FYP Law and Accounting:
Writing the Research
Proposal
Íde O’Sullivan, Lawrence Cleary
Regional Writing Centre, UL
www.ul.ie/rwc
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Workshop
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Freewriting / writing to prompts
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The research proposal
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The writing process
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Planning:
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Assessing the rhetorical situation
Establishing an Organising Principle
Strategies to develop writing
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Writing to prompts (Murray 2005)
“An area of Law and Accounting that I
would like to research is …… “
 Keep writing non-stop for 5 minutes.
 Write in sentences.
 Do not edit or censor your writing.
 Discuss what you have written in pairs.
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Joining the conversation
 Broad and narrow conversations
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Research proposal
Title
 Background
 Research question and objectives
 Method
 Initial bibliography
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Writing a ‘page 98 paper’
My research question is …
 Researchers who have looked at this
subject are …
 They argue that …
 Debate centres on the issue of …
 There is work to be done on …
 My research is closest to that of X in
that …
 My contribution will be …
(Murray 2006:104)
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The writing process
Prewriting
 Drafting
 Revising
 Editing and Proofreading
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Prewriting
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Planning
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Evaluating the rhetorical situation, or context,
into which you write
Choosing and focusing your topic
Establishing an organising principle
Gathering information
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Entering the discourse on your topic
Taking notes as a strategy to avoid charges of
plagiarism
Evaluating sources
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Planning: Assessing
the rhetorical situation
Occasion
 Audience
 Topic
 Purpose
 Writer
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Occasion
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What has prompted you to write?
What do I need to know?
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My guidelines tell me about procedures that I
must follow.
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What are my obligations?
What are the procedures?
When is it due? How much time do I have?
What’s involved?
When do I submit a proposal?
Do I need to submit project reports? When?
When do I submit my finished document? Do I need to
defend my discoveries orally?
What kind of project will I choose?
How do I write about it?
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Occasion
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When we consider the occasion for
writing, we think about
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What has prompted me to write?
How much writing do I have to do?
How much time do I have to do it?
How much time should I allot for planning and
organising, and for drafting and revising?
What tone should I adopt? Formal? Informal?
Authoritative? Conciliatory? Assertive?
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Audience
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Your audience affects how you write.
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Terms that need not be explained for one
audience, may need to be explained to other
audiences.
General audiences may not have your subject
knowledge, but they are usually thought of as
intelligent, thoughtful readers willing to be
informed or persuaded.
Your classmates make good audiences. Write
for them. Let them read your dissertation and
give you feedback on the ease with which they
were able to read and understand it.
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Topic
Your topic is something that will have your
supervisor’s approval.
 Some things to think about:
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How much do you already know about this
topic?
How much am I going to have to know in order
to do this project and report on it? To say
something meaningful?
How much research am I going to have to do?
How much time do I have to do it?
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Topic
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Strategies for choosing topics and
narrowing or broadening the coverage you
will give it.
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Taking suggestions from your supervisor
Brainstorming (individually or in groups)
Listing
Clustering or mind-mapping
Free-writing or discussing
Asking wh-questions—who, what, when,
where, how and why?
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Topic
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Topics do not stand in isolation. They exist
in a context.
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What is the relationship of your topic to your
course of study?
What are people saying about your topic in the
literature you have read?
What are the issues of concern?
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Purpose
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What is your purpose for writing?
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To express your feelings?
To inform?
To persuade?
As you draft, revise and edit, make sure
that every contribution to your report
works to realise that purpose.
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Purpose
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If informing is the purpose of your report,
then the point of order is a triangulation of
your audience, your topic and your
purpose.
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Audience analysis
Relevance
Rhetorical appeals
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Writer
What do I already know about this topic?
 How quickly do I learn? Read? Write?
 How much writing have I already done?
 Have I developed an academic or
authoritative voice?
 Have I addressed this audience before?
 What are my weaknesses? What are my
strengths?
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The writing process
Drafting
 Revision
 Editing and Proofreading
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We will return to these in November
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Dialogue about writing
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Peer-review
Generative writing
The “writing sandwich” (Murray 2005:85):
writing, talking, writing
Writing “buddies” (Murray and Moore
2006:102)
Writers’ groups
Engaging in critiques of one another’s work
allows you to become effective critics of your
own work.
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Resources
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Ebest, S.B., Alred, G., Brusaw, C.T. and Oliu, W.E.
(2005) Writing from A to Z: The Easy-to-use
Reference Handbook, 5th edition. New York: McGrawHill.
Regional Writing Centre, UL http://www.ul.ie/rwc/
Strunk, W. and White, E.B. (2000) The Elements of
Style, 4th ed. New York: Longman.
Using English for Academic Purposes
http://www.uefap.com/index.htm
The Writer’s Garden http://www.
cyberlyber.com/writermain.htm
The OWL at Purdue http://owl.english.purdue.edu/
The Writing Center at the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill http://www.unc.edu/depts
/wcweb/handouts/index.html
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