I.

MASTER’S RESEARCH PROJECT PROPOSAL FRAME/FORM

General Information

Language: English

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The cover page includes:

Title of the project

MA Thesis proposal/MBA Project Proposal
Name of the student
Faculty/College/Institute/School
Department
Specialization
Advisor(s)
Date of submission
Place

Internal contents of the proposal:

1. Introduction

Describe the background of the problem giving measure of its magnitude (how widespread and
important) and emphasizing importance and relevance of the problem. Include a brief literature and
identify the gaps, and show how your expected research outcome contributes towards filling the gaps,
and show how your expected research outcome contributes to wards filling the gaps

(1.1. Background, 1.2. Statement of the problem )

Objectives

What are the general and specific objectives of the thesis research?

Example

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1.Background

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1.2.Statement of the problem

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
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………………………………………………………………………………………….

1.3.Objectives

General objective

 ……………………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………..

Specific objectives

 ……………………………………………..

 ………………………………………………..

 ………………………………………………………

Research questions

 ……………………………………………………………………………………………….?

 ……………………………………………………………………………………………….?

 ……………………………………………………………………………………………….?

 ……………………………………………………………………………………………….?

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2. LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1. ……………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
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2.2.……………………………………………….

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3.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………

4. MATERIALS AND METHODS

Describe the study area, the methods to be employed to achieve the objectives of the research, data
sources, and methods of data collection, experimentation and processing of data, method of arriving
at conclusions. State the materials required.

5. EXPECTED OUTCOMES AND BENEFICIARIES

What are the probable applications of results? Who will benefit your results, how and why?

6. WORK PLAN

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 Give a breakdown of the thesis work into component stages, estimating the amount of time
required or the work involved in each of the stages and the project as a whole.

7. LOGISTICS/SUMMARY OF THE FINANCIAL REQUIREMENT

Give as itemized listing of the costs involved in the thesis work including those costs which are
normally borne by the Faculty or Program. List all project funds/equipment you have received,
have applied for or intend to solicit, and their sources. Solicitation of other grants, stipends, and
equipment is encouraged.

8. REFERENCES

Provide a list of references to works cited in the proposal.

REFERENCE STYLE
REFERENCING AND ITS IMPORTANCE

Referencing or citing means acknowledging the sources of information and ideas you have used in an
assignment (e.g essay or report) this is a standard practice at university. It means that whenever you
write an assignment that requires you to find use information from other source you are expected to
reference these resources in your writing sources could include books or new paper articles, and items
from the internet picture or diagrams.

Steps in referencing

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  Keep a record of full bibliographic details and relevant page numbers of all the sources form
which information has taken.

 Insert brief citations at the appropriate places in the text of your document.

 Compile a reference list at the end of the document that includes full details of references
cited

The rule of referencing

1. A reference must be included every time you use someone else’s ideas or information
2. A reference must be included when you:
 Paraphrase (express someone else’s idea in your own words
 Summarize (express someone else’s idea in a reduced form in your own words)
 Quote (express someone else’s idea in their exact words)
 Copy (reproduce a diagram, graph or table from someone else’s works)
3. Each reference must appear in two places:
 Shown as shortened reference in the text of the students’ assignment each time it is used
(the in-text reference), and
 Listed in full once in the reference list at the end of the assignment. This listing has full
details so that reader can find the reference.

The two most common types of referencing systems used are:

 Author –date system – such as the Harvard system.

 Numerical systems – such as Chicago or Vancouver
Which is referencing system to use?
Follow the Harvard system, which specified in this guideline
The Harvard referencing system
In every referencing system each reference must be:
 Show each time you use it in the text of your assignment (the in text reference) and
 Listed one in the reference list at the end of the assignment
The In – text reference

When you cite (identify) references in the text of your assignment it has to include
 The author’s or editor‘s family name (or organization responsible

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  The year of publication
 Page numbers if appropriate and where available
In many cases, students just need to use the family name plus date. For example

Many factors are known to affect the successful outcomes for student at university (Johnston, 2003)
or Johnston (2003), Claims that there are many factors that are known to affect the success of
students at university

In the examples above the sentence summarized the main view expressed in an article written by
Johnston and does not come from one page only also note that the first example highlights the
information but the second one highlights the author of that information.

When there are two authors for a reference you include all their family names in your in text
reference for example

According to Cooper and Vann (2002) the use of this process leads to greater accuracy.

But if there are more than two authors for a reference you use ‘et al’ (which is Latin for ‘and the
others’) after the first family name listed on the reference for example

This has been suggested by Sandler et al. (2002) or (Sandler et al., 2002) in their first Australian
study

Et al’ is use for the first and every time you give an in text reference for more than two authors.
However all the authors, no matter how many they are listed in the reference list in the same they
are listed in the original reference

The Reference List

The reference list in the Harvard author- date system

 Is titled ‘References’
 Is arranged alphabetically by author’s family name
 Is a single list – books, journal, article and electronic sources are listed together and not
arranged in separate lists
 Includes the full details of students in- text references(author date title publishing details

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  Is not a bibliography- students do not need to produce a bibliography for your assignments
unless specifically asked to do so by your lecturer. A bibliography lists everything you
may have read while a reference list is limited to the in text references in your assignment
Setting out the items in a reference list using the a Harvard system

The main elements required for a reference are set out in this order author, date, title, publication
information and commas separate the elements. Different sources and types of publications should be
given as follows.

 Journal Article: Name(s) of author (s), Year of publication of the article. Full name of the
journal, volume no; and pages.

 Simple Book: Name (s) of author (s). Year of publication. Title of the book. Volume number
(in case of multivolume book), edition no. (If it is later than the first edition). Publisher’s
name, place of publication, pagination (when a particular page of the book is cited then ‘p’
should be mentioned before page number cited; ‘p’ following the page number means total
number of pages contained in the document).

 Contribution to composite Book: Name(s) of author(s). Year of publication. Title of

contribution. Connecting word’ in;’ following items of information of the source document:
name (s) of author(s). Title of the book. Volume no. (In case of multivolume book). Edition
no. (If it is later than the first edition). Place of writing plural pages).

 Conference/workshop/symposium/Seminar proceedings: Name of the conference, etc; place,

Date of Conference etc; year of publication. Title of publication. Name(s) of editor(s).
Publisher’s name, place of publication, pagination (when a particular page of the book is
cited then ‘P’ should be mentioned before page number cited; ‘P’ following the page number
means total number of pages contained in the document).

 Contribution to conference/Workshop/Symposium/seminar/Proceedings: Name of author(s).

Year of publication. Title of contribution. Connecting word ‘In’: and following items of
information of the sources document: Name of the Conference. Place and date of the
conference. Title of the publication, Name (s) of editor(s). Publisher’s name, place of
publication, pagination (‘pp’ should be used before writing plural pages).

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  Thesis: name of the author. Year of submission. Title of the thesis. Name of the degree. The
word thesis. Name of the university, place, pagination (when a particular page of the thesis is
cited then ‘p’ should be mentioned before page number cited; ‘p’ following the page number
means total number of pages contained in the thesis).

 Institution/Society publications: Name of the institute/ society, place. Year of publication.

Title of publication. Publisher’s name, place of publication, pagination (when a particular
page of the publication is cited then ‘P’ should be mentioned before page number cite; ‘p’
following the page number means total number pages contained in the document).

 Government publications: Name of the Organization. Name of the Department, section. Year
of publication. Title of publication. Publisher’s name. Place of publication, pagination (when
a particular page of the publication is cited then ‘p’ should be mentioned before page number
cited; ‘p’ following the page number means total number of pages contained in the
document).

 When quoting references in the text of the thesis, the last names of the authors for up two
authors, and last name of the first author and “et al.” for more than two authors should be
given followed by the year of publication within parentheses. When reference is made to
more than one publication by the author (s) in the same year, the publication should be
numbered as (a) and (b) of that year with the earliest publication the year being designated
(a) and so on.

A. Journal Article

Sharma, R.C., H.J., Dubin, M.R., Bhatta and R.N., Devkota. 1997. Section for spot blotch
resistance in four spring wheat populations. Crop Science 37: 432-437.

Getelu Bejiga, Abebe Tulu and Seifu Tsegaye. 1994. Effect of sowing date and sending rate on yield
and other characteristics of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.). Ethiopian Journal of Agricultural
Sciences 14 (1): 7-14.

The common elements of a journal article citation: Author; Title of article; Year; Title of Journal;
issue details; and page reference numbers.

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Article titles are enclosed in single quotation marks and journal title are in italics capital letters should
be used in Journal titles (but not article titles). For example

Friedman, S. L. 2004. ‘Embodying civility: civilizing process and symbolic citizenship in South-
eastern China’ The Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 63, no. 3, pp 687-718. Or

Friedman, S. L. 2004. ‘Embodying civility: civilizing process and symbolic citizenship in South-
eastern China’ The Journal of Asian Studies, 63 (3): 687-718.

Articled from electronic journals also need to include information about when and where the
article was seen.

Ershow, S., Mikhalovskaya, I. and Novik, O. 2006. ‘Theory of EM monitoring of sea bottom
geothermal areas’, Journal of applied Geophysics, 58(4): 330-350 viewed 10 April 2006 <
http://www.scincedirect. Com>

When citing an article from a magazine or newspaper use a dare rather than a volume or number

Brennan, F. 2006. ‘Every embryo deserves respect’, Sydney morning herald, 3 January p 9.

B. Simple Book

Ignacimuthu, S. 1996. Applied plant biotechnology. Mc Graw Hill Publisheng Co. Ltd. Tata. pp.31

Webel, C. P. 2004. Terror terrorism and the human condition. Palgrave Macmillan New York
 For a later edition of a book, add the number of the edition after the title
Estrin, S. and Laidler, D. 1995. Introduction to microeconomics, 4th ed. Harvester, New York
Steel, R.G.D and J.H., Torrie. 1980. Principles and procedures of statistics. 2nd ed. Mc Graw-Hill
Book co., city pp 633.

For a chapter from a book, include the title of the chapter single quotes
Sen, G. 2002. ‘Women poverty and population issues for the concerned environmentalist’ In
Schmidtz, D. and Willott, E. (eds), Environmental ethics what really matters what really
works, Oxford University press New York, pp 248-54.
When a book or report is published by an organization company or government department use the
organization’s name as the author.

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Human rights and equal opportunity commission. 2004. A last resort a summary guide to the National
inquiry into children in immigration detention, Human rights and equal opportunity
commission, Sydney

C. Contribution of composite Book

When a book has an editor or editors (rather than that an author) add “ed/eds” after the names

Crawford, P. and Madden, P. Eds. 2001. Women as Australian citizens underlying histories.
Melbourne University press carlton Vic

When a book has more that two authors use the first author’s name plus et al for the in text citation
but use all of the names in the reference list

Revelli, A., Tur Kaspa, I., Holte, J. and Massobrio, M. 2003. Biotechnology of human reproduction.
Parthenon Boca Raton
Dubin, H. J. and M., Van Ginkel. 1991. The status of wheat diseases and disease research in warmer
areas. In: D.A. sounders (ed.), wheat for the non-traditional warm areas. CIMMYT, Mexico.
pp. 125-145

Bojorkman, O. 1981. Responses for different quantum flux dignities. In: L.O, Lange, P.S., Nosel

and H., Zeigler. (eds.) Encyclopedia of plant physiology. Vol 2 A physiological plant

ecology. Springer-Verlin. pp 57-107.

D. Conference/Workshop/Symposium? Seminar Proceedings

International workshop on Mountain Agriculture and Corp Genetic Resources, Kathmandu,

February 14-19, 1987. Mountain Agriculture and Crop Genetic Resources: Proceedings
edited by K.W. Riley and N.Mateo. Oxford IBH, New Delhi. 298p.

E. Contribution Conference/Workshop/Symposium/ seminar proceedings

Suzuki, H. 1965. Origin of variation in Pyricularia oryzae. In; symposium on the rice blast disease,
Los Banos, july, 1963. The rice blast disease. Johns Hopkins press, Baltimore. pp. 111-146

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Tung, D. 1971. Recent advances in numerical analysis of structural eigen value problems. In: Tokyo
Seminar on Finite element Analysis, Tokyo, November 5-7, 1973. Theory and practice in
finite structural analysis proceedings. Tokyo University of Tokuo.pp. 247171.

F. Thesis

Roumen, E.C. 1991. Partial resistance in rice to blast and how to select for it. Ph.D thesis.

Agricultural University, Wageningen, The Netherland. 108p.

Turna, H.S.1989. Evaluation of elite tomato (Lycopersion esculentum Mill) line for growth,

yield and ketchup processing. M.Sc Thesis. G.B. University of Agriculture and

Technology, pantanagar. 84p.

G. Institution/Society Publication

Institute of agriculture and Animal Science (IAAS). 1997. IAAS Bulletin. Rampur, Chitwan,
Nepal. 155p. (it cites entire publication as a reference).

International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). 1975. Annual Report for 1974. Los Banos, p 20.

(It cites a particular page 20 of the publication as a reference).

H. Government Publication

Ministry of Agriculture. 1992. Agricultural Development plans. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, ARS
Publication. 150 p.

Central Statistics Authority (CSA). 1992. Agricultural Statistics. 1991. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia,
CTA Publication. 250p.

Web citations

If citing information from a website wherever possible include the following information, the person
or organization responsible for the site; the site date, which is the date when the website was created
or revised; the name of the website; the date on with you viewed the website and the URL.

For a whole website the name of the website is in italics

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Young media Australia 2002 Young Media Australia viewed 12 April 2006 <http://.www.
youngmendia.org.au>.

For a document from a web site the name of the documents is in italics
Australian Institute of health and welfare. 2005. A picture of Australia’s children, Australian Institute
of health and welfare, viewed 25 March 2006 < http://www.aihw/gov publications
/phe/apoac/apoac . pdf>

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 WOLLEGA UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS/ SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES

Department of Economics

Proposal Approval Sheet

Submitted by

_______________________________ ______________________ _______________________

Name of the Student Signature Date: dd/MM/yyyy

Approved by

1.______________________________ __________________ ___________________________

Name of the Advisor Signature Date: dd/MM/yyyy

2._______________________ ___________________________ ___________________________

Name of the Co-advisor Signature Date: dd/MM/yyyy

3._______________________ ___________________________ ___________________________

Name of the Co-advisor Signature Date: dd/MM/yyyy

4._______________________ ___________________________ ___________________________

Name of the chairperson Signature Date: dd/MM/yyyy

Program’s Graduate Committee

5._______________________ ___________________________ ___________________________

Name of the chairperson Signature Date: dd/MM/yyyy

Faculty’s Graduate Committee

6.____________________________ ________________ __________________________

Name of the Dean Signature Date: dd/MM/yyyy

School of Graduate Studies

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