Business of Sustainability: Term Paper Proposal

Summary: The term paper proposal is announced in the Business of Sustainability syllabus but explained here. The proposal is worth 6 points and is due by class time on February 25.

Syllabus | Schedule

Term Paper Proposal Format

The term project proposal is a crucial step in the development of a high quality research report. Once your proposal is accepted, you can not change your topic without approval and submission of another proposal.

A useful term project proposal contains these five essential elements:

  1. A title and subtitle which identifies your topic to the reader.
  2. A carefully crafted theme paragraph with a clearly stated and highlighted theme sentence.
  3. An outline and/or a strategy for the implementation of the project.
    • An outline lists the sequence of development beginning with an introduction and ending with a conclusion. It's what's in between that really counts.
    • A strategy clearly and concisely explains how you will approach your paper, providing enough detail so that your professor can feel confident that you can get the job done.
  4. An annotated bibliography of at least four sources, with a short explanation of how each reference supports your work.
  5. A personal statement which explains to me how you feel about the project and how confident you are that you can carry it out.
  6. Optional: Please attach a sample of a paper that you have written in the past year. Please include any notes you wish to make explaining the context, the course, and how you feel about the paper.

Grading

As displayed in the grading topic of the syllabus, the term project proposal counts six points. However, the proposal has strategic value beyond that. An outstanding proposal which can fully support a very promising project gets the full six points. An adequate, but still useful proposal gets less but provides important corrective feedback. The success of the proposal leads to the completion of a higher quality final report. The more supportive of a promising final project, the higher the score.

Do overs are allowed and even encouraged. I want you to get this right.

Submission

Please submit the proposal as a MS Word document attached to an email sent to me at whayes@ramapo.edu. The document is due by class time class on February 25.

©Wayne Hayes, Ph.D. | Initialized: 2/9/2013| Last Update: 09/24/2013 | V. 0.1 Build #1