Chapter Objectives

 Utilize audience analysis to plan, write, and revise a proposal.

 Explain the proposal process and various proposal types.
 Format and organize a written proposal.
 Adapt the style and content of a proposal based on the type of
proposal and audience analysis.

In a technical writing course, the proposal is an opportunity for you to

present an idea to a specific, named audience about an idea you have that
company, organization, center, or other business. Whatever topic you
choose, you must be able to conduct thorough research that you will
integrate into your final report.

To begin planning a proposal, remember the basic definition: a proposal is an

offer or bid to complete a project for someone. Proposals may contain other
elements—technical background, recommendations, results of surveys,
information about feasibility, and so on. But what makes a proposal a
proposal is that it asks the audience to approve, fund, or grant permission to
do the proposed project.

A proposal should contain information that would enable the audience of that
proposal to decide whether to approve the project, to approve or hire you to
do the work, or both. To write a successful proposal, put yourself in the place
of your audience—the recipient of the proposal—and think about what sorts
of information that person would need in order to feel confident having you
complete the project. Consider the example of a proposal written to a
supervisor at a solar power company suggesting the creation of a policy
manual for residential solar panel installers. The proposal’s audience may be
an executive, whose knowledge of the technicalities may be very broad. Let’s
imagine the executive approves the proposal and requests completion of the
manual, which will be produced well after the proposal. The manual’s
audience is the technicians, who may have more specialized knowledge than
the executive. The content and language used for these two different
audiences will need to be adjusted to fit the writing situation.

It Is easy to confuse proposals with other kinds of documents in technical

writing. Imagine that you have a terrific idea for installing some new
technology where you work, and you write up a document explaining how it
works, showing the benefits, and then urging management to install it. Is
that a proposal? All by itself, this would not be a complete proposal. It would
be more like a feasibility report, which studies the merits of a project and
then recommends for or against it. However, all it would take to make this
document a proposal would be to add elements that ask management for
approval for you to go ahead with the project. Additionally, for some
technical writing classes offered in college, one of those elements may be
scholarly research. Certainly, some writers of proposals must sell the projects
they propose, but in all cases, proposals must sell the writer (or the writer’s
organization) as the one to complete the project.

Types of Proposals

Consider the situations in which proposals occur. A company may send out a
public announcement requesting proposals for a specific project. This public
announcement—called a request for proposals (RFP)—could be issued
through websites, emails, social media, newspapers, or trade journals. Firms
or individuals interested in the project would then write proposals in which
they summarize their qualifications, project schedules and costs, and discuss
their approach to the project. The recipient of all these proposals would then
evaluate them, select the best candidate, and then work up a contract.

But proposals also come about much less formally. Imagine that you are
interested in doing a project at work (for example, investigating the merits of
bringing in some new technology to increase productivity). Imagine that you
met with your supervisor and tried to convince him or her of this. They might
respond by saying, “Write me a proposal and I’ll present it to upper
management.” This is more like the kind of proposal you will write in a
technical writing course.

Most proposals can be divided into several categories:

Internal, external: A proposal to someone within your organization (a

business, a government agency, etc.) is an internal proposal

With internal proposals, you may not have to include certain sections (such
as qualifications) or as much information in them. An external proposal is one
written from one separate, independent organization or individual to another
such entity. A typical example is an independent consultant proposing to do a
project for another firm. This kind of proposal may be solicited or unsolicited,
as explained below.

Solicited, unsolicited: A solicited proposal is one in which the recipient has

requested the proposal. Typically, a company will send out requests for
proposals (RFPs) through the mail or publish them in some news source. But
proposals can be solicited on a very local level: for example, you could be
explaining to your boss what a great thing it would be to install a new
technology in the office; your boss might get interested and ask you to write
up a proposal that offered to do a formal study of the idea. Unsolicited
proposals are those in which the recipient has not requested proposals. With
unsolicited proposals, you sometimes must convince the recipient that a
problem or need exists before you can begin the main part of the proposal.

Sections in a Proposal

You have the following options for the format and packaging of your
proposal. It does not matter which you use as long as you use the
memorandum format for internal proposals and the business-letter format for
external proposals.

Cover letter or memo with a separate proposal: In this format, you write a
brief “cover” letter or memo and attach the proposal properly after it. The
cover letter or memo briefly announces that a proposal follows and outlines
the contents of it. In fact, the contents of the cover letter or memo are pretty
much the same as the introduction (discussed in the previous section).
Notice, however, that the introduction to the proposal proper that follows the
cover letter or memo repeats much of what preceded. This is because the
letter or memo may get detached from the proposal or the recipient may not
even bother to look at the letter or memo and just dive right into the
proposal itself.

Consolidated business-letter or memo proposal: In this format, you

consolidate the entire proposal with a standard business letter or memo. You
include headings and other special formatting elements as if it were a report.

The following provides a review of the sections you will commonly find in
proposals. Do not assume that each one of them has to be in the actual
proposal you write, nor that they have to be in the order they are presented
here. Refer to the assignment sheet provided by your instructor and consider
other kinds of information unique to your topic that should be included in
your particular proposal.

Introduction. Plan the introduction to your proposal carefully. Make sure it

does all of the following things (but not necessarily in this order) that apply
to your particular proposal:
Indicate that the content of the memo is a proposal for a specific project.

Develop at least one brief motivating statement that will encourage the
recipient to read on and to consider approving the project (especially if it is
an unsolicited or competitive proposal).

Give an overview of the contents of the proposal.

Background on the problem, opportunity, or situation. Often occurring just

after the introduction, the background section discusses what has brought
about the need for the project—what problem, what opportunity exists for
improving things, what the basic situation is. For example, management of a
chain of daycare centers may need to ensure that all employees know CPR
because of new state mandates requiring it, or an owner of Pine Timberland
in eastern Oregon may want to get the land producing saleable timber
without destroying the environment.

While the named audience of the proposal may know the problem very well,
writing the background section is useful in demonstrating your particular
view of the problem. Also, if the proposal is unsolicited, a background section
is almost a requirement—you will probably need to convince the audience
that the problem or opportunity exists and that it should be addressed.

Benefits and feasibility of the proposed project. Most proposals briefly

discuss the advantages or benefits of completing the proposed project. This
acts as a type of argument in favor of approving the project. Also, some
proposals discuss the likelihood of the project’s success. In an unsolicited
proposal, this section is especially important—you are trying to “sell” the
audience on the project.

Description of the proposed work (results of the project). Most proposals

must describe the finished product of the proposed project. In a technical
writing course, that means describing the written document you propose to
write, its audience and purpose; providing an outline; and discussing such
things as its length, graphics, binding, and so forth. In the scenario you
define, there may be other work such as conducting training seminars or
providing an ongoing service. At this early stage, you might not know all that
it will take to complete your project, but you should at least have an idea of
some of the steps required.

Method, procedure, theory. In some proposals, you will need to explain how
you will go about completing the proposed work. This acts as an additional
persuasive element; it shows the audience you have a sound, thoughtful
approach to the project. Also, it serves to demonstrate that you have the
knowledge of the field to complete the project.

Schedule. Most proposals contain a section that shows not only the projected
completion date but also key milestones for the project. If you are doing a
large project spreading over many months, the timeline would also show
dates on which you would deliver progress reports. If you cannot cite specific
dates, cite amounts of time for each phase of the project.

Costs, resources required. Most proposals also contain a section detailing the
costs of the project, whether internal or external. With external projects, you
may need to list your hourly rates, projected hours, costs of equipment and
supplies, and so forth, and then calculate the total cost of the complete
project. Internal projects, of course, are not free, so you should still list the
project costs: hours you will need to complete the project, equipment and
supplies you will be using, assistance from other people in the organization,
and so on.

Conclusions. The final paragraph or section of the proposal should bring

readers back to a focus on the positive aspects of the project. In the final
section, you can urge them to contact you to work out the details of the
project, remind them of the benefits of doing the project, and maybe make
one last argument for you or your organization as the right choice for the
project.

Special project-specific sections. Remember that the preceding sections are

typical or common in written proposals, not absolute requirements. Always
ask yourself what else might your audience need to understand the project,
the need for it, the benefits arising from it, your role in it, and your
qualifications to do it. What else do they need to see in order to approve the
project and to approve you to do it?

Organization of Proposals

As for the organization of the content of a proposal, remember that it is

essentially a sales or promotional kind of thing. Here are the basic steps it
goes through:

Introduce the proposal, telling the readers its purpose and contents.
Present the background – the problem, opportunity, or situation that brings
about the proposed project. Get the reader concerned about the problem,
excited about the opportunity, or interested in the situation.

3. State what you propose to do about the problem, how you plan to help the
readers take advantage of the opportunity, how you intend to help them with
the situation.

Discuss the benefits of doing the proposed project, the advantages that
come from approving it.

Describe exactly what the completed project would consist of, what it would
look like, how it would work – describe the results of the project.

Discuss the method and theory or approach behind that method – enable
readers to understand how you’ll go about the proposed work.

Provide a schedule, including major milestones or checkpoints in the project.

List your qualifications for the project; provide a mini-resume of the

background you have that makes you right for the project.

Now (and only now), list the costs of the project, the resources you’ll need to
do the project.

Conclude with a review of the benefits of doing the project (in case the shock
from the costs section was too much), and urge the audience to get in touch
or to accept the proposal.

Notice the overall logic of the movement through these sections: you get
them concerned about a problem or interested in an opportunity, then you
get them excited about how you’ll fix the problem or do the project, then you
show them what good qualifications you have – then hit them with the costs,
but then come right back to the good points about the project.

Format of Proposals