these topic ideas!Links to an external site.

Project format: Your final project will be an eight to ten-page project proposal. The page length is intentionally short so that you can focus on producing a high caliber and well-considered proposal. All proposals should be at least eight to ten pages double spaced pages of text in 12 point font. Your project should have the format and sections described below. You must use APA 7th edition format.

Title: Choose a title that explains the importance and scope of your proposed research.

Paper Format:

Introduction (1 page): The introduction in a research paper is placed at the beginning to guide the reader from a broad subject area to the specific topic that your research addresses. They present the following information to the reader:
Scope: The topic covered in the research paper
Context: Background of your topic
Importance: Why your research matters in that particular area of study and the industry problem that can be targeted
Literature Review (4-6 pages): Your literature review will be the substance of your project. You will provide in-depth background information about your topic. You will also describe the current state of knowledge and the unresolved questions in the field. The best introductions read like a “story” or “argument” where you lead the reader to understand why you will study what you want to study. In your literature review, you need to reference a minimum of 10 scientific articles. These can be a combination of primary literature articles and review articles in scientific journals but cannot be websites or popular press articles.
You will want to try to utilize this section of the essay to make a connection to the following criteria of Essential Knowledge, Understanding Global System, and Global Self-Awareness on the rubric.
Objectives (1 page): Here is where you very explicitly state your question and summarize what you will do to answer that question. The level of detail may vary from project to project but you need to make sure that your readers understand the scope of your question and your general approach to answering it
Research approach (1 page): Here is where you describe what you will do for your study. This will be a more fleshed out version of the “research synopsis” in your objectives section. You don’t need to propose overly complex methods – you need to focus on developing a realistic study that could be implemented.
How do you design a real scientific study? Here are two good ways to get started.

First, you can find a well-designed study and adapt that study to a different system (e.g., a study that was done in the arctic that you could adapt to answer a question about tropical ecosystems).
Second, you can find a study in a system you are interested in and propose a follow-up study (e.g., design a study to answer a new question that was raised in the discussion section of a primary research article). Note that you cannot just copy someone else’s study. You can be inspired by other researchers, but ultimately your work needs to be creative and needs to be your own!
Significance (1 page): You should conclude your proposal with a discussion of why your research is important. You need to convince your reviewers and the funding agency that your idea will have an impact and that you are worth funding!
In this section, you may want to review and discuss the ethical reasoning criteria on the rubric, as they would help explain the significance of your proposal.
Conclusion (1/2 page): Summarize your proposal and its relevance.
Figure: (not counted in page limit) Prepare one figure that will help your readers understand your project proposal. It can be a diagram of your experimental design, images to help bring the proposal to life, etc.
References: (not counted in page limit) Your references should be cited in a consistent manner, using APA citation. Check out this resource for more information on how to format citations in APA.Links to an external site.

Last Completed Projects