Why do we write project proposals? Well, for a few reasons.

1. To help us, as writers, plan our project. Dreaming is easy, and our dreams can get big and out of control. A proposal helps us ground our project in reality by forcing us to think through our rhetorical situation (what we, as activists, can do in our current situation to persuade an audience toward acting or moving upon a goal), our resources (context), our timeline (context), and our text (the rhetoric itself, including its genre, which can also be context).
2. To help us persuade gatekeepers, like me or supervisors in the workplace, to support your project. That support can be ephemeral, such as approval to move forward, of concrete, in the form of material, staffing, and financial resources. The more thorough a proposal, the more persuasive you will be.

We write proposals in all kinds of environments, such as the classroom or the workplace. That’s why I’m requiring you to write a proposal for this project.

The image below from Writer/Designer describes how to write a proposal:

Keep checking this post. I will update it with sample proposals over the next few days.

Now go forth, and change the world!