Conspiracy Theory
PWR 1 Fall Quarter 2008
Jonah G. Willihnganz
Stanford University

The Research Proposal
Audience: Frehsman Class at Stanford
1 page, single spaced
3 Copies Due in class, and upload Coursework (in Research Proposals folder in Materials section) by 12noon Thursday Oct 16

Once you have decided on a topic and begun your research, you need to draft a formal research proposal. A research proposal is a concise and focused statement of what you hope to find out through your research, your working thesis (or hypothesis), and why your avenue of research is important.  The proposal should be written as a set of component parts rather than as a flowing narrative. It should be about 1 page, typed, single-spaced. Please do not write more than two pages. Use the following four headings to structure your proposal (literally—use them as below). You will need to write at least a couple of sentences on each section, and some sections will require more. Please give your proposal a title.

Issue: In this section, describe the inquiry of your research—the object of analysis, its context, and your central question(s).  If you are proposing to research a particular conspiracy theory (e.g., about Roswell or the US Monetary system), describe in a few sentences what the theory is and what controversy or phenomenon it addresses or attempts to explain (its context). If you are proposing to research a set of conspiracy narratives (films, stories, etc.), describe the narratives, how they are related, and what controversy or phenomenon it addresses or attempts to explain (its context). (If you are doing a combination, give information about both the theory and the narratives.)  Whether you focus on a theory or a set of narratives, conclude with one or two sentences formulating an interesting, arguable question which your paper will try to answer. What do you want to know that you don't know now? As we have discussed in class, we are mostly interested in what the theories or narratives suggest about our culture, not whether or not they are true.

Position: In this section, formulate your initial, presumably somewhat tentative, position on what the work of your chosen artist(s) does and why this is important or effective. Explain why you (initially) feel compelled to argue that particular position. Your position will, of course, change in the process of your research, but describe here your provisional stance and defend your reasoning. This is, in essence, your project’s hypothesis.

Research Strategy: In this section, present a specific plan for your research. Based on this preliminary research, what aspects of the issue seem to you most important to research? What sorts of evidence, information, or analysis will be necessary to undertaking your research (primary texts, goverment documents, polls, interviews, transcripts, interpretive criticism, history, biography, reviews, blogs, etc.)? What specific library databases or scholarly web sites are appropriate to your particular topic? Why or how are these databases relevant to your research?

Significance: In this section, explain why you think your particular inquiry matters to the public, to academics, and/or conspiracy theorists, and how it relates to the inquiry of our course. This is your chance to show your reader that your proposed research is significant, interesting, and worth doing. You can do this by identifying what is at stake—what might be affacted by your inquiry. What is the big picture or the larger cultural argument in which your research intervenes? If it seems difficult to establish significance for a general reader, focus first on establishing significance for those in your “conversation.”