What is a Proposal?
Last week, students wrote their own editorials to begin considering the reasons and ways people write and assert their own arguments. This week, we will take the practice you earned about audience and purpose from Modules 1 and 2 and apply it to the proposal paper that will begin in this module and carry you through the end of the quarter. People write proposals when they want to bring about some kind of change or help solve a problem they have identified, usually within an organization to which they are invested, belong, or are employed. This change could be a new or amended method, system, program, policy, facility, or procedure within the organization. Any organizational change requires time, effort, and other resources, and some changes may raise new problems, so the proposal writer should conduct thorough, credible research in order to anticipate, and respond to, challenges and obstacles.
Audience and Purpose*
Primary audience: The decision-maker who can make the proposed change or provide resources to allow others to make that change.
Secondary audiences: Those who are affected by the problem addressed in the proposal or who would be affected by the proposed change.
Purpose: To secure permission and/or resources to make the proposed change; to persuade the decision-maker to implement the proposed plan of action. The content and structure of a proposal are driven by the writer’s need to answer the questions a decision-maker brings:
•Does the problem actually exist? Is it widespread or urgent enough to warrant taking action? Is there evidence of the problem and its effects?
•Is the author adequately acquainted with the history of the problem and previous efforts to address it?
•What is the proposed plan of action? If implemented, would it actually solve the problem? Is it feasible? Will it create new problems?
•Who is affected by the proposed plan of action?
•Are there other plans of action that are cheaper or easier to implement? Why not adopt those?
•What is the budget? Is it reasonable? Is it adequate for implementing the plan of action?
•What are the additional benefits of addressing the problem with this proposed plan of action?
What Will I Write About in My Essay?
Drafting Support
The largest section in a proposal is the supporting arguments section. It is the section that answers the question WHY? Why should the policy-making body make the changes you are proposing?
Ultimately, this is a question of audience. Since you are directly addressing the group of people with the power to make change, you must consider what that organization’s purpose is and what they care about. There are two basic types of policy-making bodies. A non-profit organization (this includes schools) needs to care not only about financial sustainability, but also about the group of people to whom it has placed itself in service. It is in the core mission of these organizations to place the needs of others at it’s forefront (usually the needs of one specific group). By contrast, a for-profit business like a restaurant or retail organization is not in service to others. While they may “serve” others as a part of their business, (ie: McDonald’s serves their customers hamburgers) the people they serve are paying money for the service, and the core purpose of the business is to make money.
Arguments for For-Profit Businesses
When your policy-making body is a business that is for-profit, in other words, their primary purpose is to make money, then the most persuasive arguments are the ways in which the changes you are asking for will be good for the business (benefits), or by contrast the ways not making changes will be bad for business (harms).
If you are making an argument for a fast food restaurant, for example, and you are arguing to add an additional cashier and cash register to the checkout counter, your solution will likely be good for the customers and even beneficial to the employees, so it is tempting to show how this might be valuable to those groups of people, but when you consider your audience, the owner of the restaurant, those aren’t the most persuasive arguments. We are better off re-writing those arguments to show how the restaurant will benefit.
For example, the customers will no doubt enjoy having short lines and getting their food more quickly. However, we can connect this back to the restaurant and argue that the customer will then be more likely to return because of the quick service, thus generating more income. The employees/cashiers will certainly be less stressed and less over-worked, which they will enjoy, but this in turn means they will be less likely to quit, saving the restaurant money they might otherwise have to spend to hire and train a new employee.
The same can be done as you argue harms. If the same restaurant is currently seeing a lot of turnover in employees or a lot of angry customers, then it might be worth focusing on the “shortage of registers” and the “overly long lines,” negatively focused language, instead of the optimistically “streamlined process” and “increased productivity” of a benefits section.
ALL of your arguments must be fore the business. In this instance, arguments about other groups are not persuasive.
Arguments for Non-Profit Schools and Organizations
If you are making an argument for a school, a church, a non-profit, or some other organization that is ultimately in the service of others, you can take two different groups into consideration:
The Group to Whom they are in Service
The Organization Itself
To determine the first group, consider who and what the organization’s purpose and mission is. All non-profits must have a mission statement, so you might begin by finding it. At Metropolitan Community College, for example, our mission .is to serve our students and provide education that puts them first, so if I was arguing to make changes at Metro, I don’t just need to show that it will benefit the college or their graduation rates. I should also make arguments that show it’s good for the students; that it serves them and puts them first. These ideas are persuasive because of the college’s mission. For example in the annotated sample of the Visual Design Lab Renovation, she argues that her paint color and acoustic panels will boost creativity and comprehension, reduce distractions which will increase focus and learning, allow students to work better thus providing increase professional success after college. All of these are benefits for the students.
However, because these organizations still need to function, we should also make arguments that pertain specifically to the organization. We might make arguments for a school about reputation, trust, graduation rates, funding, etc…. We can also make arguments about obligation. Sometimes the change we are asking for isn’t easy, but when the harms are particularly difficult, we can sometimes overcome them by appealing to a sense of obligation. The changes to the Visual Design Lab can also be argued to increase enrollments, increase student completion, and fulfill the college’s mission.
Usually, the bulk of the arguments are about the group they serve with just a few arguments for the organization itself.
Harms or Benefits
Once you know who the arguments apply two, there are different ways to present your supporting arguments, Harms and Benefits, and you need to figure out what you want to emphasize. Again, this is really about your audience, your policy-making body. What will they find to be the most persuasive.
For some proposals, the focus is really on showing how the status quo creates a really toxic environment. Your description of the problem (Problem Analysis) may show all the ways the current problem exists. For example, if I’m arguing to revise pick-up and drop-off procedures, I will likely describe:
how the current procedures create a rush of kids coming out of the building at the same time making it hard for parents to see the children.
how the parking lot is too small to hold all the parents’ cars
how there are limited options for additional parking
how the school struggles to get volunteers to help with street crossings
If we work with HARMS, the supporting arguments will then show the negative ramifications that come from these problems:
Supporting Arguments: Harms
Children and parents are more likely to get hurt because of the crowdedness.
Routinely engaging in hazardous situations can cause anxiety for young children which decreases their ability to learn.
Children are more likely to be late to class which negatively impacts their ability to learn.
Late children are often missing social time, disconnecting them from their peers and decreasing learning.
*You can see an example of Harms in “Improving Staff Support and Training at Little Learners Academy download .”
If we work with BENEFITS, the supporting arguments will show the positive changes that come from the solutions. The arguments can be flipped so the language shows benefits.
Supporting Arguments: Benefits
Children and parents will be safer because of staggered dismissal.
Creating a safer environment will decrease anxiety for young children which increase their ability to learn.
Children will be on time to class and will learn more in their first period classes.
Children who have time to socialize with their peers at school retain more information from their studies.
*You can see examples of this in the “Visual Design Lab Renovation,” “Revitalizing Yutan Legion Baseball download ,” and “Gildan Electric Break Schedule Implementation download .”
Anticipating Obstacles
This week, as you are presenting a proposal topic, you have to consider what obstacles might be in the way of it getting approved. If you’ve written position papers in the past, you have likely drafted a section where you addressed the opposition, but this is a little bit different. You want to come up with a proposal that is asking for changes that will create real good for your policy-making body, and if it does, then it is likely that your audience will agree with you. They are not your “opposition.” Instead, they are a party who agrees with you but has questions and concerns.
Major Obstacles
Some obstacles are obvious–money, energy, and space. Perhaps you are asking for a daycare at work but there isn’t a physical space in which to put the daycare. If you are proposing the company pay for it, then it’s also an issue of money, and who will run it (energy). These major obstacles need to be anticipated early, and you need to change your solutions to accommodate them because these are issues of feasibility. (Review feasibility here). Maybe the solutions ask for the company to create a partnership with a nearby existing daycare since the space is not available. Maybe the daycare is subsidized by the business instead of paid in full to keep costs reasonable (especially if you can show cost savings in other areas as a result).
Do not save these major obstacles for the end of your paper.
Minor Obstacles
If the money, energy, and space exist, if your solutions are truly feasible, then we can begin to look at the minor obstacles that keep your policy-making body from saying yes, even when they agree it’s a good idea. In the end, you want to address the two biggest issues you think might stand in your way. Consider:
Will there be push-back from different groups of people beyond-the policy-making body who don’t want to see these changes happen? How might these negative voices keep your proposal from passing? (If the policy-making body is unlikely to be swayed by these voices then these concerns do not need to be addressed.)
If there is a policy-change involved, how will you get buy-in from the people who need to be following and enforcing the new rules? Will you run into problems because it is making more work for someone? How will there be accountability? Is the change really enforceable?
Will the policy-making body agree that your problem is urgent and needs to be addressed now? Will they argue that too few people are affected for them to focus time and money on the problem? Will they argue that there are other issues that need to be addressed first? What arguments might they have that the status quo is doing well enough and that change is not urgent/necessary?
Are there people who agree your problem exists, but who may disagree with the solutions or parts of the solutions you are proposing? Are there other ways to solve this problem that have been tried before and have failed? Is there a solution that is cheaper or easier than yours? Is there another solution that’s more popular or that has greater precedent?Is there a particular part of your solutions that is likely to get vetoed because it is asking for too much while the other pieces are more reasonable? (You might be able to offer a concession at the end placing that one piece on a different timeline.)
Ultimately, you will need to either accommodate the concern by offering alternatives to you plan or refute the concern by providing support that shows how the obstacle can be overcome.
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