Module 4 – Research Proposal
You've listened, traced, and mapped. Now you speak.
When Bruffee (1984), drawing on Oakeshott's (1962) concept of "the conversation of humankind," described learning as being dropped into a foreign land surrounded by unfamiliar dialects and customs, he wasn't just describing disorientation. He was describing a trajectory. The traveler who arrives confused and silent doesn't stay that way. Over time, through careful listening and practice, they learn to hear the difference between dialects, to decode the customs, to understand not just what people are saying but why they say it the way they do. That is what this course has asked of you.
In Module 1 you listened: closely, analytically, to how PTC researchers construct authority through rhetorical and genre choices. In Module 2 you learned how researchers use literature reviews and citations to position their work within ongoing scholarly conversations, and how that positioning is itself a form of credentialing, a performance of belonging. In Module 3 you mapped the epistemological terrain: charting how different communities see differently, not just speak differently. Across all of it you have moved through the dialects of Creatives, Designers, Interpreters, Scientists, and Scholars.
Now you have the opportunity to speak back: to create new knowledge. This capstone invites you to design an original research proposal: to define a significant question, situate it within a scholarly or workplace conversation, and justify methods appropriate to your community and epistemological stance. In doing so, you claim your place as an ethical, reflective, and creative agent in the collaborative process of inquiry that Kenneth Bruffee calls "the conversation of humankind."
Don't forget that how you conduct research is determined by the methodological community your are speaking to. It really helps to have a specific work context, magazine, or journal in mind.
Hallucination warning: applies to both deliverables
GenAI tools frequently fabricate plausible-sounding quotations and statistics. In a research proposal, where the credibility of your sources is the foundation of your argument, a fabricated citation is not a minor error. Before submitting either deliverable, use Ctrl+F to verify every direct quotation and every statistic against the actual source text.
Penalty: A hallucinated quotation or fabricated citation results in an F for that assignment. Repeated hallucinations across deliverables result in an F for the course.
Stage 1 · Nov 20 · Pass/Fail
Preliminary Draft
A genuine first attempt at all required sections. Not polished, but not a placeholder either.
100 pts · Canvas
Capstone · Dec 1 · Graded
Final Proposal + 60-Second Pitch
A polished, persuasive research proposal and a recorded video pitch. Your capstone for the course.
500 pts · Canvas · Metacognitive Report required
Module 4
What You’re Building
You’ve listened to how PTC researchers construct authority through rhetorical and genre choices. You’ve traced the conversations that shape a field through literature reviews and citation practices. You’ve mapped the epistemological commitments that make communities see differently, not just speak differently. Now you speak.
A research proposal is a persuasive argument that something is worth investigating. The research hasn’t happened yet: the rigor is in the plan. You are convincing a reader that your question matters, that you understand the landscape well enough to locate a genuine gap, and that your methods are the right ones for the question you’re asking. A proposal that jumps to solutions, or that presents findings before data has been gathered, has misunderstood the genre.
Your community identity, established in Module 3, anchors everything here. Creatives, Designers, Interpreters, Scientists, and Scholars don’t just use different methods. They ask different kinds of questions and hold different standards of evidence. Your proposal should reflect those commitments, not just gesture at them.
A note on genre
Research proposals range from a single page to a hundred. NSF proposals run to hundreds of pages with budgets, letters of support, and CVs. For this course, your proposal is a focused scholarly argument: 750–1,000 words, APA 7, and a one-minute pitch. The sections below are standard across proposal genres. Learn them here and they’ll transfer anywhere.
Stage 1 · Pass/Fail · Due Nov 20
Preliminary Draft
All required sections present and genuine · 100 points
What this stage develops: the habit of committing to a question before you’re certain, and the discipline of making a plan rigorous enough to defend.
The Preliminary Draft is not a polished document. It is a substantive attempt: real sources, a real question, real methods thinking. Every required section should be present and show genuine effort. A placeholder (“I’ll add my literature review here”) is a failing draft. A section that names real sources, even if the synthesis isn’t complete, is a passing one.
Submit as a PDF to the Canvas dropbox by Nov 20. If you used GenAI, submit a Metacognitive Report attestation and table in the same dropbox.
Pass threshold
All required sections are present. At least three sources are cited. The research question is investigative, not prescriptive. The methods section names an approach and connects it to a community.
Fail threshold
One or more required sections are missing or are placeholder text. No sources are cited. The “question” is a solution in disguise (“How can we fix…” “What should organizations do to…”). A hallucinated citation results in an F for this assignment.
Capstone · Graded · Due Dec 1
Final Proposal + 60-Second Pitch
A polished argument for research worth doing · 500 points · Metacognitive Report required
What this capstone develops: the ability to enter a scholarly or professional conversation with a credible, community-grounded claim, and to defend it in sixty seconds.
This is your capstone. Everything you’ve developed across the course: your understanding of how knowledge is constructed, how communities evaluate evidence, how literature reviews establish territory, comes to bear here. A strong proposal doesn’t just follow a template. It argues. It positions your question inside an ongoing conversation and shows why that question is the right next move.
Required Sections
Length: 750–1,000 words (not including References). Write in first person: this is your proposal, own it. Include your name and word count in the upper left.
| Section | Question it answers | Guidance |
|---|---|---|
| Title | What is this proposal called? | 10 words maximum. Specific and engaging: not a topic, a question or claim. |
| Project Summary | What is this proposal about? | 250 words maximum. A standalone overview: your gap or problem, your question, your methods, your expected contribution. Write it last. |
| Background and Rationale | Why does this question need to be asked? | Synthesize your sources to establish territory and define your niche. If your question emerges from a gap in the literature, establish the scholarly conversation. If it emerges from a workplace problem, describe what you learned through stakeholder discovery and what remains unknown. Sources should be synthesized, not summarized one by one. |
| Methods | How will you investigate it? | Name your methodological community. Describe your approach step by step, clearly enough that a reader can assess its rigor. Explain why these methods fit your question. You are not reporting findings; you are arguing that this approach will generate the kind of knowledge your community values. |
| Timeline | How long will it take? | A week-by-week schedule or Gantt chart. Be realistic: a timeline that compresses six weeks of data collection into one is unconvincing. |
| Researcher Identity | Why are you the right person to ask this? | Briefly identify your community, explain why this question matters to you, and note what your coursework (rhetorical analysis, literature review, epistemological mapping) has positioned you to see. Not a CV. Two to three sentences that establish you as someone inside this conversation. |
| Ethics and AI Disclosure | How will you conduct this research responsibly? | Address how you will engage with sources and participants ethically. Because this is a class project rather than conducted research, IRB approval is not required. If you were to carry out a study involving human participants such as interviews or surveys, those protocols would require IRB review before data collection could begin. If you used generative AI, disclose it here and attach a Metacognitive Report. |
| References | What sources did you draw on? | APA 7 format. Every in-text citation has a corresponding reference list entry. Introduce citations by author name and year: not by article title. |
Finding Your Research Question
Look back at what you’ve built across Modules 1–3. What questions emerged from your rhetorical analyses, your literature review, your epistemological map? What gaps did you identify? What debates remain unresolved? A research proposal is an opportunity to pursue one of those threads: to move from analyzing others’ research to proposing your own.
Investigative vs. prescriptive questions
A research question opens inquiry: it does not assume a solution. Compare:
✗ Prescriptive: “How should organizations train employees to use AI tools responsibly?”
✓ Investigative: “How are mid-size PTC firms currently integrating AI tools into documentation workflows, and what tensions have emerged?”
The prescriptive version has already decided there’s a problem and is looking for a fix. The investigative version is genuinely open: the researcher doesn’t know what they’ll find.
Your Community Shapes Your Methods
Your methodological community, established in Module 3, determines what counts as a valid question and what counts as evidence. Don’t choose methods because they seem manageable and then assign yourself to a community. Start with the question, identify the kind of knowledge it requires, and let the community follow from that.
| Community | Characteristic question | Methods in this proposal |
|---|---|---|
| Creatives | What can this form express or reveal? | Creative methods: artifact-making, speculative design, narrative inquiry |
| Designers | What solution will work for these users in this context? | Design research methods: user research, prototyping, usability testing |
| Interpreters | What meanings do participants make of their experience? | Qualitative methods: interviews, ethnography, discourse analysis |
| Scientists | What patterns can be measured and tested? | Quantitative methods: surveys, experiments, statistical analysis |
| Scholars | What does this text, tradition, or archive mean or reveal? | Scholarly/textual methods: historical analysis, rhetorical criticism, hermeneutics |
Note on mixed methods: Many professional and academic researchers draw on more than one tradition. If your project combines approaches, acknowledge that explicitly in your Methods section and explain why the combination serves your question.
Capstone Component · Due Dec 1
The 60-Second Pitch
Speak to camera. Make every second count.
What this develops: the discipline of compression: the ability to defend a research idea in the time it takes to ride an elevator.
A 60-second pitch is harder than it sounds. You have no room for throat-clearing or hedging. Every sentence must earn its place. This constraint mirrors real-world contexts: grant panels where applicants get five minutes, investor pitches where founders get sixty seconds, conference lightning talks where scholars get three slides.
Structure Your Pitch
| Move | Time | What to accomplish |
|---|---|---|
| The Hook | ~15 seconds | Name the gap or the problem. Why should your audience care? What’s at stake? |
| The Approach | ~30 seconds | Name your community and explain how you’ll investigate the question. What will you analyze, observe, or build? Why is this the right approach? |
| The Payoff | ~15 seconds | What will we know or be able to do once your research is complete? Who benefits? |
Technical Requirements
✓ 60 seconds maximum. Aim for 55–60 seconds.
✓ Format: MP4, MOV, or a shareable link (YouTube, Vimeo, Loom).
✓ Speak directly to camera. Brief visuals or slides are welcome, but your face and voice anchor the pitch.
✓ No reading: you may glance at notes, but do not read a script verbatim.
Tips
Practice aloud. What reads well often sounds stilted. Revise for the ear.
Cut jargon. Pitch to an intelligent colleague outside your field.
Lead with urgency. Don’t start with “My name is…” or “For my project I’m going to…” Start with the problem.
End with confidence. Your final sentence should land. Don’t trail off.
Module 4
Evaluation
This proposal is a capstone. The criteria below draw directly from the analytical work you’ve done across Modules 1–3: authority assessment, literature review and citation practices, and epistemological mapping. Strong work here demonstrates mastery across the course, not just completion of a final assignment.
Final Proposal (375 points)
| Criterion | Points | What strong work looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Research Question and Rationale From M2: establishing territory, identifying the niche, synthesizing sources |
150 | The question is investigative, not prescriptive. The Background and Rationale synthesizes sources rather than summarizing them one by one, and locates a genuine gap: a debate unresolved, a context unstudied, a problem insufficiently understood. The literature review draws on Module 2 skills: sources are introduced by author name and year, connections between sources are argued rather than assumed. A hallucinated citation or fabricated statistic results in an F for the entire assignment. |
| Methodological Fit From M3: community identity, epistemological alignment |
135 | The methods match the question and the community’s epistemological commitments: not just its method category. A Scientist proposing interviews without explanation raises a fit question; a Scholar proposing surveys does the same. The proposal explains not just what the methods are but why they are the right tools for generating the kind of knowledge this question requires. |
| Clarity, Citation and Persuasion From M1 and M2: rhetorical awareness, prose quality, citation integrity |
90 | The proposal reads as a coherent argument, not a filled-in template. Claims are specific: concrete methods, realistic timelines, genuine sources. Citations are introduced by author name and year. The prose is direct and readable; abstractions are grounded in specifics. A reader who knows nothing about the project would finish it convinced the question is worth pursuing. |
| Total | 375 |
60-Second Pitch (125 points)
| Criterion | Points | What strong work looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Clarity and Focus | 40 | The gap or problem is immediately clear. A viewer can summarize the project after one viewing. |
| Methodological Fit | 55 | The presenter conveys not just what the methods are but why they are right for this question. Community identity is clear. |
| Delivery | 30 | Confident, clear, and direct. Pacing fits the time constraint. Does not read from a script. |
| Total | 125 |
Where could this go next?
Strong proposals don’t have to stay in a Canvas dropbox. USF’s Undergraduate Research program and the Honors College both support student research. Beyond USF, the National Council of Teachers of English, ATTW, and CPTSC host undergraduate and emerging scholar competitions. If your proposal is strong, consider where it might live beyond this course.
Both Deliverables
Metacognitive Report
Required if GenAI was used · Attestation + table for the Preliminary Draft · Attestation + table + 250-word narrative for the Capstone
For full guidance, examples, and the complete list of legitimate AI roles, see Metacognitive Report: AI Writing Ethics: Balancing Agency, Voice and Disclosure.
For the Preliminary Draft
Include a two- to three-sentence attestation confirming that you directed all GenAI use, reviewed and revised all AI-assisted content, and that the ideas, argument, and final language are your own. Then include a GenAI usage table (one table per tool used). Submit in the same Canvas dropbox as your draft.
| Step in Writing Process | No. of Chats | Role | Notes on Use | Chat Log URL |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prewriting: identifying a research gap | 2 | Thought Partner, Research Assistant | I asked Claude to help me identify gaps in the literature on AI and documentation workflows. It generated a plausible-sounding list, but two of the sources it cited don’t exist. I discarded those and used Google Scholar to find real studies on the topic. The gap I’m investigating came from reading those actual sources, not from the AI’s list. | https://… |
For the Capstone
The attestation and table are required, plus a minimum 250-word narrative with four sections:
Overview: Tools used and why
Critical Moments: 2–3 key iterations where your judgment diverged from the tool’s output and you redirected it
Reflection: How AI use shaped your thinking and how you maintained your own voice and argument across both the proposal and the pitch
Takeaway: What you learned about working with GenAI on a high-stakes capstone assignment
Video pitch: separate upload required
Because the Capstone includes a recorded video pitch, your Metacognitive Report cannot be embedded in the pitch. Upload it as a separate PDF document in the same Canvas dropbox as your proposal and pitch. Label it clearly: “Metacognitive Report — [Your Name].”
The Critical Moments section is the most diagnostic. A student who can describe two or three specific moments of redirecting the AI has demonstrated active rather than passive use. A student who cannot is probably using the AI as a ghostwriter and has no story to tell about their own thinking.
| Criterion | What Earns Full Points |
|---|---|
| Required Components and Specificity | Attestation, table, chat log URLs, and word count all present, accurate, and specific. Concrete examples from this assignment, no vague generalities. Video pitch report uploaded as a separate PDF. |
| Critical Analysis of Agency and Lessons Learned | Honest discussion of when and why you accepted AI-generated text, what you changed or kept, and what that choice reveals about your judgment as a writer and researcher. Accepted passages identified and defended, not just mentioned. |
| Clarity, Organization, and Authentic Voice | Logical flow, concise sentences; authentic voice evident. The report itself does not read as AI-generated. |
APA 7 note: citing Writing Commons articles
All Writing Commons articles used in this proposal should be cited as authored by Moxley, J. M., not by “Writing Commons.” Writing Commons is the publisher, not the author.
Example in-text: (Moxley, n.d.)
Example reference entry: Moxley, J. M. (n.d.). Title of article. Writing Commons. https://writingcommons.org/…
