HIST7008 Chap.11 Designing a Capstone Research Proposal
Designing a Capstone Research Proposal
What the proposal is for
The research proposal is the last and heaviest piece of written work in the course, worth thirty per cent, and it looks forward rather than back. It plans the capstone you will research in the second semester if you are full time, or in a later semester if you are part time.
By the time you write it you should already have picked one of the two capstone routes, the Public History Project or the Dissertation.
The lecture slides describe it as the point where the skills of the whole programme come together, and they note that a group submission is open only to students on the public history route.
Weighting the four parts
The outline fixes four parts: a short introduction to what you will write about, a justification of why the topic matters for Hong Kong history, a methodology, and a section on problems, obstacles and limitations.
It also says that the second and third parts should be the most substantial. With a ceiling of under two thousand words, excluding footnotes and bibliography, that means the opening and the closing sections stay lean, and most of your budget goes to arguing for the topic and to showing how you will research it.
The slides add anticipated findings to the fourth part, so a sentence on what you expect to learn fits there.
Arguing for a topic without restating the literature
The justification is where many drafts slide into a reading list. The outline asks you to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of existing research, which turns each study you cite into evidence for a gap.
The rubric shows why this matters: the strongest proposals rest on a thorough understanding of existing studies in the subfield, while the weakest choose a topic that has already been covered or that has no relation to existing work.
Ending each paragraph of the justification on what earlier historians could not see is the simplest way to keep clear of both failures.
Making sources checkable
For the methodology, the outline is unusually concrete. It wants to know how you will approach the topic, what questions you will ask and how you will build an argument, and above all which primary sources you will use and how you will get to them.
It asks you to name websites, repositories, collections and multimedia. The sources essay earlier in the semester is described as a miniature version of this task, so the records you analysed there are a natural starting point.
A reader should be able to take your list and judge, source by source, whether the project can realistically be done within the capstone semester.
Reading the rubric as a revision list
The proposal rubric runs across four bands, A from 80 to 100, B from 60 to 79, C to D from 40 to 59, and F below 40, and it judges four things: the topic and its grounding in existing studies, the selection of primary sources, awareness of the potential and limitations of the study, and the clarity of writing and references.
Because the band descriptors change one phrase at a time, they work well as a checklist for a second draft. Ask which phrase describes each part of your draft now, and revise toward the wording of the band above.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Where the proposal sits before the capstone semester
- 02
Choosing the dissertation or public history route first
- 03
Four parts, with justification and methodology weighted heaviest
- 04
Turning a literature review into a stated gap
- 05
Naming repositories, collections and routes of access
- 06
The sources essay as a rehearsal for the methodology
- 07
Limitations of evidence versus practical obstacles
- 08
Reading the four rubric bands criterion by criterion
Worked example · free
Writing a limitations section that shapes the argument
- 1Separate limits of the evidence from limits of time and word count, and keep only the first kind.
- 2Name the records that may be closed or missing and say what the argument would then rest on.
- 2Identify the bias in which sources survive and which groups they therefore over-represent.
- 2State what oral evidence can and cannot establish, and how it will be checked against written records.
- 1Close by stating what the study can still claim within those limits.
Key terms
- Research Proposal
- A plan of under two thousand words, excluding notes and bibliography, that sets out a capstone topic, its justification, its methodology and its limitations before the research begins.
- Capstone Project
- The substantial piece of research a student carries out after the proposal, taken either as a Public History Project or as a Dissertation, in the second semester or later for part-time students.
- Topic Justification
- The part of a proposal that argues why a topic expands understanding of Hong Kong history by weighing the strengths and weaknesses of existing research on it.
- Primary Source Access
- The stated route by which a named record will be reached, such as a catalogue search, an archive visit, a request or an interview, so that a reader can judge feasibility.
- Limitations Statement
- The part of a proposal that names what the chosen evidence cannot show and how that constrains the argument, as distinct from practical obstacles of time or access.
Designing a Capstone Research Proposal FAQ
How long should a history MA research proposal be?
For this programme the ceiling is under two thousand words, and footnotes and bibliography sit outside that figure, so full Chicago-style notes do not eat into your argument. Because the justification and the methodology are meant to be the largest parts, a sensible plan gives each of them well over a third of the total and keeps the introduction to a paragraph or two.
Word count left over is better spent naming sources than restating scholarship.
What should the methodology section of a history research proposal include?
It should explain your approach, the questions you will put to the evidence and how an argument will emerge, and then list the primary sources you intend to use with the places that hold them. Naming websites, repositories, collections and multimedia is expected, together with how you will gain access.
Linking each source to one research question, and noting a fallback for anything you cannot yet confirm, lets a reader see that the capstone is feasible within a semester.
Do I need to choose between a dissertation and a public history project before writing my proposal?
Yes. The outline expects the choice between the Public History Project and the Dissertation to be made before the proposal is written, and the closing class of the course is where students commit to one route. The choice affects more than format: only the public history route allows a group submission, and a proposal for an exhibition or public product will plan different outputs and audiences from one for a written thesis.
Assessment move
Take the sources essay you have already written and turn it into a draft methodology in one sitting. For each source, write one line naming the record, the repository that holds it, how you will reach it, the research question it answers and a fallback. Wherever a line has a blank, go to that repository's catalogue before writing any more prose, then add the new sources you find.
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