Technical Writing – Proposals

University of Jordan
School of Engineering
Technical Writing

Chapter 7: Proposals

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 Technical Writing – Proposals

Proposals
- The goal of a proposal is to persuade readers to accept a course of
action as an acceptable way to solve a problem or fill a need.
- Internal proposals show that the situation is bad and your way will
clearly make it better.
- External proposals show that your way is the best.

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Grant Proposals for Non-Profit Organizations

• Typically non-profits do not take in enough money to cover their

Operating costs; thus they have to find money elsewhere to cover those
costs.

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How Foundations Announce That They Support Non-Profits

- In order to attract non-profit groups to apply for available funding,
Foundations issue an RFP (Request for Proposal) or they announce
their Mission and criteria for funding on a website.

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Planning the Proposal

- This section explains how to plan a grant proposal to submit to a
foundation.
- To do so, you must
◗◗Read the foundation’s guidelines carefully
◗◗Collect all relevant data
◗◗Write or adapt usual elements of grant proposals.

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Read the Foundation’s Guidelines Carefully

- your first step in grant writing is to determine all the requirements or
constraints set by the foundation.
- You need to determine the submission date in order to set a schedule
for completing all the work.
- In addition you must clarify the method of submitting the proposal.
- If the organization requires online submission, they may refuse to
consider a proposal that arrives in the mail.
- You also must determine whether the foundation will fund your type
of program and your type of organization.

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Read the Foundation’s Guidelines Carefully

Questions you must answer include the following:
• Will they fund a project with your size budget?
• Do they restrict applications geographically or some other way?
• Exactly which sections and documents do they require?
• Do they have a length that sections may not exceed? If they say “a
total of five pages” they might refuse to consider a 12- page
application.

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Read the Foundation’s Guidelines Carefully

- Be sure to clarify the length and form of the application. Almost
always the funding source will clearly state maximum lengths.
- In addition to length the funding source will clarify how to send them
the application and how many to send. They might say “six copies on
paper” or “e-mail all pages to Ms.Y as an MS Word attachment to an
e-mail; send only one copy.”

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Collect All the Relevant Data

- You have to collect quite a bit of data before you can begin to write.
- You must have a budget for your project, but you must also have a
number of other sections, including some that might be difficult to
write, such as why the project is important to the community or the
manner in which your project fulfills one of their priorities.
- For almost all grants you have to collect data ahead of time in order to
meet their requirements.
- You must develop your concept, research costs, speak with people
who will be involved (for instance to set dates and fees).
- To help yourself make a check list of everything that has to be
included with the application.

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 Technical Writing – Proposals

Writing the Non-Profit Grant Proposal

- Various experts usually list five elements common to grant proposals..
- Not all grant applications can be written exactly as the general
guidelines suggest.
- In many ways the best advice is write clearly, use informative and
persuasive details, and follow the constraints that the funder requires.
- The five elements are:
- Executive Summary
- Need
- Project Description
- Budget
- Organizational Information

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Executive Summary
- The executive summary presents the reader with an overview of your
Organization and project.
- Often funding officers read this section in order to decide whether to
read the rest of the application.
- This section should briefly (one page or so) explain the need; describe
the project, including what will happen, when, and for whom; list the
amount requested; and explain the organization mission and history.
- Even though you present this section first, write it last after you have
detailed your project in the other sections.

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 Technical Writing – Proposals

Need
- The need statement gives evidence and support for why this program
will solve whatever problem you are dealing with.
- Need statements must avoid circular reasoning, which means that the
absence of your solution is the problem.
- An illustrative example is “Grade school children do not have a
mentoring system available. This proposal will solve that problem by
creating one.” Those two statements are circular. The question the
writer has to answer is—Why is the lack of a mentoring program a
problem? If grade school children enter the system scoring below
state standards and if they only fall further behind without mentoring,
then mentoring will be a solution to the problem.

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Need
To write a need statement:
- explain the situation.
- tell why the situation is important.

- Explain the situation. Don’t assume that the reader understands the
issue, whatever it is.
- Tell why the situation is important. Do so by explaining both factual
and emotional evidence.

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Project Description
The project description is the heart of the grant proposal. Explain these
factors:
- what you will do
- who will do it
- how you will evaluate whether your actions had the impact or
outcome you wish

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Budget
- The budget is the amount of money you are requesting. You should
break the figures into sections so that the reader understands how the
money will be used.

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Organizational Information
• If the organization does not have a statement about itself you will
have to write one. This statement should explain
• The mission of the organization
• A brief history including when it was started, other projects it is
currently undertaking, and other projects it has completed.
• A list of who is on the organization’s board and what the board’s
responsibilities are.

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The Internal Proposal

• The internal proposal persuades someone to accept an idea—usually
to change something, or to fund something, or both.
• Covering a wide range of subjects, internal proposals may request
new pieces of lab equipment, defend major capital expenditures, or
recommend revised production control standards.
• The goal of a proposal is to convince the person or group in authority
to allow the writer to implement his or her idea.
• To achieve this goal, the writer must consider the audience, use visual
aids, organize the proposal well, and design an appropriate format.

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Consider the Audience

How Involved Is the Audience?
• In most cases, readers of a proposal either have assigned the proposal
and are aware of the problem or have not assigned the proposal and
are unaware of the problem.
• For example, suppose a problem develops with a particular Assembly
line. The production engineer in charge might assign a subordinate To
investigate the situation and recommend a solution. In this assigned
proposal, the writer does not have to establish that a problem exists,
but he or she does have to show how the proposal will solve the
problem.

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Consider the Audience

• More often, however, the audience does not assign the proposal.
• For instance, a manager could become aware that a new arrangement
of her floor space could create better sales potential. If she decides to
propose a rearrangement, she must first convince her audience—her
supervisor—that a problem exists.
• Only then can she go on to offer a convincing solution.

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How Knowledgeable Is the Audience?

- The audience may or may not know the concepts and facts involved in
either the problem or the solution. Estimate your audience’s level of
knowledge.
- If the audience is less knowledgeable, take care to define terms, give
background, and use common examples.

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How Much Authority Does the Audience Have?

- The audience may or may not be able to order the implementation of
your proposed solution.
- A manager might assign the writer to investigate problems with the
material flow of a particular product line, but the manager will
probably have to take the proposal to a higher authority before it is
approved.
- So the writer must bear in mind that several readers may see and
approve (or reject) the proposal.

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Use Visual Aids

- Because the proposal is likely to have multiple audiences, visual aids
are important.
- Visuals can support any part of the proposal—the description of the
problem, the solution, the implementation, and the benefits.

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Gantt Charts
A Gantt chart has an X axis and a Y axis.
The horizontal axis displays time periods; the vertical axis, individual
processes.
Lines inside the chart show when a process starts and stops. By glancing
at the chart, the reader can see the project’s entire schedule.

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Diagrams
Many kinds of diagrams, such as flow charts, block diagrams,
organization charts, and decision trees, can enhance a proposal.

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Organize the Proposal

The writer should organize the proposal around four questions:
1. What is the problem?
2. What is the solution?
3. Can the solution be implemented?
4. Should the solution be implemented?

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What Is the Problem?

Describing the problem is a key part of many proposals. You must
establish three things about the problem:
◗◗ The data
The data are the actual facts that a person can perceive.

◗◗ The significance
The significance is the way the facts fail to meet the standard you hope
to maintain. To explain the significance of the problem, you show that
the current situation negatively affects productivity or puts you in an
undesirable position.

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What Is the Problem?

◗◗ The cause
The cause is the problem itself. If you can eliminate the cause, you will
eliminate the negative effects.
Of course, almost every researcher soon discovers that there are chains
of causes. You must carry your analysis back to the most reasonable
cause.
If the problem is ultimately the personality of the CEO, you might want
to stop the chain before you say that. To be credible, you must show that
you have investigated the problem thoroughly by talking to the right
people, looking at the right records, making the right inspection,
showing the appropriate data, or whatever.

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What Is the Solution?

To present an effective solution, explain how it will eliminate the cause,
thus eliminating whatever is out of step with the standard you hope to
maintain.
If the problem is causing an undesirable condition, the solution must
show how that condition can be eliminated.
.

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Can the Solution Be Implemented?

The writer must show that all the systems involved in the proposal can
be put into effect. To make this clear to the audience, you would explain
◗◗ The cost
◗◗ The effect on personnel
◗◗ The schedule for implementing the changes
This section may be difficult to write because it is hard to tell exactly
what the audience needs to know.

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Should the Solution Be Implemented?

Just because you can implement the solution does not mean that you
should.
To convince someone that you should be allowed to implement your
solution, you must demonstrate that the solution has benefits that make it
desirable, that it meets the established criteria in the situation, or both.

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Design the Proposal

To design a proposal, select an appropriate format, either formal or
informal. A formal proposal has a title page, table of contents, and
summary .An informal proposal can be a report or some kind of
preprinted form .
The format depends on company policy and on the distance the proposal
must travel in the hierarchy. Usually the shorter the distance, the more
informal the format.
Also, the less significant the proposal, the more informal the format.

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Writing the Internal Proposal

The introduction to a proposal demands careful thought because it must
orient the reader to the writer, the problem, and the solution. The
introduction can contain one paragraph or several. You should clarify the
following important points:
◗◗Why is the writer writing? Is the proposal assigned?
◗◗Why is the writer credible?
◗◗What is the problem?
◗◗What is the background of the problem?
◗◗What is the significance of the problem?
◗◗What is the solution?
◗◗What are the parts of the report?
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Writing the Internal Proposal

An effective way to provide all these points is in a two-part introduction
that includes a context-setting paragraph and a summary.
The context- Setting paragraph usually explains the purpose of the
proposal and, if necessary, gives evidence of the writer’s credibility.
The summary is a one-to-one miniaturization of the body. (Be careful not
to make the summary a background; Background belongs in a separate
section.)
If the body contains sections on the solution, benefits, cost,
implementation, and rejected alternatives, the summary should cover the
same points.

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Use the Discussion to Convince Your Audience

The discussion section contains all the detailed information that you
must
present to convince the audience. A common approach functions this
way:
The problem
◗◗ Explanation of the problem
◗◗Causes of the problem

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Use the Discussion to Convince Your Audience

The solution
◗◗Details of the solution
◗◗Benefits of the solution
◗◗Ways in which the solution satisfies criteria

The context
◗◗ Schedule for implementing the solution
◗◗ Personnel involved
◗◗ Solutions rejected

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Use the Discussion to Convince Your Audience

In each section, present the material clearly, introduce visual aids
whenever possible, and use headings and subheadings to enhance page
layout.
Which sections to use depends on the situation. Sometimes you need an
elaborate implementation section; sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you
should discuss causes, sometimes not. If the audience needs the
information in the section, include it; otherwise, don’t

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THE END

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