Assignment:
Write a short proposal for your Capstone assignment. The proposal should have the following structure of paragraphs.
The first paragraph should:
• Clearly and prominently state the research question.
• Provide necessary background information, if background information is necessary to
understand the research question. (This will depend on the topic.)
• Briefly summarize why the research question is interesting or important.
There should be one or more paragraphs discussing the data that is available to answer the question. These paragraphs should:
• Indicate how data is to be obtained for information on the key outcome (LHS) in the analysis.
• Indicate how data is to be obtained for information on the key explanatory variable in the analysis.
• Describe the scope and structure of the data on each of these variables. For example, is the data panel data, cross-sectional data, or time series data? What are the time periods, and what are the entities? How many observations are there?
There should be one or more paragraphs discussing key challenges in answering the research question, and strategies for addressing these challenges. You should focus on issues of cause and effect. For example, if there are issues of causal directionality (reverse causation) in the relationship in your research question, you must acknowledge them and describe what strategy you plan to use in order to isolate the causal relationship of interest.
Throughout the proposal, you should focus on succinctness, and clear structure. Do not write two paragraphs if one will do. The maximum allowable length is two pages double-spaced; I expect that most of the best proposals will be much shorter than that.
Formatting and length guidelines:
• Use Times New Roman font, size 12
• Use double spacing
• All page margins should be 1 inch
• Maximum length of 2 pages
• No minimum length