Writing proposals

1. Writing proposals Radhika Jaidev

2. Adapting to your audience 1. Be sensitive to your audience’s needs • Adopta ‘you’ attitude • Maintain a strong sense of etiquette • Emphasize the positive • Use bias-free language

3. Build trustwith your audience by • adapting your style and language to their needs & expectations • researching all sides of your topic and documenting your findings with credible sources • not setting their expectations too high- this could lead to problems with your credibility if you can’t deliver (**take care of this in the introduction).

4. Adjust the level of formality to match the context and your audience’s expectations • If you know your readers well- adopt a fairly informal tone- provided • A more formal tone is needed • for longer reports & proposals dealing with complex or controversial information • when the proposal or report is going to be sent to other departments or outside organizations

5. For a formal tone use the impersonal journalistic style • Don’t use ‘I’, ‘You’, ‘We’, etc. Refer to the object or action by using nouns and the passive voice (for specific reasons). Instead of saying, “We negotiated a better price…” Say, “A better price was negotiated…” Instead of saying, “We informed you in June last year that we would be increasing our prices this year…” Say, “Information about our impending price increases in 2012 was conveyed to you in June 2011 …”.

6. Adapting to your audience • avoid jokes, minimize the use of similes, metaphors and overly colourful language but don’t go overboard and sound stiff and boring!! • Don’t overuse the passive voice • Instead of saying, “Our advice is that SBS shares should be bought at …” • Say, “The financial analysis clearly shows that buying SBS shares at …”

7. Remember your Cs! • Clarity • Conciseness • Cohesiveness • Coherence • Concreteness • Completeness • Correctness • Courtesy and Consideration

8. Composing the proposal • Proposals have 3 main sections: • Introduction • Body • Close The content of each section varies with the • type and purpose of the document, • organizational structure, • length and depth of the material, • degree of formality, and • your relationship with the audience

9. Introduction • Put the proposal or report in a broader context by discussing the current situation and explaining how things could be better which naturally leads to the statement of the problem. • Emphasize how your goals align with your audience’s goals • State the purpose of your proposal and explain clearly why its important • State the scope or boundaries of the proposal, defining what you will and will not do • Preview the main ideas and the order in which they will be covered

10. Body • Present, • analyze and • interpret the information gathered during the investigation. The body also contains the detailed proof – data both qualitative and quantitative, quotes from significant interviewees, statistical evidence, etc., to support your conclusions and recommendations

11. Body- demonstrate your knowledge • Avoid vague, unsupported generalizations such as, “many students have difficulties using the CORS system…” • Instead say, “75% of the students surveyed responded that they had encountered difficulties using the CORS system…” • Give details of the kinds of difficulties

12. Bear in mind your purpose To have them buy into your pitch! • Research your competition • find out what the other alternatives are (you want them to know that you are aware of th competition) • emphasize why your solution is the optimum choice (you must be convinced that it is indeed the optimal choice)

13. Body- prove your solution works • Your proposal must be appropriate and feasible for your audience • It would be pointless to suggest a plan of action that needs 3 times their existing manpower or twice the available budget

14. Impressions do matter! • Package your proposal attractively • Letter perfect, inviting and reader-friendly • First impressions do count!! • Factual errors, careless omissions & inconsistencies will work against you and even evencost you important career and business opportunities.

15. The Close The Close has 3 important functions: • emphasizes the main points of the message • reiterates the logic of your conclusions and/or recommendations • summarizes benefits of making a change or some other course of action to the reader • focuses all the action items together in one place with details of who should do what, when, where and how ** It is your one last chance to ensure your proposal satisfies it’s purpose!

16. Revise & Edit Information presented in your proposal must be • accurate – factually and grammatically. • complete- to help audiences understand the situation, problem, your key assertions (use appropriate combination of illustrations, explanations, and facts) so that readers can make informed decisions • balanced- such that all sides of the issue are presented fairly and equitably. This means all essential information must be included, even if some of it doesn’t support your line of reasoning. Omitting relevant information can bias your proposal.

17. Revise & Edit • Headings, sub-headings and links • Transitions, e.g., “…As can be seen, profits have decreased by 12% over the past eight months… To counteract this decline in profits… First, we can raise … Next, we can … and finally…. However, each of these alternatives has both advantages and disadvantages… ” **Effective transitions guide readers to process, understand and remember information for decision-making.

18. Revise and Edit • Evaluate your organization for logical order • Check style & tone, • Varying sentence length, paragraph efficiency, lists, bullets, headings, sub-headings. • Ensure the whole document is clear, concise and compelling. • Ensure all the prefatory parts are in (i.e.Tableof contents, list of illustrations, executive summary, references, cover page, letter of transmittal, appendices (if any).