The 10 authorities used for the synthesis

Authority	What the work contributes to this process
Booth, Colomb, Williams, Bizup & FitzGerald, The Craft of Research	Explicitly moves from interest → topic → focused topic → research question → research problem, with particular emphasis on answering the “So what?” question and using sources to refine the problem. (University of Chicago Press)
Creswell & Creswell, Research Design	Places literature review, theory, ethics, purpose statement, research questions/hypotheses, and methodological design as distinct but related components of proposal development. (SAGE Publishing)
Maxwell, Qualitative Research Design	Treats goals, conceptual framework, research questions, methods, and validity as an interactive system rather than a linear sequence. Research questions sit at the center of the design. (SAGE Publications)
Punch, Developing Effective Research Proposals	Organizes a proposal around What? How? Why? Research questions determine methods, while significance provides the justification. Proposal development also involves literature, theory, ethics, and revision. (SAGE Publishing)
Kumar, Research Methodology	Uses a beginner-friendly staged process involving the research problem, literature, research design, sampling, data collection, analysis, proposal, and report. (Google Books)
Babbie, The Practice of Social Research	Adds theory, ethics, conceptualization, operationalization, sampling, research design, data collection, and analysis, showing that “design” involves considerably more than choosing qualitative or quantitative research. (Google Books)
Yin, Case Study Research and Applications	Strongly emphasizes alignment among questions, propositions, unit of analysis, evidence, analysis, and interpretation. Literature helps researchers sharpen questions and define boundaries. (PubMed Central (PMC))
Marshall, Rossman & Blanco, Designing Qualitative Research	Connects conceptual framework, significance, research design, data collection, analysis, trustworthiness, ethics, feasibility, and proposal justification. (Google Books)
Leedy & Ormrod, Practical Research	Organizes research around the problem, review of related literature, research planning, proposal writing, research design, and analysis and explicitly presents research as something refined through planning.
Robson, Real World Research	Provides an applied sequence from research question → design strategy → data collection → analysis → interpretation/reporting, while foregrounding ethics and feasibility in real-world settings. (Wiley-VCH)

The convergence among these works is quite strong. They use different terminology and sometimes order elements differently, but they repeatedly return to the same relationships: a worthwhile problem, informed by existing knowledge, leads to purposeful research questions; those questions determine the design and methods; and the entire study must be coherent, ethical, feasible, and defensible.

Assessment of your original process

Your original diagram was:

Choose topic → Narrow it → Identify problem → Develop research questions → Create research design → Write proposal

I would keep the underlying logic, but modify each stage somewhat.

Original stage	Assessment from the synthesis	Recommendation
1. Choose your research topic	Strongly supported	Keep it. Treat this as a broad area of interest rather than a final topic.
2. Narrow it down and find your niche	Supported, but incomplete	Add preliminary literature searching. Researchers cannot reliably identify a “niche” simply through brainstorming.
3. Identify a research problem	Essential	Expand it to problem/gap + significance. Learners should explain both what is problematic/unknown and why it matters.
4. Develop clear research questions	Essential and strongly supported	Keep, but add purpose before it. Purpose connects the problem to the questions.
5. Create a research design to answer them	Correct but too compressed	Separate overall design/framework from concrete methods such as participants, sampling, data collection, and analysis.
6. Write your research proposal	Correct	Change to write, evaluate, revise, and refine, because proposal development is iterative rather than simply the final linear step.

The biggest weakness: literature appears too late—or not at all

This is the most important modification I would make.

Booth et al. explicitly connect focused topics and questions with research problems and source investigation. Creswell gives the literature review its own early stage. Kumar includes literature review as part of moving from a problem toward design. Yin describes using the literature to narrow an interest and sharpen potential research questions. Leedy and Ormrod similarly place the review of related literature immediately after establishing the research problem. (University of Chicago Press)

So:

“Narrow it down and find your niche” should become something like “Explore the literature and narrow your focus.”

That distinction matters pedagogically. A learner should not simply invent a research gap. The preliminary literature helps the learner determine what is already known, what remains uncertain, and whether the proposed problem is actually worth investigating.

For your Academic Writing course, I would call this a preliminary literature scan rather than a full literature review. That fits particularly well with your syllabus: Unit I already includes narrowing a topic and AI-supported literature mapping, while Units III and IV subsequently develop the annotated bibliography and full literature review.

The second important addition: significance

A research problem alone is not enough.

Booth repeatedly brings researchers back to “So what?” Punch frames proposal development around what the study asks, how it will answer it, and why the research is worth doing. Maxwell similarly begins his model with the goals of the study—why it should be conducted and why anyone should care about its results. (University of Chicago Press)

Therefore I would change:

Identify a research problem

to:

Identify the research problem and explain its significance

For your students, that can remain very simple:

What is happening? → What do we still need to understand? → Why does understanding it matter?

That is a stronger progression than simply telling students to “find a gap.”

The third modification: add purpose

Creswell separates the purpose statement from the research questions, while Maxwell distinguishes the study’s goals from its questions. (SAGE Publishing)

That distinction is useful for novice researchers:

Problem: What needs to be understood?
Purpose: What will this study attempt to understand?
Research questions: What exactly must the study answer?

This gives students a much clearer logical chain:

Problem → Purpose → Questions

I would definitely include this in the infographic.

The fourth modification: distinguish research design from methods

Your statement “Create a research design to answer them” is conceptually correct. In fact, one of the strongest findings across the ten sources is that research questions should drive methodological choices, not the other way around. Punch explicitly says methods depend on research questions; Maxwell similarly argues that methods must enable researchers to answer their questions. Creswell recommends selecting an approach that best fits the research question. (SAGE Publishing)

But novice researchers benefit from distinguishing two levels:

Research design = the overall strategy or logic of the study.

Methods = what researchers will actually do: whom or what they will study, how participants or cases will be selected, how evidence will be collected, and how it will be analyzed.

Babbie, Kumar, Yin, Leedy and Ormrod, and Robson all make these elements much more explicit than your original diagram. (Google Books)

The fifth modification: the process should not look completely linear

Maxwell is especially important here. His model explicitly treats goals, conceptual framework, questions, methods, and validity as interactive components. A change in one can require reconsidering another. Punch likewise describes proposal development as thinking, planning, justifying, drafting, and refining rather than simply completing a template. Marshall and Rossman emphasize flexibility as well. (SAGE Publications)

So the arrows should primarily move downward for pedagogical clarity, but the graphic should include a return arrow indicating that researchers frequently revisit earlier stages.

For example, a student may develop an excellent question and then discover that there is no feasible way to obtain the required participants. That discovery should cause the student to revise the question—not press forward simply because Step 4 has already been “completed.”

Recommended final process

Based on the synthesis, I would now recommend eight stages for your students:

1. Choose a broad area of interest
   Begin with a phenomenon, issue, experience, population, or educational situation worth exploring.

2. Explore the literature and narrow the focus
   Conduct a preliminary search to discover what is known, identify important concepts, and determine a manageable focus.

3. Define the research problem and significance
   Explain what is happening, what remains uncertain or insufficiently understood, and why investigating it matters.

4. State the purpose of the study
   Clearly state what the proposed research intends to explore, understand, describe, explain, or investigate.

5. Develop focused research questions
   Create questions that follow directly from the problem and purpose and are specific enough to guide the study.

6. Select an appropriate research design and conceptual lens
   Determine the broad research approach and the concepts or theoretical perspective that will guide the inquiry.

7. Plan the methods
   Identify the context, participants/cases, sampling or selection strategy, data collection procedures, and anticipated approach to analysis.

8. Write, evaluate, and refine the proposal
   Demonstrate that the problem, purpose, questions, literature, design, and methods form one coherent and defensible study.

I would then place a band underneath all eight stages, rather than adding more numbered steps:

THROUGHOUT THE PROCESS:
Ethics • Feasibility • Alignment • Quality/Rigor • Reflection & Revision

That reflects Creswell’s treatment of ethics, Maxwell’s concern with validity, Marshall and Rossman’s attention to trustworthiness and practical constraints, Babbie’s treatment of research ethics, Kumar’s treatment of ethics and validity/reliability, and Robson’s emphasis on ethical and real-world feasibility considerations. (SAGE Publishing)

One change I would make to the image I generated earlier

The previous revised graphic was already much closer to the research-methods literature, but after this more systematic comparison I would change its wording and ordering slightly.

Instead of:

Narrow focus → Problem/gap → Purpose/objectives → Questions → Framework/design → Methods

I recommend:

Explore literature & narrow focus → Problem + significance → Purpose → Questions → Design + conceptual lens → Methods

I would also drop “hypotheses” from the main graphic for your Academic Writing students if their initial proposals remain qualitative. Hypotheses are appropriate for some quantitative designs, but they should not appear to be a universal research requirement. Creswell explicitly distinguishes questions and hypotheses according to methodological approach, and Maxwell’s qualitative model centers research questions rather than hypotheses. (SAGE Publishing)

That final eight-stage version is the one I would use instructionally. It keeps the simplicity of your original diagram, but it also captures the central consensus of these ten methods authorities without overwhelming seventh-semester Academic Writing students.