Why are you doing this research? What are your hypotheses?

The statement of purpose provides the rationale for your study.  It incorporates all the pertinent information from you literature review and presents a logical and coherent argument for your study, ending with your hypothesis.  You need to articulate clearly to the reader your contribution the area. In other words, why is your research imporant.

1. General introduction to the topic; describe the issue investigated and why this problem is important. Usually, the first couple of paragraphs answers the question “who cares”.

2. The next few paragraphs outlines what is known about your topic, followed by criticisms or limitations of such research. This could be a criticism of all the previous research (i.e., neglected to look a segment of the population) or a particular study.

3. The next few paragraphs describes how you are going to address such limitations, and explicates the rationale of your study, leading to:

4. The purpose, design of the present study with a logical development of the predictions or hypothesis guiding the research.