Back
to EH 502 main page
Audience Direct the proposal to me in my role as your college professor. You can assume that I am familiar with the RFP, since I wrote it. DO NOT assume that I will go to the trouble of figuring out exactly how your proposal meets the RFP requirements. Instead, you must repeat the requirements as you explain how your proposed project will meet them.
Format Set up the proposal as a memo report, using any standard memo format. You may single space (as is usual for memos) or double space (as is usual for reports). Be sure to number the pages consistently, allow at least one-inch margins on all sides, and use headings to guide the eye quickly through the proposal. In addition to discussing your preliminary library research, you must attach a preliminary bibliography. Use Chicago style for references and internal documentation.
Length Keep the narrative under 1000 words. You can estimate 3-5 double spaced pages, before adding headings.
Content In this proposal, you must, at a minimum, include the following:
a. Overview. Open with a summary paragraph overviewing and incorporating the essentials of the project. You will probably write this last, but make it the first thing the reader sees. Identify your topic and purpose clearly.
b. Purpose and Audience. Carefully explain the project's purpose and audience. Who needs or will use the information your research report provides? What will the project accomplish? A variety of subheadings might be appropriate here, depending on your topic and how you choose to organize the information. In general, be sure that "Purpose" or "Goal" or "Objective" is in one of your headings. Under that heading, you can discuss your intended audience, or, if you have a lot to say about audience, you can have a separate heading "Audience." You may also need to follow "Purpose/Audience" with a section on "Background," or a paragraph labeled "Statement of the Problem."
c. Scope, Approach, and Task Analysis. Use a task analysis to define the boundaries of your project (its "scope") and establish your approach. Task analysis identifies the specific tasks you must complete in order to achieve your objective. Indicate specific questions you will be answering. What subtopics will the final report cover? A standard test for a proposal's validity is to ask this question: has the proposer demonstrated that the tasks to be performed will logically lead to fulfilling the stated purpose? The answer to that is usually drawn from the task analysis (see also feasibility section).
d. Feasibility (Preliminary Research). Establish that you can accomplish your stated purpose by indicating some of the results of preliminary library research. This is particularly important since your RFP specifies library research as the core of the project. If you are limited to the UAH library, you should conduct sufficient preliminary research to assure me that the written sources you need to consult will be available to you within the time available. If you have access to other libraries, such as a company library or the personal library of colleagues or acquaintances, explain that here. Prove that you've done the research by referring to (and documenting) some of the information you have already gathered.