This request for proposals presents the formatting and content expectations for submissions. Your purpose in this document is to present to me as your instructor your mostly developed plan for your recommendation report including a more thorough audience analysis, a presentation of the problem, solution, and context for the report you are working on. Overview: Proposals are one of the most common and most useful forms of professional writing in every field. There are many kinds of proposals ranging from an internal informal one to a multiple hundred page response to a professional Request for Proposal (RFP). This one is somewhere in between. In the real world, proposals seek approval, authorization, or selection to do or continue work. In this assignment, you might consider this call for proposals as such: I cannot afford to “fund” all of your research projects and have to decide which ones are most feasible, which ones seem to be the most well developed to this point, and which of you seem most capable of succeeding. So your purpose in this proposal is to convince me that I should approve your continued work on this project. BE careful not to confuse your audience for this memo (ME as your instructor) with the audience you will be analyzing and targeting in your document and for your recommendation report (the person/people who can take the ultimate action your report recommends. Your proposal will include an analysis of the AUDIENCE FOR YOUR FINAL RECOMMENDATION REPORT. Writing down what you know about your audience will help you focus your writing for the needs of the reader. The more you know about your audience, the more you can help that audience understand your work. This proposal has three main functions: 1) Forces you to commit to a topic and research direction; 2) Serves as a tool for organizing and allows potential problems to surface at an early stage; 3) Allows for further evaluation and guidance regarding the development of your project. Requirements: The proposal must adhere to the following formatting requirements: 1.3 single-spaced pages maximum. 2.Memo format. 3.Audience analysis equal to approximately 1 full page. 4.Each of the sections listed below (in the order indicated), set off with appropriate headings. Content Section Guidelines: The proposal must include the following content sections in the exact order in which they are presented here(you may change the section headings). All content identified here is required. Statement of the Problem A successful proposal should persuade the reader that your topic is timely and significant and worth dedicating hours of energy and other resources to. In this section, describe your basic problem you are trying to solve or issue at hand (this could be a matter of something broken, something absent, something inefficient or ineffective in some way that requires improvement or change of some kind. that is, the situation, issue, or problem that you are analyzing in your report. Convince me here that the problem is real, and that it is significant enough that it needs to be dealt with. There are two levels on which you can explore the seriousness of the problem: first is that it is a problem for the report audience costing them money, reputation, an ability to do their jobs, etcetera, or that it is a problem for others (e.g. people are dying, or just frustrated). Remember that a problem is always a problem in context. In other words, different locations and people will see the same issue differently including how serious a problem it might be. How can you show me that this is a real problem serious enough your report audience will be compelled to act? Proposed Report Discuss your specific approach to the aforementioned problem. How do you think it can or should be solved. This is the place to present your working thesis and potential ideas for recommendations or solutions to be proposed Also, discuss what kind of report you are planning to write and give a brief overview of its importance. . Why should such a report be done? Whom will your report benefit? Can you offer valuable new interpretations, insights, recommendations, or solutions (i.e. make sure that the issue has not already been solved or analyzed to death by professionals in your field). Remember that part of your job here is to convince me that you are capable of doing this work, so your thoroughness in expressing the nature of your report is persuasive in that it shows me what the quality of your thinking and research to this point are (whether I have spent my money effectively on you to this point). Considering that you are writing this proposal to ME, and trying to convince ME that this project is feasible, in this section you should also address how your report will meet the requirements for this course, as outlined in the course syllabus. The project needs to satisfy the course as well as prove its point. Audience Analysis In this section, you should describe what you know about the audience for your final recommendation report in detail. You may choose to include secondary readers as well. Who is your audience? What are you assuming about them? What do they require from your report? Consider the points of analysis your book presents, things like education, skill level, political affiliations, experience, biases, personal stakes, and the like as appropriate. What matters to them? Once you have described your audience, analyze your results. Explain how the information about your audience will affect the way you plan, write, design, and present your report. In other words, how does your audience analysis shape your report? For example, will you need to establish your credibility by citing numerous experts in the field? Use a particular tone, pace and/or style? Include graphics, a glossary, etc. What about how your audience affects the choice of actions/recommendations that can be made? You should target a specific, real world audience that is in a position to implement your recommendations. (See the ″Audience Analysis Worksheet″ on the next page to aid your development of this section. Also make sure that you are reading the text for this work as indicated on the course calendar; you will find it very helpful in this section in particular). Qualifications Discuss the ways in which you are qualified to undertake this project. Convince your reader that you are the ideal person to conduct this report. What background or specific skills do you have that are related to your topic? Think of your academic major, courses you′ve taken, research skills, other work experience, personal involvement, etc. What gives you credibility? Proposed Outline Provide a basic, preliminary outline of your paper; use the outline to demonstrate how you will approach your topic and break down your argument within your report. Although this outline will likely change as you continue your research, it will force you to deal with important organizational issues. (you may not find the text book entirely helpful with this section, but it will provide a real world overview of reports and ways to draft them.)
