Research Proposal

Today I uploaded my research proposal for this project. Compiling this has taken up most of my week through both the writing itself and further research. I realised as soon as I began trying to write the first draft that much of the research I had carried out was of no real use for this proposal. This was in large due to me gaining a clearer idea on what my project was actually about since creating my recent mind map. The map itself showed that my project lacked research into the topic of slavery.
When considering my proposal I also took time to understand more about what my actual aim was for the project. What I wanted to achieve and the reasons for this project, raising awareness became my clearly defined goal. Along with this came my objectives which were centred around the production of a dummy version of the picture book. The research I had been doing into visual metaphors etc will not be wasted, this will be useful later in the project. These aspects are still part of the project, however they seem to be more subsidiary than being at the core. The three key elements of the project are the picture book medium, the topic of slavery and the issue of raising awareness. With this realisation coming very recently I have had to research further into these topics. This has been difficult but has made my project seems far more solid with definite goals and purpose now. The project also seems far more interesting to me and certainly not trivial. The proposal also allowed me to plan out the rest of the project. I produced a gantt chart much the same as the one I had been using up till this point. I will continue to use the same method of checking progress, reflecting on findings and detailing my ideas on a weekly basis. This has worked well for me so far as I never really consider much further than the week ahead. This allows me to focus on the tasks required for that week by breaking everything up into more manageable chunks. This also allows me to prioritise the tasks on a weekly basis, reducing the risk of things getting out of control or becoming unmanageable. A copy of the proposal is shown below.