![The Level 1 Outline
• A Level 1 outline is a very simple outline—it will consist of a very bare-
bones topic outline for your paper. For example:
• I. Introduction
• II. Topic 1 – [Brief Description of Topic]
• III. Topic 2 – [Brief Description of Topic]
• IV. Topic 3 – [Brief Description of Topic]
• V. Conclusion
• Again, this may (and probably will!) change before the end of the semester.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/proposal-190115042108/85/How-to-Write-a-Proposal-9-320.jpg)
How to Write a Proposal
- 1. How to Write a Proposal
- 2. What is a proposal? • A proposal is a genre of writing that is created to persuade a reader (who may or may not have requested the proposal) to perform some sort of action. • In an academic environment, proposals are often asking a reader to consider some research as valid and worth pursuing. This could be to encourage travel to a conference, to provide funding for the research, or to be invited to participate in a conference.
- 3. Purpose and Audience • Everything that we write should have a defined purpose and a specific audience. • Purpose: What you hope to achieve with your writing. • How might you approach a piece of writing if the purpose was to argue something? What would the difference be if the purpose was to define something? • Audience: The specific person(s) you are targeting with your writing. • How might you approach a piece of writing to an informed audience? What would the difference be if the audience was uninformed?
- 4. Research Paper • Your proposal for this class will be proposing a specific avenue of research for your research paper. In order to know what you need to do for your proposal, you will need to know what the research paper is about! • The assignment for your research paper, simplified, is: • Compose a paper utilizing secondary research that argues, defines, or analyzes a specific topic that you are intimately familiar with for an audience that is completely uninformed regarding the topic.
- 5. Parts of our Proposal • Each proposal may ask for different things. For our proposal, I’m asking for a few specific things: • A purpose statement, • An audience analysis, • A tentative thesis statement, and • A tentative Level 1 outline.
- 6. The Purpose Statement • The purpose statement should analyze what your purpose is and how you hope to eventually achieve that purpose.
- 7. The Audience Analysis • Especially for these academic proposals, your solution will often simply be that research needs to be done in a specific area. Depending on your discipline, this may mean completing your own study or just completing secondary research into a specific subject.
- 8. The Tentative Thesis Statement • This is simply a thesis statement for your paper. I call it “tentative” to emphasize that you may very well have to change your thesis statement before your final draft is due.
- 9. The Level 1 Outline • A Level 1 outline is a very simple outline—it will consist of a very bare- bones topic outline for your paper. For example: • I. Introduction • II. Topic 1 – [Brief Description of Topic] • III. Topic 2 – [Brief Description of Topic] • IV. Topic 3 – [Brief Description of Topic] • V. Conclusion • Again, this may (and probably will!) change before the end of the semester.