part 2

2

Unit III

Lesson 5: The Proposal

Introduction

Proposals are used in many different spheres. In the public and business spheres, proposals are used as a way of communicating the details of a project to a potential client, supporting body, or donor. In academics, the most common proposals are the ones that detail the kind of research a person or team wishes to begin, continue, or amend. Oftentimes, these academic proposals are a way to ask for permission for the use of facilities or to apply for grants. Students learn how to write proposals as a way to give them practice for the future when they will conduct their own research. In the soft sciences, proposals are used as a way to announce a research project.

What Is a Proposal?

It is common for undergraduates to be asked to write a proposal for their research because writing a proposal helps them to articulate their ideas and allows the professor to give them feedback on the direction of their ideas. For this course, you will be writing a research proposal (RP), which will announce the project you intend to complete for the course. It is assumed that when you write your RP, you may not know everything you want to say about your topic. However, you should have a very good idea of what you want to do, and you should be able to discuss the project in a formalized manner. The RP will help you to accomplish both of these goals.

The Purpose of the Proposal

There are a few purposes for your proposal. A good proposal will have the following uses:

1. Understanding your project: After writing the RP, you should gain a better understanding of your project through articulating it for another audience (your professor) in a formalized manner. As you may already have realized from ENG 1301, sometimes you may better understand your thoughts when you have to explain your ideas to others. We call this articulation, and it can be very enlightening!

2. Getting direction and feedback: After reviewing the RP, your professor or anyone else who reads the RP should have a good idea of the project you intend to complete at the end of writing your research paper. You will receive feedback on your project and be able to incorporate those changes as you begin drafting the paper itself.

3. Establishing a blueprint for your project: The proposal acts as a guide to keep you on track while you write. As we discussed when we learned about the Toulmin model of informal logic, your conclusions about your topic may change as time progresses and you read more about the topic. However, sometimes, the more you research, the more it can feel as though you are losing sight of your original topic or your hunch. Referring back to the RP and the feedback from the professor can help to keep your focus as you progress through the writing process.

The Content

As we closely examined in the previous lesson, there are three sections to your proposal:

· Section 1: What is the topic? (100-150 words)

· Section 2: What is the controversy? (300-400 words)

· Section 3: Your tentative thesis statement (1-2 sentences)

For each of these sections, you will follow the instructions given in Unit III, Lesson 4. The word minimums should be considered part of the requirements and should be adhered to.

The Form

The content of each section (with the exception of Section 3) should be written in paragraph format. The following is an example structure for the proposal:

· Section 1, Paragraph 1: Discuss the general topic as directed in Lesson 4.

· Section 2, Paragraph 1: Describe the controversy generally.

· Section 2, Paragraph 2: Discuss the pro side of the controversy.

· Section 2, Paragraph 3: Discuss the con side of the controversy.

· Section 3, Thesis: In one sentence (preferable), state your tentative argument.

You will want to include headers to help identify the different sections of your research proposal. The example document includes proper headings as they appear in APA style. Remember that everything you pull from sources should be documented using APA citation style.