Never scramble for a topic or miss a deadline again with our trusty student project proposal template and tips.
Updated March 10, 2024
School projects — some of us love them, and some of us love to loathe them. If you fall firmly into the latter camp, then you'll be ecstatic to know that there are shortcuts you can take. Start with a great outline, or our solid template, and work your way through these helpful guidelines. You can nail any student project that comes your way with the right approach.
Sometimes just seeing another person's example is all the help you need. Here is a student project proposal example with editable fields so you can customize it to suit your topic. Download the sample to edit, print, or save. Not sure how? Our Adobe guide to printables can answer your questions.
In some cases, teachers may require you to submit a project proposal. But even if you don't need one, we find this template extremely useful when trying to stay organized and on task in a variety of different situations, like these.
Before writing your proposal, you can begin to identify exactly what you need to go into it so you have all your bases covered — aka fill out the meat of the project. Follow this checklist to help you get started.
If your teacher has a specified format to follow, then of course follow that first. But check it against this proposal format. The more details you know you need to collect, the easier it'll be to stay organized. Most project proposals will likely have the same elements, so it's totally alright if you start with this one and pivot to a teacher-mandated one.
The project title should be short, but descriptive, so the reader has an idea of what's being requested or developed. You'll want to avoid acronyms (like POTUS for "President of the United States"), unless you spell them out first or they serve a purpose specific to your project. If you aren't sure about your title, ask your teacher about it. Try your hand at three different titles and let them sink in to see what ultimately feels best.
Here's where you put your name, grade, class, and other contact information for your mentor or for anyone who reads your project.
This is your "why" — why you want to do the project and how it's useful. Sure, it may be required work for graduation or a grade, but what intrigued you to choose this subject in particular?
Describe what you already know about the subject or proposal. These questions will help you identify that.
Think about your sources, and who the experts are on the topic you're covering. These are some questions you should consider when hunting down sources.
During your preliminary research, create a short bibliography of your sources so you can recall where you found the information. Since you'll be referencing them later, you might want to go ahead and format them according to the dictated citation style.
Here, you'll want to get whoever is reading your proposal excited about your topic. It should be a clear, specific, and easy-to-understand narrative of what you plan to do. It's all about the who, what, where, when, why, and how of your work.
Write your narrative in the first person (I will, I plan to, etc.). Precision and clarity are your friends — try to avoid long, complex sentences here. But also, be true to yourself — use your voice and show your enthusiasm about the project. You can be brief in describing the topic, and fill in the rest with details of what you want to accomplish with your new knowledge.
Are you InTheKnow ?This section sets up a bit of technical expectation — what exactly are you creating? Is it a paper, a book, or a poster? Is there a website component? How many words are you writing? What types of illustrations will you use? This helps your teacher visualize the final outcome, and forces you to think about the end result before diving too deep into the research.
Setting goals helps keep you on task. A project timeline can be made in the form of a text reminder, a chart, or a table. Once you know your tasks (research, interviewing, writing, photography, layout, etc), you'll have a better idea of how to use your time. Create a timeline for a first, second, and final draft and you'll never miss a deadline.
Identify who'll be mentoring or helping you, and why that mentor is the best person for the job. Is this a teacher you've worked with on earlier projects? Does this teacher or mentor know about your topic, and will they help you with your research? Will your mentor read or view your project and offer feedback? Who will you give this project to at the end, and who will assign you a grade?
Knowing all this will help you to find the right help when you need it, and keep you from missing those all-important deadlines.
If there's one thing you can rely on, it's that not everything will go to plan. When you're starting a new project, you never know where it'll lead you. Sometimes you'll expect to find one thing, and you find something entirely different. Or you may discover there's too much information, and you need to narrow your topic.
Ask yourself these questions, and tell your reader how you plan to solve them should they arise.
One thing to remember when writing a school project proposal is to be clear, concise, and compelling. You'll want to look at the whole of the project and troubleshoot both at the beginning and throughout. This sets you up to focus on your end goal and to stay on task.
A student project proposal isn't just for your professors — it's the perfect tool to set yourself up for success. Following a template does half the work of creating a detailed outline of everything you've got to cover. It may seem like a pain writing it up at the start, but you'll be so glad you did when you're well ahead of schedule.
