Project proposal

The project proposal is your chance to get creative and propose a little developmental language science of your own. Here is the basic workflow we suggest:

  1. Identify an empirical paper from class that caught your interest (your “key paper”)
  2. Use Google Scholar or UofC library resources to find empirical papers that cite that key paper
  3. Look at the empirical papers cited in the key paper’s references section
  4. Skim the abstracts of the empirical papers you found to get a broader idea of the scientific context of your key paper. If a paper seems especially interesting to you, skim the body of the paper too.
  5. Generate at least two “iterative” study ideas: These are research study ideas that use mostly the same methods as reported in a paper you read, with the exception of one or two small changes that you think might make a difference.
  6. Generate at least two study ideas that build more freely on a research concept: These are research study ideas for which you begin with a hypothesis or core question based on your key and extra empirical papers… and then you create a study design to best suit your hypothesis/question, even if it’s fairly different from any of the individual study methods you came across.
  7. Check in with your TA to discuss your ideas. They can help you choose between them and/or refine them, which will help you write an effective proposal.
  8. Once you have at least two core papers (your key paper and 1+ new ones) for your research idea, spend some time taking reading notes on the new papers—that will allow you to more easily compare the papers most influential in your proposal, specify their respective contributions, and construct a justification for your proposed research.
  9. Draft the proposal and check in again with your TA for feedback.

Structure and format

Your paper should be ~1500 words (max 2500), and clearly include the following (headings are encouraged):

  • Title, student number, and word count
  • Introduction: Motivate and explain your core hypotheses and study ideas. Rather than a literature review of your key papers, this introduction should be built to lead the reader along your thinking and foreshadow your study design and predictions. References to prior work are typically then key pieces of evidence or theoretical perspectives that lead you to the present study.
  • Method: Explain your study design (should be fairly detailed).
  • Discussion: Tell us what it would be mean if your results turned out as anticipated; and what would it mean if not? What is the bigger picture of your study, and what are the relevant next steps (and why)?
  • References: Your key paper, your influential empirical papers (should be 2 or more), and any other relevant references; check with your TA if you’re unsure about including a reference.
  • Figures are optional, but we welcome them if it will help explain some concept more clearly (e.g., stimuli for your proposed experiment, a graph of anticipated results)

Evaluation

In assessing proposals, the grader will ask themselves the following questions:

A. Are the central research question(s) and hypothes(e)s clearly stated and adequately contextualized in the Introduction? Your introduction should lead fairly quickly to describing one or more major questions that your paper deals with. The introduction should stand on its own as a miniature argument for why the research question is worth asking and should be written so that it becomes obvious why you have the hypothes(e)s you do. The reader should be able to quickly extract your stated research questions and hypotheses.

B. Do the Introduction and Discussion make effective use of relevant course concepts? You will have your key paper as a starting inspiration point, but you should be pulling in other concepts from the course as relevant in building up your Introduction and in interpreting possible findings in your Discussion. We encourage students to write their Introduction such that it sets up the reader for the specific issues addressed in the Discussion. Top papers will interweave multiple course concepts in building their argument for the research questions and hypotheses.

C. Does the Methods section highlight the essential information required for replication? Methods should be written at a level such that the reader can imagine the basic set up and procedures of getting participants and collecting data. You will not be able to express every detail of the method, so choose just the essential information such that a smart reader could approximate the study just on the basis of your description. You are welcome to point to external files as references.

D. Are the references complete and in APA format? Self explanatory, but see here if you’re not sure what APA references are.

E. Is the writing easy to follow, detailed (but concise), and persuasive? Top papers will showcase writing that has been carefully edited for typos. We welcome a variety of writing styles and voices, just be clear and persuasive and fulfill the structural requirements of the paper.

Pro tip: Your TAs are your graders! Seeking and integrating their feedback is the best way to ensure you learn efficiently and write a great proposal.

Individual versus team grading Grades will generally be given by the individual grader assigned to each submission. However, grades of D+ and lower will be discussed and verified by the entire grading team.

A note on using AI

For this assignment, we leave it to students to use AI in whatever way best serves their learning. However, students are always responsible for knowing and understanding the ideas presented in their written work. Therefore, we reserve the right to conduct an oral exam on any submission if we suspect plagiarism or over-reliance on AI. If we request an in-person oral exam, it will be scheduled before 5pm on 13 March, 2026.

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