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INSTRUCTIONS:
(please let me know if you have any questions or need any more inf
INSTRUCTIONS:
(please let me know if you have any questions or need any more info or course work material ASAP)
Major Document 3: Proposal is an exercise in writing a proposal. For this assignment, you will propose the topic for your Formal Project.
What will the proposal contain?
Your proposal must contain the conventional elements of a proposal as discussed in chapter 16 of your text. Some of the elements you include in your proposal will vary from those other students include, but as a minimum, your proposal must contain the following:
Executive Summary
Introduction
Problem Definition
Solution
Work Plan
Detailed Steps/Strategies of the Proposed Project (if a document, then outline)
Conclusion
The proposal will likely be about 3–4 pages long. Remember, this document is different from the Formal Project, which will be the longer, 10–15 page document.
**Additional page of info I could not convert into a pdf pic for you, sorry**
Based on our readings and discussions we see that proposals are persuasive documents that “sell” something to a specific audience. You could be selling an idea to someone in your organization or you might be trying to convince someone outside of your organization to adopt a policy or buy a good/service. In theory, proposals are simple documents in which you:
Introduce your topic
Describe the problem(s) that you want to resolve
Provide solutions to the problems
Explain how you’ll implement your solutions
Forecast the time and cost involved with completing the project
Explain why you’re qualified to do the work
Conclude your document and offer to answer any questions
Framing the Problem
Even though the concepts behind proposals seem pretty simple, planning and writing an effective proposal can be difficult. Many proposals fail because they fail to convince the reader(s) that a problem truly exists. Think about it: If you’re writing an unsolicited proposal (meaning that the reader didn’t ask you to provide a work plan for solving a known problem), then you’ve got make your readers understand the problem is there to begin with. And stating that a problem exists isn’t enough. You have to demonstrate to your readers how the problem affects them.
For example, if you were proposing to create an employee manual and quick-reference card for the cashiers at a local grocery store, your basic problem would be that the store has no documentation for cashiers to refer to when they’re on the job. But the manager of a store that doesn’t currently provide job-specific manuals might not understand why such documentation is important. So you have to take the basic problem (the store doesn’t have a manual for cashiers) and break it into specific problems that actually mean something to the person reading your proposal, such as:
Without a manual, employees might not know the basics of working in the store — such as company policies, uniform and grooming requirements, instructions for handling specific issues with the cash register, etc. When employees don’t have a written guide of basic store policies and procedures, they either have to ask other employees (who might not know the correct answer) or risk breaking those policies and procedures because they don’t know any better. And if employees haven’t been given the policies in writing, then managers might not feel confident about enforcing regulations consistently, possibly creating frustration for managers and employees.
Without a quick-reference card, cashiers might not know how to solve on-the-job issues that they encounter with the cash register. Even the solution to an otherwise simple problem could cause the cashier to have to stop what he/she is doing and ask for help. Asking for help not only interrupts the confused cashier’s transaction, but also that of the cashier who has to help solve the problem. And the customers of both cashiers suffer by having to wait while the problem is resolved. The entire situation could leave both employees and their customers frustrated, and frustrated customers (or employees) aren’t good for business.
The above problems aren’t the only ones that you could come up with in such a proposal, and you might think of other ways to make them relevant to the readers. As you can imagine, knowing as much as you can about who is going to read your document (i.e., analyzing your audience) will affect how you frame your discussion of the problem and solution. If you knew that the owner of the grocery store was Ebenezer Scrooge, you probably wouldn’t focus on the happiness of his employees as an issue to consider, but would more likely underscore the financial impact of botched transactions.
Keeping the Problem and Solution Separate
Aside from failing to adequately describe a problem, many proposals also falter when they mix problems and solutions. Your proposal will discuss a set of problems in detail and provide solutions to those problems, but you don’t want to confuse the two. Make sure you maintain all the problems in one section and all the solutions in another (each section should have a heading identifying it). In the above section, I provided two sample strategies for addressing a general problem. If you read those problems carefully, you’ll notice that I didn’t talk about how I would solve the problem or how my implied solutions would make the problem better. I focused only on the problems. If I were continuing with my hypothetical proposal, the next section would contain my solutions and explain how the solutions would address the specific problems.
Making the Problem and Solution Match
Once you’ve devised your scheme for describing problems and answering those with solutions (each in their separately labeled sections), you want to make sure that the problems and solutions match. That is…
State a problem only if you provide a solution for it later.
State a solution only if it addresses a problem stated earlier.
Think of the problem and solution sections of mirroring each other. If you talk about A, B, and C in the problem section, then you have to talk about A, B, and C in the solution section. (A, B, and C should come in the same order in each section.) When proposals lack this consistency, they can easily fail. If you were the reader of a proposal, you wouldn’t want to hear about how something is a problem and then not have a solution provided. Also, you probably wouldn’t want to see solutions that weren’t ever addressed as problems to begin with.
As you prepare to submit your proposals, I want to share my answers to questions that I’ve received about writing/submitting this document. I will continue to update this page based on questions that students e-mail. Please read the following, and let me know if you have additional questions:
Q: How should I format my proposal?
A: For an internal proposal (i.e., one written within your organization, a memo format would be acceptable for this size of document. If you are writing an external or unsolicited proposal, a more formal approach would be necessary. You could either use a formal-letter format or create a cover page that contains all of the transmittal information with the proposal itself following.Regardless of the general format that you use, remember to apply what we’ve been learning about document design: Use headings, lists, and paragraphs to aid readability and help your readers find information quickly. Do not double space within paragraphs, center information, underline, write in “all caps,” or use only one typeface/size. MLA/APA formatting conventions are not appropriate for business documents because these conventions obscure information, make documents longer than they need to be, and generally make the documents harder to read. Academic formatting standards are based on arbitrary rules that were made up a long time ago when people produced texts on typewriters. Your document should be fit for everyday, business uses, so don’t use formatting conventions that look like a traditional classroom essay.
Q: Who is the audience for my proposal?
A:The audience for your proposal is the person who would be in a position to approve your idea to create the manual that you’re proposing. You don’t need to actually submit your document to that person (though some of you might), but you should write with that person in mind. By person, I really mean the role of the person who would be able to approve your idea. Perhaps you’ll want your boss to use the proposed manual for other employees; maybe you’re trying to get a publisher to produce and distribute your manual for the general public; etc. Having the audience whom you’re trying to persuade in mind will make writing your proposal and framing your argument easier. So far, I haven’t seen any idea that would require my being the audience for the proposal, so be sure that you’re writing to someone other than me.
Q: What file type should I use for submitting my proposal?
A: Always use PDF—and not just for my class. As we’ve seen, only a PDF will guarantee that your readers will the document as you intended and that your readers will be able to open your file on mobile devices without being reformatted. Additionally, PDFs make your documents essentially “un-editable,” ensuring that your readers don’t accidentally change your document. Finally, PDFs are far less likely to contain viruses. Word files are notorious for being embedded with viruses. So any time you want to share a document with someone, you should send a PDF. The only exception would be if you need your recipient to edit your document. In that case, you’d want to send the original Word file.
Q: What’s a Work Plan?
A:The Work Plan is literally your plan for completing the work that you’re proposing. As mentioned in Module 5, writing an instruction manual is a major undertaking, and you will complete many activities to make your proposed manual a reality. Your work plan should discuss those tasks and provide approximate dates for when tasks will be completed. Many of your proposal readers won’t know what goes into creating a manual, so having a detailed work plan will help them see the scope of your proposed work. Also, they’ll get a better idea for how prepared you are for completing the work—adding to the persuasive appeal of your proposal.
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