Tips on Writing a Preliminary Proposal

1. Tips on Writing a Preliminary Proposal Anil Hira SFU- LAS 800 Updated Spring 2005

2. 3 parts of prelim proposal • Objective • Literature Review • Approp. Methods • What should go into each section? • What are the pitfalls to be wary of and the goals for each section? • How can we ensure that each piece fits together? • How can we ensure that the piece is compelling?

3. Proposals should have 3 parts: a clear objective that defines the purpose and the scope of the study; a literature and basic data review; and a methodology section. Below I describe each section and give an example, which is a combo of the country and sectoral approach (you only have to do one). Proposals should be 5-7 pp. long, although you should provide supporting data, charts as appendices and a bibliography. Objective: The objective states the purpose of the study foremost. Thus, you must make the case that you are going to provide some kind of analysis that is needed, eg information or analysis that is unknown or a new issue that has arisen. Secondly, you must give the overall scope of your project. It should be appropriate to the task, time and document length with which you have to work. It should be clear and concrete. -Example: The purpose of this study is to examine the potential negotiating stance of Chile vis a vis the FTAA. This study could shed light on the potential ways that Chile could maximize its position vis a vis other negotiating partners…. This study focuses on the salmon industry. Fisheries figure to play a prominent role in the FTAA negotiations. The principal actors will be the supplying countries, Canada, the U.S., Ecuador,…as well as the main countries for regional demand (see Chart 1 in the appendix)…. Pitfalls: scope; feasibility; novelty; clarity

4. Literature & Preliminary Data review:Introduces the literature as categorized schools of thought.  You still need to do a full survey, but you cite only examples of certain approaches.Example: There are several key approaches to understanding the international fishing industry, of which salmon is a key component. One school of thought focuses on the environmental sustainability. For example, M. Halibut states,…Another looks at the problems of value-added processing. Alex Eel is one of the foremost scholars on this point, as he notes…The literature also discusses the volatile nature of the salmon exporting industry. We now turn to a profile of the industry.Pitfalls: Bias, incomplete, does not match with objective (scope, relevance, incoherence)

5. Basic data on the industry (country) Example: Salmon exports are an important niche of the international fish market. Salmon thrive only in certain types of climates, limiting their potential areas for supply. Salmon also must be processed for export. This requires xxx types of food processing facilities as well as refrigeration facilities….further description of salmon industry… Chile’s position in the salmon trade differsfrom that of its neighbors in that…  Charts 1-x in Appendix x give the approximate profile of the salmon industry in relation to Chile at present. The charts demonstrate that international demand for salmon has …, while supply has …. The overall price of salmon indicates, however, a relative stability in international markets. This observation is backed up by the stable international market shares for Chilean exports. As well, we note that Chilean salmon has largely gone to the same stable customers. From these charts, we can conclude that Chile’s negotiating position will be linked to its positioning in the intl market, so that it must consider its main competitors… and its main clients… in establishing its negotiating stance. As can be seen, there are x dominant companies presently in the industry. These are located in … Most of Chile’s Xs seem to go through x national companies, however. The FTAA negotiations will take place foremost within the scope of existing multilateral treaties and negotiations regarding fisheries. The relevant agreements are xxxx. Chile’s position on the multilateral level has been quite different from that of other rivals, as evidenced by it WTO depositions on the matter….

6. Methodology Tells how you will move forward on what is known to achieving your goal of adding new knowledge/analysis. Example: Given Chile’s overall positioning in the international salmon market, this study will examine its concerns at the level of international negotiations. The goal will be to examine Chile’s present negotiating positions at the multilateral, hemispheric, and bilateral levels, incl. the ftaa working group x with a view to understanding what position it might take in the ftaa negotiations. We will examine existing treaties and Chile’s state positions; related government ministries and related interest groups in Chile, including environmental activists; international groups and organizations interested in this industry; and potential linked industries in Chile. We will then look to how Chile’s position will be dynamically affected by those of the other main players (countries, companies, and customers) in the industry. Finally, we will propose a maximizing strategy for Chile vis a vis the FTAA to forward its own interests and analyze the possible outcomes. Pitfalls: impossible/unrealistic to accomplish (eg no data); not really diff from other studies; risky- (unproven methods or dep.s on unknown factors); researcher/supervisor has no backgrd/exper in this method; method is incongruent with objective (will not show what is needed); missing key poss. methods, better alt.s (lit review)