20 Sep A discussion of why you are asking a question.

There are, generally, seven components to a good prospectus:

1) A discussion of why you are asking a question. You dont need to tell the reader (me) that Mexico is in the middle of a bloody drug war. You show that there is something specific that is interesting about the drug war, about which you will ask a question. Specific, rather than general, information is the key to doing this well. The point is to make the reader curious about something, so that they care about the question.

2) A stated question. With a question mark. This is set up by component #1. This is your research question, and establishes what your paper is fundamentally about, since the majority of your paper (though not your prospectus) will be spent answering the question.

3) Your thesis. You may use language like I will argue to help make your thesis identifiable to the reader. It is important to be assertive. Crucially, your thesis should argue that something offers the best answer to the research question, and is better than something else. So, for example, your thesis might be that cartels have been hard to eliminate because municipal police forces are easily corrupted.

4) Another possible answer to the question. While your paper argues that your thesis offers the best answer to the research question, you will establish that your thesis is an argument and not a statement of obvious facts by demonstrating that there are other possible answers to your question. So, in this example, you might argue that another possible answer to the question is persistent rural poverty that makes criminal activity appealing. This explains to the reader that you will advance an argument that answers the question better than another plausible answer. Fundamentally, the purpose of the research paper is to argue that something better answers the question than something else.

5) An explanation of why your thesis is, in fact, the best answer. This is the logical claim that your answer is stronger than the other possible answers, because, for example, the other answers do not utilize certain data, do not understand the root cause of the problem, etc. This component is important, but dont stress over it. For the current example, you might simply observe that rural poverty does not have a onetoone correlation with criminal activity, because some of the poorest regions of Mexico do not have significant cartel presence.

6) The current support for your thesis. Lay out the core components of your argument, using  scholarly sources to support the claims you make. This should not be an annotated bibliography, but rather two to three paragraphs that explain why your thesis provides a strong answer.

7) A statement of why your paper matters. This functions as the conclusion to a prospectus, and is effectively the stakes. This is the statement of what the importance of your answer to the question is. For example, if you are arguing that municipal police corruption is the fundamental cause of criminal activity, you might conclude that this matters because it suggests more spending should be channeled into municipal police training, and away from economic development programs. The stakes section can be tricky to write, but it is important, and will be vital to making the final paper compelling.

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