This is a general funding pool to support undergraduate research (e.g., research conducted for the Communication Honors Program). Award limit: $800. 

How to Apply for Research Support

Requests for research support are reviewed by the Executive Committee and will be considered three times a year: October 15, January 15, and April 15. Time-sensitive applications will be accepted in unusual circumstances. Proposals should indicate whether the proposed research will contribute to an honors thesis and/or be submitted to an academic conference or academic journal. To use our limited funds wisely, and to ensure that all eligible Communication undergraduate students have equal access to these funds, students may receive only one research award per year. It is strongly recommended that your advisor review your request for research support prior to submission.

Instructions for Requesting Research Funds

Proposals should include the following elements, which are similar to Communication Honors project proposals. Once completed, applicants can submit the proposal here.

1. Statement of research area or topic. The first part of the paper orients the reader to the general topic of the study and identifies the general scope of the area.

2. Significance/rationale. Closely tied to the statement of the research area is a discussion of its importance: Why is your research topic worth pursuing? It’s not enough here to say that you like the topic; you need to provide a fuller defense of the topic and, specifically, some sense of how your project will enhance our (academic) understanding of communication.

3. Literature review. The literature review performs several key functions. First, it details the key work in the field that pertains to the topic you are exploring. Second, it shows how your project builds on–and extends/counters–what has already been written in the field. Third, it provides the conceptual foundation for your work: the key ideas that you are exploring and how these have been discussed to date. Fourth, it presents specific research questions and/or hypotheses that will be addressed in your study.

4. Methods and/or theoretical concepts. How will you actually go about doing this project? Which method(s) of concept(s) will you use? Provide some detail on the method/concepts you will be employing; you need to more than say you’ll be doing a survey, an experiment, or an ethnography.. For instance, if you are doing an experiment, give us some sense of what you would be testing in the experiment; explain the different experimental conditions that are relevant to your work, and explain how you hope these conditions will further your work. If you are doing discourse analytic work, what specific materials will you be examining? How will you examine them? What are the indicators of the phenomena or trends you hope to study? You should include citations to our textbook or other guides to the particular method and/or exemplars you are using to guide your own study.

5. Requested item(s) and itemized budget. What do you need funding for? Is this for participant incentives? Is this for coding support? Include an itemized budget (what you’ll be buying and/or who you’ll be giving Tango cards to) and a time schedule (when you’ll be buying and/or providing participation incentives). Here are some notes on UW policies on permissible types of expenditures. 

• If you wish to purchase gift cards as incentives for research subjects/participants, Tango cards are the only kind approved by UW for use as incentives with research subjects.
• If you wish to spend research funds on services/participants via Amazon Mechanical Turk, first consult UW policy on AMT use by UW employees.
• If you wish to purchase equipment, note that UW purchasing policies specify that equipment purchased with UW funds is owned by UW. Such items should be identified as such in your budget table; if approved, requested equipment items will be purchased by the department and loaned to you.
• Furniture and items categorized as consumables by UW (e.g. paper products, supplies, organizers, etc.) are not allowable expenses for undergraduate graduate research funds. 

Once completed, you can submit the proposal here.