Research Proposal Format in Nepali (शोध प्रस्तावको ढाँचा): Headings, Sample and Typing Rules
6 October 2026 · 8 min read
Many students in Nepal write their proposal and thesis in Nepali. They include MA and M.Ed. students in Nepali and other Nepali-medium subjects, B.Ed. and BBS students on Nepali-medium campuses, and anyone whose department accepts either language. The structure of a research proposal (शोध प्रस्ताव) is the same in both languages. What students struggle with is the Nepali terminology, the order of the sections, and the typing rules. This guide covers all three.
A note on terms: an academic research proposal is a शोध प्रस्ताव or अनुसन्धान प्रस्ताव. A परियोजना प्रस्ताव (project proposal) is something different: the kind written to a donor or an organisation to ask for funding, with a budget and activity plan at its centre. If your brief is for a thesis or a research project, you need the first.
शोध प्रस्तावको ढाँचा: the sections in order
शीर्षक (Title): short and specific, naming the subject, the population and the place. Several TU faculty guidelines cap the title at about 12 words.
अध्ययनको पृष्ठभूमि (Background of the study): the context of the topic in Nepal, moving from general to specific, in one to two pages.
समस्याको कथन (Statement of the problem): the specific gap or problem, ending in your research questions (अनुसन्धान प्रश्नहरू).
अध्ययनका उद्देश्यहरू (Objectives): one general objective (मूल उद्देश्य) and two to four specific objectives (विशिष्ट उद्देश्यहरू), each one answerable from your data.
परिकल्पना (Hypotheses), if your study tests relationships: usually written as null hypotheses that match your specific objectives.
अध्ययनको औचित्य वा महत्त्व (Rationale or significance): who benefits from the answer, and how.
अध्ययनको सीमाङ्कन (Delimitations): the boundaries you chose, such as place, period, population or variables.
सम्बन्धित साहित्यको पुनरावलोकन (Review of related literature): सैद्धान्तिक पुनरावलोकन (theoretical review), पूर्वकार्यको पुनरावलोकन (review of earlier studies) and, where relevant, सैद्धान्तिक ढाँचा (conceptual framework). End with the gap your study fills.
अनुसन्धान विधि (Research methodology): अनुसन्धान ढाँचा (design), जनसङ्ख्या तथा नमुना छनोट (population and sampling), तथ्याङ्कका स्रोत (sources of data), तथ्याङ्क सङ्कलनका साधन (tools such as questionnaire or interview guide), and तथ्याङ्क विश्लेषण विधि (methods of analysis).
नैतिक पक्ष (Ethical considerations): consent, confidentiality and permissions, especially for research in schools or with minors.
प्रस्तावित अध्याय विभाजन (Proposed chapter plan): the chapters of the final thesis.
कार्यतालिका (Timeline): month by month, from approval to submission.
सन्दर्भ सामग्री सूची (References): every source cited in the proposal, in the style your department requires.
Your department's own format overrides this order where they differ. Some departments put the literature review before the objectives. Some fold the delimitations into the methodology. Some also ask for a budget (बजेट). Use the list as a checklist that nothing is missing, then follow the order your department gives.
A short illustrative sample
The outline below is an example to show how the sections connect. It is not a proposal to copy.
शीर्षक: ललितपुर जिल्लाका सामुदायिक माध्यमिक विद्यालयका विद्यार्थीमा मोबाइल फोन प्रयोग र शैक्षिक उपलब्धि
समस्याको कथन: विद्यार्थीमा मोबाइल फोनको प्रयोग बढ्दै गएको छ, तर यसले पढाइमा सकारात्मक वा नकारात्मक कुन प्रभाव पारेको छ भन्नेबारे नेपालका सामुदायिक विद्यालयमा पर्याप्त अध्ययन भएको छैन। अनुसन्धान प्रश्न: विद्यार्थीको दैनिक मोबाइल प्रयोगको समय र उनीहरूको परीक्षाको नतिजाबीच के सम्बन्ध छ?
मूल उद्देश्य: सामुदायिक माध्यमिक विद्यालयका विद्यार्थीको मोबाइल फोन प्रयोग र शैक्षिक उपलब्धिबीचको सम्बन्ध पत्ता लगाउनु।
विशिष्ट उद्देश्यहरू: (१) विद्यार्थीले मोबाइल फोन प्रयोग गर्ने समय र प्रयोजन पहिचान गर्नु; (२) मोबाइल प्रयोगको समय र परीक्षाको प्राप्ताङ्कबीचको सम्बन्ध विश्लेषण गर्नु; (३) लैङ्गिक आधारमा प्रयोगको भिन्नता तुलना गर्नु।
अनुसन्धान विधि: वर्णनात्मक तथा सहसम्बन्धात्मक ढाँचा; छनोट गरिएका विद्यालयका कक्षा ९ र १० का विद्यार्थीमध्येबाट नमुना; प्रश्नावली र विद्यालयको परीक्षा अभिलेख; वर्णनात्मक तथ्याङ्क र सहसम्बन्ध विश्लेषण।
नैतिक पक्ष: विद्यालय प्रशासन र अभिभावकको सहमति, विद्यार्थीको नाम गोप्य राख्ने।
Notice the alignment. Each specific objective has a matching item in the questionnaire and a matching analysis. That chain is what a research committee checks first, in either language.
Typing rules: Unicode or Preeti?
This is where Nepali-medium students most often get caught, because TU faculties do not agree. The Faculty of Education's MPhil and PhD guideline specifies Preeti at 16 point for Nepali text. FOHSS, as reported from its 2023 MA thesis notice, requires Nepali and Hindi theses to be typed in Unicode. Ask your department which it wants before you type the first page. Converting a full thesis between Preeti and Unicode later is slow and creates errors, and because Preeti stores Nepali as Latin characters underneath, any system that reads the text, such as a similarity checker or a library search, sees it as meaningless letters.
Use Nepali numerals (१, २, ३) or Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3) consistently. Tables with mixed numerals are a common correction.
Keep technical terms consistent. If you use तथ्याङ्क in Chapter 1, do not switch to डेटा in Chapter 4.
Where a Nepali term is not standard, give the English term in brackets the first time it appears.
Statistical symbols and software names, such as SPSS, r and p, stay in English.
Referencing Nepali sources
APA still applies to a proposal written in Nepali. Keep the author's name and the title exactly as the source prints them. Many departments accept Bikram Sambat years for Nepali sources in a Nepali-medium thesis. Whichever calendar you use, use it throughout, because mixed calendars in one reference list are a frequent correction. Our guide to citing Nepali government sources covers BS dates, fiscal years and translated titles in detail.
What committees send back
A title that names a topic but no population or place.
Objectives written as activities (“प्रश्नावली वितरण गर्नु”) rather than findings to be reached.
A literature review that summarises sources one by one and never states the gap.
A sample with no stated size or selection method.
Mixed fonts, Preeti in one chapter and Unicode in another, which usually shows that text was pasted from different sources.
Passages copied from earlier Nepali theses. Nepali text is checked for similarity too, and translation does not make a passage original.
Writing your शोध प्रस्ताव in Nepali and want it reviewed before it goes to your department? Send it to us on WhatsApp at +977 9768768340. We review proposals in Nepali and English for structure, alignment, terminology and typing.
Not sure if your work has plagiarism? Don't worry. Send it to us.
Tell us what you need checked and when it is due. Your document is checked without being stored in any student-paper repository, so the check never counts against your real submission. The reports come back with what each match means, not just a percentage.
Plagiarism report — The full similarity report on your assignment, proposal or chapter: every matched source listed, every flagged passage marked, and a plain read of which matches matter and which are your reference list doing its job.
AI report — The AI writing indicator read separately from similarity, because the two scores behave differently. If the flag looks like a detector artefact on work you wrote yourself, we tell you so, and what evidence answers it.
Thesis report — Similarity and AI reports for a full thesis or dissertation, run chapter by chapter so a problem in the literature review is found while you can still fix it, with each flagged passage explained for your supervisor.