JOUR MA Program
Professional Project Option
Professional Project Option
The professional project proposal describes in detail the project a student proposes to
complete for the thesis and includes all of the following sections. Generally the text of the
proposal is between 10 and 15 double-spaced pages long, excluding tables, references,
etc. All sources must be provided and cited using an accepted style (typically APA or
MLA). The major criteria for assessing projects include their usefulness and relevance,
quality of information and content, and quality of design and execution. The project must
be feasible and meet or exceed the relevant professional, ethical and/or technical
standards.
All JOUR MA students, including those completing a project, must find out whether
Institutional Review Board approval for conducting research with or interviewing human subjects
is needed, and if needed obtain that approval, BEFORE you begin work on your thesis project.
Contact irb@uark.edu with questions after you review the guidelines and information at
www.uark.edu/admin/rsspinfo/compliance/ and http://vpred.uark.edu/210.php first.
Section 1—Purpose and Need (Executive Summary/Rationale/)
The first section identifies the type of project and why the work you propose to do is
useful to and/or needed by the intended audience. Clearly explain what the issue,
problem, opportunity, or topic is and why the project is either needed by the profession,
organization, and/or industry.
For example, if you propose a series of print, online and video articles regarding the
problem of homelessness in Arkansas, or proposed a social marketing plan for a nonprofit organization that works with the homeless, you’d include government statistics
about the numbers of homeless people in Arkansas, describe the problems they face, how
local and state entities address the problem, how nonprofit organizations address the
problem, the major issues related to homelessness, what factors lead to homelessness, etc.
In other words, clearly explain what the issue, problem, opportunity, or topic is and
why the project is either needed by the profession, organization, and/or industry.
This section should be at least two, detailed, double-spaced pages.
Section 2—Analysis of Previous Work (Professional/Industry, Government and Scholarly
Literature Review)
The second section corresponds to the literature review chapter in a traditional thesis.
In this section you investigate and analyze prior professional and scholarly work on your
proposed topic. If applicable, you also review government reports, data and policies
regarding your topic. This enables you to develop an original project that does not
duplicate previous work, identifies the major aspects or topics to be addressed, identifies
what sub-topics were neglected or reported erroneously in previous work, builds upon yet
differs from previous work or what others have done, emulates the best work you find
and avoid the mistakes of others.
Using the first earlier example, if you were working on a project about the homeless
in Arkansas, you might conduct a Lexis-Nexis search to identify longer professional
articles dealing with homelessness published in newspapers and other publications
JOUR MA Review Response p. 2
throughout the United States. You would analyze the better in-depth articles to identify
the material and approaches others have taken to the subject.
You’d also conduct a ProQuest or Ebsco search of scholarly articles on the important
sub-topics you identify for your project. You would summarize the major findings from
these scholarly articles by sub-topic. This allows you to identify major recommendations
for your stories or the types of experts to contact and interview for your professional
project. You’d also search for information and statistics from the relevant government
agencies or entities. This government information is summarized and will help you to
identify potential experts to interview for your project as well.
Your goal is identify the best practices, content, and sources for your project. More
important, you identify the original, new aspects to include in your project that were
lacking in previous work. This section should be at least five double-spaced pages long.
Section 3—Methods
The third section corresponds to the methods chapter of a traditional thesis. Here you
explain exactly what you propose to do, how you’ll do it, develop a timeline, identify the
major types of sources, etc. In other words, this section outlines in concise detail what
you propose to do for your project and how and when you plan to do it.
The main purpose here is to state explicitly what the end product will be and what
steps you will take to produce that end product. You’ll also discuss the particular skills
and knowledge you’ll use to complete the project, as well as any necessary expertise
you’ll need to learn or acquire to complete the project. Either identify courses to be taken
to complete that knowledge or explain how you’ll develop the necessary expertise
through other training, etc.
For example, if you are proposing a series of articles on the homeless in Arkansas,
you identify the primary focus and purpose of each story, propose how long the stories
will be, how many stories will there be, in what formats and media are they produced,
and from which sources the content be obtained, etc. Obviously, this may change
somewhat as you delve into the reporting process, but you must demonstrate that there is
sufficient source material and relevant topics to begin with an idea of what you plan to
cover in each story. You must explain how you’ll obtain permission for the use of any
relevant content you do not produce.
If you’re proposing to produce a Web site, what type of content do you expect it to
include, and from what sources will that content be drawn? Will you produce all of it, or
will some be drawn from other sources? For content you don’t produce, you will need to
explain how you will obtain permissions for use of the content.
Also include an analysis of the target venues or outlets in which you’d expect your
work to appear. For example, if you planned to publish articles online and in print for the
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette or Arkansas Times, you’d conduct a thorough review of
previous articles and material these outlets published on your topic. You’d summarize
that to identify how your proposed material would fit in the relevant outlet(s) and build
upon or expand previous reporting. For each outlet, you could analyze the audience to
develop a thorough understanding of what audience needs or interests may be served,
what tone a magazine uses to address readers, etc. This section should be about five
double spaced pages long.
JOUR MA Review Response p. 3
For the social marketing plan example, this section explains and justifies the need and
appropriateness of conducting primary formative research for the planning and execution
(if applicable) of the project, and outlines the steps involved in the design and
implementation of the research or plan. The primary research may be original analysis of
secondary/archival evidence or other social science methods to pretest the messages such
as focus groups. Whatever methods are used, you must explain the details of the method
and justify why the method you choose is the most appropriate for planning and
designing your project, including obtaining approval from the UA’s Institutional Review
Board (IRB), if applicable.
The steps in explaining how you’ll complete the plan and test it include outlining the
aspects of the social marketing plan to be developed; presenting the procedures and
materials to be approved by the UA’s IRB for any relevant research conducted; a detailed
description of the research design; a description and justification of the sampling method
used; providing the instrument/materials/questionnaire and other relevant materials such
as the moderator guide for the focus group, etc.; data analysis and statistical tests to be
used; and any other relevant detailed descriptions of aspects of the project.
Section 4 – Bibliography
All sources used in the project proposal must be included. The sources must be cited
in the paper and referenced here using an accepted style (e.g., APA or MLA). Students
are expected to familiarize themselves with the proper and ethical methods of using and
referencing sources. Students are expected to know what plagiarism is and how to use
source material appropriately and accurately.
Section 5 – Appendixes (Optional)
If the student has any other relevant materials to include (e.g., a timeline, data charts
or tables, questionnaires or instruments, etc.) they belong in this section.
The project proposal is to be approved by the student’s Thesis Committee before she
or he begins work on the thesis.