ENGL 420: Business Writing

This week we read and learned about proposals before submitting our proposal for review on Friday. I learned from reading some of the PW Online that the proposals are supposed to be persuasive. I learned that we need to convince someone that we want/need whatever it is that we are asking for. Credibility would play a large role in this, because if the reader feels in any way the he or she can't trust you for some reason, then your proposal is sure to fail. Therefore, you need to build up your credibility, which can be done by researching well and being honest.

This week we read about proposals and what exactly they are, how they are used, and other aspects about them. I thought the information was very interesting and helpful when put into context with our new project. It helped me get an idea of how to actually put it toward a real life scenario. I think this project is going to be very helpful and a great learning experience for down the road. The reading just gave me a better idea on how to present and go about writing a proposal. Although it wasn't much reading, it was very helpful and will make the process much more easier.

This week we read about proposals and what they are and how they are used. I found it very interesting and it applied to my life because I currently have an internship where I am painting homes in the area and I offer each customer a proposal every time I go out and give a free estimate. It was very interesting to see it on paper and apply it to real life as well. Overall I think this next group project is going to be great because it forces us to go out into the real world and do a real life proposal to our client.

I know that through out this course we have discussed interpreting your audience quite a bit. However, I want to take the time now to say that I feel it is crucial to a proposal to write it only after thinking about your audience. After reading in "A Rhetoric of Proposals", they bring out differences between informal and formal proposals as well as solicited and unsolicited proposals. If a proposal is unsolicited, the audience didn't expect it, doesn't think it is necessarily an important item, and has no previous knowledge or expectations.

This week's reading was about proposals. We will all be writing a proposal to a potential client for the Service Learning project. In the reading assignment in PWOnline, we learned about the types and contexts of proposals, the content that should be included, and how to organize the information. In the context section, I really liked the table. This table breaks down the proposal into each section that could possibly be used. Information and examples of what to include in each section are provided. This will be helpful to my group and I for writing our proposal.

The readings for this week were very helpful in creating our 300-word memo and preparing for the formal proposal. I now fully understand that this project starts off in a persuasive manner. Our group will be persuading an organization to believe and do various things. First, we are persuading them that there is a problem within their organization and a potential for improvement. We are then persuading them that we understand their problem and that we have the ability to solve it.

This week’s reading was about proposals and specifically the Rhetoric of Proposals like the article was titled. The purpose of a proposal is to request support from your audience. First of all you need to convince the reader that there is a problem or need and that you have some sort of plan to address it. You should obviously have the background and knowledge on the issue before you attempt to propose a solution. It is also very important to have the ability to manage the proposed solution.

This weeks reading assisted in creating our memo. It was helpful to have direction in recognizing how it need to be structured. It also made it easier for us to divide up the work of creating the memo and presenting our ideas in a collective and thoughtful manner.

This week we began our final project, the Service Learning Project. In beginning this project we were assigned to read all about proposals. The readings have been very helpful in beginning our project to create a group memo and proposal. This article provided a very solid base of information for us to begin our plans and documents for this project. From the readings on proposals it is very important that we grasp the main concept of what a proposal is and what we need to achieve.

This weeks reading was mainly about proposals. Since proposals are competitive they must be accurate and they must be convincing. Generally, there are two parts to proposals, the first being solicited. Solicited is one an organization request and the other is unsolicited, these are those that you choose you want to propose to sponsor. The main purpose is to gain money, permission, time, or support for a specific project. Not just a recommendation for change, but an offer to do something in exchange for something else. All of these elements are very good to know for our next project.