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WritingaProposalF2020.pptxWriting a Proposal
A proposal is a detailed plan of action that a writer submits to a reader or a group of readers for consideration or approval. It must be persuasive in order to be effective. There are two different styles—formal and informal.
There are two types:
~Internal—business, work, school, household
~External—typically sales
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306 Formal Proposal Assignment
Topic—you can choose any topic you’d like, as long as it solves a problem or presents an opportunity.
What does that mean? Choosing a topic.
Assignment—a successful proposal includes the following elements:
Cover Page—on a separate page
Lists the following information:
Title page
Title of your proposal
Who you are submitting your proposal to along with her/his title
Your name and title
Current date
The Title Page is Roman numeral page i, however it is not numbered.
Table of Contents—on a separate page
Lists the contents of your proposal. There are required sections and optional sections:
Executive Summary (R)
Problem (R)
Purpose (R)
Budget (O)
Scope (O)
Conclusion (R)
Works Cited (R)
The Table of Contents should be justified so that your text is distributed evenly from the left margin to the right and has a clean, polished look.
Problem …………………………………………………………………………3
The Table of Contents is Roman numeral page ii
Executive Summary—on a separate page
Gives a brief overview of what you’re planning on proposing. You should briefly discuss:
What your proposal is going to be about and who it’s intended for
Highlight important reasons or aspects for the proposal
What methodologies will you use (surveys, interviews, etc.)?
What will be the structure of the report?
What recommendations are you proposing?
Persuade the recipient to want to read the proposal and make the changes you recommend.
The Executive Summary is Arabic numeral page 1
Headings for Your Proposal
Headings are important because proposals are often read by different people interested only in the section that applies to their department.
All headers from this point on are synchronous on the page—meaning not on a separate page
Introduction
Problem—discusses the current situation, then clearly states problem or need for change
Purpose/benefits—details exactly what you want to do. Presents goal and importance of your proposal. You should have a detailed plan. This section can also stress the benefits that influenced your decision to write your proposal
Headings for Your Proposal
Optional proposal headings—what/how are you going to go about generating your proposal. Some optional headings include the following: projected costs/budget*, timeline*, technical details*, undesirable consequences of not accepting the proposal*, ethical dimensions* (why is this the right thing to do?), feasibility/practicality of your proposal*
Headings will depend on what you are proposing.
Headings for Your Proposal
Optional headings
Objective(s): Details the solution to the problem. Shows how you plan to address the problem. Be specific and quantitative. What will your solution deliver.
Have precise numbers
Have details on the methods you plan to use
Measurement: how will you measure progress? How will they know that you solved the problem? Will there be a survey? Money? Saved hours? Customer satisfaction?
Headings for Your Proposal
Optional headings
Projected costs/budget: all costs should be reflected. Be detailed. Can be a list or spreadsheet.
Timeline: be realistic and explain how it’s going to happen
Technical details: resources or what will be needed, who will take the lead in managing the project? Hiring new people? New computers?
Headings for Your Proposal
Conclusion
Undesirable consequences of not accepting the proposal
Ethical dimensions (why is this the right thing to do?)
Feasibility/practicality of your proposal
Outside Sources – Works Cited Page
You must use three outside sources for your proposal, but they must augment, not be the focus of, your proposal.
A good outside source helps you explain some of the details of your proposal, but the outside sources are only there in a supporting capacity, and your proposal should make sense even without the outside sources.
Your proposal will be graded in part on how well you analyze a problem and propose to solve it, and excessive reliance on outside sources will have a deleterious effect on your grade.
MLA and Plagiarism
You MUST give credit for ideas, statistics, dates, or any other information you use that did not come from your brain. So, your opinion/analysis does not need to be cited, but if you read a 10-page article and explain your proposal in terms of that author’s thesis, you must cite that author as a contributing source. Likewise, if you learn from an article that nylon was invented in 1935, you must give credit to the article where you read that. If you don’t, you are stealing someone’s intellectual property and you WILL FAIL my class, guaranteed.
Length
Your paper should be a minimum of 5 pages. Each proposal will be graded according to how well it develops and analyzes the problem/proposal, but be advised that you should select a topic that will lend itself to a robust development and discussion of a problem. You should focus on quality, not necessarily quantity; I can tell when you’re just trying to fill up space as opposed to actually thinking seriously about a problem and proposed solution. That said, you also cannot propose and solve a problem of any consequence in a page or two. How much you write depends on your willingness to engage the problem and thoughtfully develop a solution.
