A. The proposal

1. Title - Descriptive, not too short, not too long
2. Problem statement - Identification of an economic issue (important or trivial, hard or soft, it does not matter) to which you will be able to apply economic theory and statistics (i.e., this is your revised topic paragraph).
3. Objectives - tests of hypotheses, problem solving, policy analysis
4. Identification of literature - search for journal articles, book chapters or working papers [only; no books, mag articles, web pages, etc] in EconLit, RePEc, Google Scholar, ScienceDirect, SSRN
5. Identification of data source - location of data available over the internet, library or collection of primary data
6. Methods and procedures - propose an empirical model that uses your data and tests your theory. State the dependent variable. Describe the independent variables and what you think the results might be.
7. Annotated bibliography

B. Writing

1. Writing is thinking
2. Economical Writing: An Executive Summary | Top ten
3. University Writing Center

C. Details

1. Cover page: Title (subtitle: A Research Proposal), Name, ECO 4810, Date
2. The proposal should be at least one page and no more than 2 pages (not including annotated bibliography)
3. Format: 12 point Times New Roman font, 1 inch margins all around, double-spacing (no extra spaces)

Annotated Bibliography

1. Literature search: search for journal articles, book chapters or working papers [only; no books, mag articles, web pages, etc] in EconLit, RePEc, Google Scholar, ScienceDirect, SSRN. Start at Belk Library: Research Guide for Economics. Also consider working papers (RePEc, SSRN) and Google Scholar. Note some economics journals rankings.
2. Engage in active reading: take notes while you read [and make sure you actually read the paper!]
3. Summarize each paper: include the (a) purpose of the paper, (b) a description of the data, (c) the form of empirical model estimated [y = xb; what is y? what is x?], and (d) results
4. Include at least five references