How to Expedite Your Concept Paper

1. Draft research questions.

2. Search for scholarly articles that support your topic by showing a gap.

3. Adjust your research questions and purpose based upon the research.

4. Choose the top 10 – 15 scholarly articles found.

5. Finalize your research questions based on the proven gap in literature.

6. Use the template (page 2) to begin drafting your concept paper content (Read the template

in full before starting your draft).

7. Copy the content below into the your university template for formatting alignment.

8. Have a professional review your document to make content edits, including revising for

clarity, alignment, and scholarly voice (See Statistics Solutions).

9. Submit your finalized concept paper to your Chair for review and feedback.

10. Address feedback and submit finalized concept paper.

 Concept Paper Template

Introduction

The introduction should serve as a brief overview of major concepts, background,

definition of key terms, and the purpose for your dissertation. Begin with a paragraph that

highlights the context and need for your study. For example, you may provide a statistic or

contextual information about recent important events that led to the need for your study. Be sure

to define any key words the first time you use them, and if you are conducting a quantitative

study, you should mention each of your independent and dependent variables in this section to

show how they fit together to form your study. Then, summarize the work that researchers have

already done in this area. End this section with a discussion of the gap in literature that your

study will address.

Because the purpose of this section is to introduce your reader to the study, and

essentially lay the groundwork for the need for the study, you should use peer-reviewed sources

published within the last 5 years for your claims in the introduction. The maximum length for

this section is 2 pages.

Statement of the Problem

In the problem statement, you clearly articulate the issue that led to the need for the study.

You need to both identify and document the need for the study in your problem statement. Begin

by highlighting the specific research problem, supported by peer-reviewed sources published

within the last 5 years. What is the problem? What is the extent of the problem? What don’t
researchers know about the topic that they need to know? What is the gap in the literature that

your study addresses? You should answer the last question explicitly, with a sentence such as:

“The gap in the literature addressed by this study is…” or “It is not known….” After you answer

these questions, consider the influence of your study. Who is affected by the problem? How is

the problem relevant to your field of study, both for researchers and for practice? What would

happen if the problem was not addressed? You need to make the case that answering your

problem is important and relevant to researchers and to practice.

You should make a couple of considerations in this section. First, the approximate limit

for this section at 250-300 words, which is approximately 1-2 paragraphs. In addition, be sure

that the problem statement clearly aligns with your purpose and research questions. You can

ensure alignment by using the same terminology when you discuss the gap in the literature in

your problem statement and research questions.

Purpose of the Study

Begin the purpose statement with a version of the following sentence: “The purpose of

this (quantitative/qualitative/mixed methods) study is to…” Complete the statement with a verb

that is consistent with your methodology (e.g., explore for qualitative methods, examine for

quantitative methods) and a concise statement of your purpose. The phrasing should be

consistent with the above gap in the literature statement and with your research questions. Don’t

worry about repeating yourself—your readers will praise consistency, even if you use the same

exact words. For example, I could say “There is a gap in the literature regarding specific

directions for writing a concept paper at my university.” My purpose statement would then be

“The purpose of this study is to describe specific directions for writing a concept paper at my
university.” This concept is called alignment. Also note that the purpose statement should remain

exactly the same throughout your study.

After the purpose statement, you should present some brief information about the study.

You can answer the following questions: What is your method for collecting the data? What

instruments will you use? What will be your population? Who are they? Where are they located?

The purpose statement is typically 150-200 words.

Research Questions

Begin with a brief introductory statement. Often, this is as simple as saying “The research

questions for the proposed study are:” Then, list your research questions. Remember, you should

use the same words as in the problem and purpose statement to ensure alignment. Using the

above example, a sample research question could be: “What are specific directions for writing a

concept paper at my university?”

The research questions should match your methodology, the gap in the literature, and the

purpose for your study. Qualitative research questions are open-ended, meaning you cannot

answer them with yes or no. Note that the question word you use (e.g. “how”, “why”, and

“what”) will affect the nature of your research question. For example, phenomenological studies

address “what” questions, not “how” or “why.” Quantitative research questions are testable,

specific, and related to your data. If your study is quantitative, you will need to include

hypotheses in the next section. Mixed methods studies must include both qualitative and

quantitative research questions. You should clearly indicate which research questions are

quantitative and which are qualitative.

 Hypotheses

For quantitative studies, include both your null hypotheses and alternative hypotheses

related to each research question. You must also operationalize your variables in this section.

Operationalizing means describing the specific instruments and methods you will use to test

each of your variables. Below is the formatting notation for hypotheses:

H10. This notation means that the null hypothesis for research question 1 follows. For

research question 2, it would read H20, etc.

H1a. This notation means that the alternative hypothesis for research question 1 follows.

For research question 2, it would read H2a, etc.

Definition of Key Terms

Definitions is an optional section where you provide clear, concise definitions of

specialized terms for your study. These should include terms with which a reader in your field

may not be familiar with, or terms that you used in a different way than they are typically used.

Note that you should not define generic methodology terms, such as qualitative, quantitative,

correlation, etc. For quantitative studies, you should include definitions for each of your

variables, as well as their operational definitions within the proposed study.

Keep in mind a few guidelines when drafting this section. Each of your definitions must

be supported by a peer-reviewed, authoritative source—they should not be dictionary definitions,

and usually should not come from textbooks, either. Also, remember that this section is optional;

if you don’t think you need to include it, then don’t! When presenting the definitions, do so in

alphabetical order, and remember to keep formatting of definition and entry consistent. Below is

an option for formatting:

Term 1. Define your term (provide authoritative, peer-reviewed APA citation).

 Term 2. Define your term (provide authoritative, peer-reviewed APA citation).

Theoretical Framework

Begin this section by identifying the theory, its founder, and the citation for the original

text. You can use the following sentence: “The theoretical framework for this study is X,

developed by Y (date of original work).” The theory, in most cases, should be pulled from

research within your field. For example, a psychological theory should be used for a

psychological dissertation, but may not apply to a business dissertation. In interdisciplinary

studies, you may select a theory outside of your field, but you will need to justify its use. Also, it

is important to consider that your chair or committee may have specific opinions about the

theoretical framework that you choose—it is good practice, if you’re stuck, to ask for their

opinion on what frameworks you might consider applying.

Next, discuss major tenets of the theory, especially those that are related to your study.

You should also discuss any major developments in the theory, and controversies related to your

topic, as appropriate. Support your discussion with scholarly, peer-reviewed sources, both

historical and current. Note that the reviewers will be looking for evidence that you understand

both the history of the theory as well as how it is applied presently. Continue this section with a

discussion of similar studies to your own that have applied the theory.

In the next paragraph, you want to provide information about how the theory applies to

your study and how your study extends or contributes to the theory. First, clearly outline how

this theory will provide explanatory value for your own purpose. What major concepts from the

theory will help interpret your results? Finally, end the section by discussing how your study will

contribute to the theory. Will it answer a controversy? Apply the theory to a new context?
 Some studies may require the use of more than one theory. In this case, you should go

through the steps above for each theory that you include. Then, at the end of the theoretical

framework, you should provide a paragraph that ties the theories together and makes note of why

each different theory will be required to interpret your results.

Brief Review of the Literature

The literature review is and will be a key component of your scholarly research. For the

concept paper, your goal is to demonstrate that you have conducted a sufficient search of the

historic and current academic literature to show that your study fulfills a gap in the literature.

You must include at least 7 sources, but including 10—15 is usually necessary to fulfill this

purpose. The sources must be scholarly and peer reviewed, and the majority should be published

within the last 5 years.

Start your review of the literature with a synthesizing statement about the state of

research on your topic. You can consider this a preliminary summary of your literature review.

What do researchers know about your topic? When did they start studying it? What have they

studied? What types of methodologies have they used? What is missing, and how does your

proposed study address those gaps? Many chairs will require that you provide information on

your literature search, so you may want to include information about what databases you

searched, what keywords you used, and what important researchers and journals came up when

you were searching. Then, provide an overview of the organization of the literature review,

addressing each of the subheadings you include.

Subheadings

Your brief review of the literature should include several subheadings to organize

material. Use the APA formatting of Level 2, as above, to indicate a new subheading. The title of
the subheading should reflect the content of that section; if you begin discussing a new topic,

then you should create a new subheading.

There are a few tips that will help you to create a useful literature review. Successful

literature reviews typically begin broadly and narrow to the topic by the end. For example, if you

are conducting a quantitative study with two independent variables, X and Y, and one dependent

variable, Z, you first need to discuss literature related to X, Y, and Z, alone, then discuss the

literature that includes X, Y, and Z together.

You should include an appropriate range of findings to avoid bias in your research. You

may be trying to prove a relationship exists between Z and X and Y, but some researchers may

have found that this relationship didn’t exist. That doesn’t mean your study is invalid! You just

need to provide evidence of why you think your outcome might be different. Similarly, if

literature overwhelmingly shows that X, Y, and Z have a relationship, you need to show why you

think that conducting your study will add to the body of literature. At this point, some

researchers find it necessary to tweak their research questions and purpose slightly to address a

gap in the literature. This is great practice; changing tact now to address a real gap in the

literature will save you time later if your reviewers question whether your study was necessary.

The ultimate goal of the literature review is to make an argument for studying your topic.

For the entries, you should be synthesizing and analyzing the literature with this goal in mind,

rather than just summarizing. Note that the literature review is not the same as an annotated

bibliography; in fact, it may be best for you to try to make sure that you cite at least 2 sources per

paragraph to avoid annotated bibliography format. Synthesizing your sources includes

comparing and contrasting studies. What have different researchers found? Do they agree on

certain topics? Do they disagree? Have they used qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods
approaches? What populations have different researchers studied? Are they the same, or different

from your own? Analyzing means you discuss limitations of these approaches and gaps in the

findings. Together, the synthesis and analysis should clearly lead up to the need for your study.

Summary

The literature review ends with a summary of your findings. Again, this section should

make an argument for your proposed study, but in brief. You might organize it by answering the

following questions in order: What is known about this topic? What is missing in knowledge?

What methodologies have been used? What methodologies are needed? What is the gap in

literature (remember, this should align with your problem statement, purpose statement, and

research questions)? How will your study address this gap in the literature?

Research Method

The research method should align with the purpose of the study and the gaps in the

literature. First, discuss the method and design and how they achieve the purpose and research

questions. You should discuss the methods and designs that you did not choose, and why they

were not appropriate, as well as the one that you did choose, and why it is appropriate. You

should cite the foundational researchers for the methods and designs, and not textbook citations,

such as Creswell. Some qualitative foundational researchers you might consider could include

Yin’s Case Study Research (2014) for a case study, Moustakas’s Phenomenological Research

Methods (1994) for a phenomenology, or Clandinin and Connely’s Stories of Experience and

Narrative Inquiry (2000) for a narrative inquiry study. For a quantitative study, you might

consider publications like Leedy and Ormrod’s Practical Research: Planning and Design, 11th

Edition (2016) or Patton’s Qualitative Research & Evaluation Methods (2014) which cover most

research designs.
 Operational Definition of Variables

For quantitative studies, here include the variables and how they will be measured within

the study. This includes a discussion of the instruments and data analyses used to measure the

constructs. Use the same formatting as you did in the definition of terms.

Construct/Variable 1. First, describe the variable. Then, discuss how you will measure

the variable, such as nominal, ordinal, interval, or ratio. Discuss potential variations in the score

that a person could expect to see (e.g., on a 1—5 scale, 0—100 scale, etc.) or different levels or

categories (such as male or female). Finally, include a discussion of the instrument and how you

will collect data from the data collected from the instrument. The discussion of the instrument

should include a discussion of the use of the proposed instrument and its validity in previous

studies. Note that you must use an established instrument from a scholarly source; dissertations

are typically not acceptable sources for instruments.

Measurement

In this section, you should first discuss how the proposed methodology will achieve your

research purposes, stated in your purpose statement, research questions, and hypotheses. Then,

write out a specific plan for data collection, followed by a plan for data analysis. This section

should be as explicit and specific as possible; you might think that you are oversharing or

including unnecessary steps, but including as much information as possible in this initial plan

will streamline your process at this stage as well as when you enter the proposal stage. Also, be

sure that the data collection and analysis procedures align with the purpose of the research.

The data collection and analysis procedures will differ depending on whether you are

conducting a quantitative or qualitative study. For quantitative studies, you’ll need to describe

your survey instrument. You should avoid self-developed instruments when at all possible. If
you do develop your instrument, you will be required to conduct validation processes that may

end up taking you more time than doing extensive research to see what is available for you

already. Qualitative studies are typically guided by interview protocol, developed by the

researcher. The data analysis for qualitative studies involves choosing a method of interpretation.

Data analysis methods can range from broad (meaning that they can be used for multiple

designs) such as Braun and Clarke’s Thematic Analysis (2006), to very specific, such as Smith,

Flowers, and Larkin’s Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (2009), which would be used in a

phenomenological study. Another great resource is Saldaña’s Coding Manual for Qualitative

Researchers (2013), which covers a number of analyses that can be used with many different

qualitative designs. Do some research to see which of these options work best for your specific

study, and be ready to justify your choice for your chair and committee.

Summary

In this section, pull all parts of the concept paper together. This should serve as a

crystallized form of your concept paper. You can organize the section in this order: the need for

your study, your problem, your purpose, and your method. Think of it as a final argument for

your proposed research.

References