The University of Leicester is a leading research led university with a strong tradition of excellence in teaching.

It was named University of the Year of 2008 by the Times Higher Education when the judges described Leicester as “elite without being elitist.” Leicester is consistently ranked amongst the top 20 universities in the United Kingdom. The University is most famous for the invention of Genetic Fingerprinting and for the discovery of the remains of King Richard III.

Course: Discovering Your Ph.D. Potential: Writing a Research Proposal

Learn how to research and write a high-quality research proposal for postgraduate applications.

Starts on 4 September 2017

Duration 5 weeks - 2 hours per week - FREE online course

Learn how to write an excellent research proposal for a postgraduate application

A carefully prepared and thorough research proposal is usually crucial for applications for advanced or doctoral study and can provide the launchpad for the first stages of that postgraduate study.

This online course will give you the awareness, skills, and tools to write a well thought-out and achievable research proposal, helping you improve the quality of your postgraduate applications. It will also give you a taste of the self-study required in postgraduate doctoral research.

The course focuses on Social Sciences, Arts, and Humanities, but much of the content is relevant to all disciplines.

What topics will you cover?

• Introduction to doctoral research;
• Funding your study;
• Defining the problem and writing a research question;
• Writing a literature review;
• Research design and methodology;
• How to construct your proposal.

What will you achieve?

By the end of the course, you'll be able to...

• Identify why you want to do a Ph.D. and whether your expectations are realistic;
• Explore the main requirements, structures, and problems with aiming to undertake a Ph.D.;
• Demonstrate how to set a realistic, manageable and impactful research question;
• Compare deductive and inductive research questions;
• Describe and be able to implement the steps required to writing a literature review, including doing a literature search, planning, organizing and writing the literature review;
• Discuss what kind of theoretical approach would be useful for your research proposal;
• Compare the differences between ontology, epistemology, different research designs, and methodology;
• Summarise what you have learned from this course into a first draft of a research proposal.

Who is the course for?

This course has been created primarily for postgraduate research applicants, but it might also be useful for those who want to learn more about developing well-founded and challenging research bids for purposes other than postgraduate research degrees.

Please go to the course link for further detailed information and enrollment:

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/research-question?lr=7.