What should a research proposal contain?

1. The problem you want to solve. Why is it important? And why do u choose it? (Why are you interested in this particular question?)
2. Are there any works related to this problem? What did they do? How far were they compared to the final solution? What are the methods used in solving this question? (or relative field)
3. What method do you choose? And what's the advantage and disadvantage of that? How can you overcome the disadvantage? Or it's the best way to solve your problem right now? Can you get the final answer? Or you can push forward the solution for this problem but you can't get the final answer.
4. The schedule of your research. Probably you'll make a plan during every week (that's best, but usually you need to plan for every month)
5. What do you want to achieve from this research? (Learn a new method, publish some papers, get deep insight into some field that interested to you. Blabla...)

I think these 5 points are most important and you should at least consider these 5 parts in writing a research proposal. Once you have your proposal, you may start researching. Good luck.(Zhengda He)