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Reader Expectations: A reader expects to be thoroughly informed about the proposed topic. The reader may or may not have previous knowledge about the subject,
and for that reason substantial information regarding the problem, solution and benefits of the topic should be available.
The information should be convincing and very detailed because the purpose is to persuade the audience that your topic is
important enough to read about.
Format Requirements: A proposal has a specific format; however, depending on the audience, certain sections
of the proposal can be left out. Generally, the proposal is broken into four sections including an executive summary, problems,
solution and conclusion. Each section is labeled with its appropriate name and its length can range from a paragraph to several
paragraphs depending on the audience. The executive summary is used in proposals that will be read over by the president or
other important workers within a company and is not always necessary to use in documents that will only be read by the employees.
Organization: The executive summary should include an overview of the entire document so that if the
president of a company were to only read that section he or she would get a fairly decent understanding of the document's
contents. Make sure it includes the total cost of the project, the completion date, who is involved in the project,
the problems and solution. The problem section discusses the problems associated with, for example, the current method of
selling products. A bulleted list can be used in this section to more clearly outline each problem. Giving an example of a
company that had a similar problem but now uses the proposed method can add credibility to your arguement. The solution
section will include some information on how to go about using the new method of selling, but it should not be too lengthy.
The total costs and/or people involved in setting up this new method should be discussed and it should include the date at
which the method can be set up and ready to use by. The benefits need to be included in this section and can be bulleted to
draw the eye to this part. Any minor problems that may occur with this new method should be touched upon so that the document
does not appear biased; however, arguements against these problems should be given, if applicable. Finally, the conclusion
will briefly summarize the document and restate the problems associated with the current method and how to fix those problems
with the new method. The audience should be left with a positive, convincing statement that makes the reader feel persuaded
to adapt to your idea.
Visual Elements: A table or graph should be used, if applicable, because seeing the benefits of the
proposed idea is the most convincing arguement one can have. By breaking the problems and benefits into bulleted points, the
reader will be able to simply skim the document and still get a good understanding of what is talked about in the proposal.
Like any document; however, each paragraph should be short enough to develop your idea because long paragraphs can be intimidating
for any reader. The headings of each section can be bold-faced to clearly separate each section, but it is not required.
Special Features: This type of document is meant to be much longer than memos, letters or emails due
to the the content it must cover. Everything must be explained in detail in order to make the document effective.
The document should not make the reader feel as though his or her ideas are wrong, but rather, it should explain why your
idea is beneficial.
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