Concept

HOW TO WRITE A CONCEPT PAPER
What is a concept paper? Why is there a need to write a concept paper? How do you write it?
What is a Concept Paper and Why Do You Need It?

A concept paper serves as a prelude to a full paper. What is the full paper all about?
The full paper may be a thesis, a program, a project, or anything that will require a
longer time to prepare.
All research projects need a concept paper: a short summary that tells the reader what
the project is, why it is important, and how it will be carried out. Even if no one else
ever reads it, the concept paper helps a researcher spot holes in her or his project that
might later prove fatal. It is far better to be clear at the beginning than to put in a lot
of effort for nothing!
In essence, a concept paper is an embodiment of your ideas on a certain topic or item

of interest. The concept paper saves time because it is possible that your thesis or
review panel may say that your idea is not worth pursuing.
One expects that the concept paper should consist only of 1 or 2 pages. Alternatively, if
you want to resolve some matters, it can go up to 5 pages.
For example, as a student you may be asked to prepare your concept paper for your
thesis proposal. This means that you will have to develop an idea and express it for others
to understand. You may glean from either your experience or from the literature that you
have read. Of course, your topic should be within your respective area of specialization.
If you are a student of computer science, you might want to study the behavior of wi-fi
signals bounced to different kinds of material. Alternatively, maybe you wish to create a
simple gadget to concentrate signals for a portable USB wi-fi connection to improve its
performance. Or maybe you would like to find out the optimum cache size for greatest
browsing experience on the internet. The list could go on.
How Do You Write a Concept Paper?

What then are the things that the concept paper as a prelude to a thesis should be able
to address or contain? To systematize your approach, a concept paper must have at
least the following elements and in the following order:
1. A Rationale
You explain here the reasons why you need to undertake that thesis proposal of yours.
You can ask yourself the following questions:
What prompted you to prepare the concept paper?

Why is the issue of such importance?
What should you be able to produce out of your intended study?
2. A Conceptual Framework
A conceptual framework is simply your guide in working on your idea. It is like a map
that you need to follow to arrive at your destination. An excellent way to come up with
one is to do a mind mapping exercise.
That brings up another thing, what is mind mapping anyhow?
A mind map is simply a list of keywords that you can connect to make clear an
individual issue. It is our subconscious way of analyzing things. We tend to associate a
thing with another thing. This relates to how we recall past experiences. In computers,
we have the so-called “links” that connect commands in a computer module to make an
application program work.
How does mind mapping work? You just have to come up with a word, for example, that
will help you start off. You can begin with an issue on computers and from there,
generate other ideas that connect with the previous one.
3. Your Hypothesis
Once the idea of the conceptual framework is quite clear to you, then you may write
your hypothesis.
A hypothesis is just your expected output in the course of conducting your study. The
hypothesis arises from the conceptual framework that you have prepared.
Once you have identified the specific variables in the phenomenon that you would like
to study, ask yourself the following questions: How are the variables related? Does one
variable affect another? Alternatively, are they related at all?
A quick review of relevant and updated literature will help you identify which variables
really matter. Nowadays, it’s easy to find full articles on your topic using the internet,
that is if you know how. You can start off by going to doaj.org, a directory of open
access journals.
Example of Hypotheses
Considering the issues raised a while ago, the following null hypotheses can be written:
1. There is no significant difference in wi-fi signal behavior between wood and metal.
2. There is no significant difference in browsing speed between a ten MB cache and a
100 MB cache storage setting using Mozilla Firefox.
Typically, a concept paper contains these elements:
1. A title in the form of a question. This may be the last part ofthe concept paper that you write,
but it should appear at the heading of the paper.
2. A clear description of the research topic, including a summary of what is already known about
that topic.
3. A one-sentence statement of the research question that the project will seek to answer. (This is
almost always something that is not known.) The concept paper should elaborate on how this
question can be answered -- something that almost always takes more than one sentence to
accomplish.
4. A demonstration of why it is important to answer this research question. What good comes of
this answer? Why is this project worth writing?
5. A description of how the researcher plans to answer the research question. This includes:
a. a description of the data or evidence that the researcher plans to gather or use;
b. a description of how the researcher will analyze these data; and
c. a demonstration of how these data and this analytic method will answer the research question.
Concept papers should range from 1 - 2 double-spaced pages (250-500 words). The point of a concept
paper is to provide a clear summary of the research project. It should enable a casual reader to
understand what the researcher is investigating, why it is important, and how the investigation will proceed.

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HOW TO WRITE A CONCEPT PAPER

What is a Concept Paper and Why Do You Need It?

In essence, a concept paper is an embodiment of your ideas on a certain topic or item

How Do You Write a Concept Paper?

What prompted you to prepare the concept paper?

That brings up another thing, what is mind mapping anyhow?

Typically, a concept paper contains these elements:

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