Proposal & BibliographyResearch & Rhetorical Composition

Inventio

Why Write a Proposal?

• To conduct research, you usually have to get approval from some panel, committee, or authority. This means that you have to have a plan and be able to convince whomever it is you are making your request to—that what you want to do is worth it and do-able.

• The goal of writing a proposal is to present a preliminary abstract that addresses the topic, question, problem, context, methods, exigence, and a working thesis (hypothesis) in relation to some actual value—your intended goal or purpose.

• This kind of argument is one focused on a direct speaker-to-audience communication. You, as the requester, should know to whom you are making the request.

• The tone, style, and diction should be business formal, regardless of whether or not the proposal is for something scholarly or something at work. The language used should be both serious and objective.

What a Proposal Should Address

• In an academic setting, a proposal abstract (also called a prospectus) has to accomplish specific things:

• Establish the background context surrounding the topic and problem

• Address the two dominant voices that represent opposing sides

• Illustrate that the problem is something worth addressing and to whom

• Prove that preliminary research has been done to warrant further investigation (the research study)

• Lay out the type of sources and the methods that will be used to resolve the problem

• Set a tone of objectivity aimed at discovering what the evidence suggests over popular or biased opinion

• Suggest larger implications for how the study might impact the target audience in the long run, or how it will open up further research opportunities that this study will become a precedent for

• Show that the research question will lend itself to producing something new to the field, rather than restating or reviewing what has already been done

What a Proposal Does NOT Do

• Proposals suggest that there is a problem and a question worth investigating; it is not a position paper.

• Proposals do not start with the end and then rationalize how a preliminary stance is already valid. They do not make a hard claim; they suggest a starting position based on initial observations and research overviews, but acknowledge that the problem has notbeen proven or resolved.

• They present a fair, balanced view of both sides of the situation, not arguing that one is better or worse.

• They do not present opinions or attempt to justify beliefs.

• Proposals do not focus on reasons or evidence; they lay out how evidence will be collected, from where (specifically), and how that evidence will be weighed, measured, assessed.

• Proposals do not argue for one side or another, but that a research study is warranted—there is a problem that needs to be resolved but has not yet been resolved and there are resources and methods that lend themselves to finding resolution.

Topic Selection & Question

• Almost any topic can become scholarly, depending on how it is approached. However, some topics are neither appropriate nor researchable.

• Any topic that is opinion or belief based has no place in academic research, as the author’s goal is usually reinforcing his own values, not discovering truth valuebased on all existing evidence. That means, the final essay is usually one-sided. An unbalanced research study is like a self-fulfilling prophesy—it finds what it is looking for because it did not look for anything else. This, however, is circular reasoning (fallacious), not scholarship or research.

• You have been provided a list of topics to select from. Outside of this list, which should illustrate (exemplify) what kind of topics and questions are scholarly in nature, if you want to write on something else, you should plan ahead because you must have approval from the instructor. Don’t wait until the last minute!

Why good/bad arguments don’t work

• Many students want to write on something like texting and driving, quitting smoking, or drinking and driving because it hits close to home. While these topics are not inherently inappropriate, how they are talked about usually is, and often the motivation behind them is too personal to separate oneself from, ergo the product ends up being polemical, not an objective investigation aimed at a fact-based position.

• Positing that smoking is bad, for one, is not arguable: the evidence is clear. Yes, it is unhealthy; all research proves this already. Ergo, there is no argument. Even smokers will admit this is true, so there is no point to saying what is already known.

• Second, the question of good/bad is essentially irrelevant when it comes to trying to change behavior, especially when addiction is involved. Consider the audience. If smokers know their habit is bad for them, telling them not to do it because it is bad clearly does not work. They know and do it anyway.

• More than that, good/bad is the kind of argument that sounds like a opinion-based position, which is not convincing if the target audience has a different opinion; he or she will simply retort, “that’s your opinion, not mine.” You lose them immediately. What they get instead is that you are just voicing your opinion They don’t benefit from that; you do.

Why good/bad arguments don’t work (cont.)

• An argument about how to change public policy on smoking in order to produce some kind of practical change is arguable. This debate was done, for example, before legislation to ban smoking in public places could be passed in Dallas.

• Asking the right question on a topic, thus, changes the way you approach it so that it becomes scholarly. This is why your research stasis (question) is so important.

• Instead of trying to show how something is good/bad (pathos, opinion), you can ask what can be done to make change and thus solve a problem. This opens up room for research. • You can then find cases (examples) in other cities, states, or countries where what you want done

has happened. • You can find places where it hasn’t, and then compare both sides of the situation based on the

facts (logos).

• Facts make the case, not opinions. Just like in a court case, what is supposed to decide justice is what happened, not how someone feels about it. If the defendant is a good or bad person is not on trial; whether or not he did what he is accused of (provably) is.

Methods

• Imagine you want to build a house—you need funding, resources, and a team. To get those things so that you can turn your vision into a reality, you have to make a proposal to a bank or investor.

• To get what you need, you have to convince someone to lend you support—to believe in (to see) your vision. That means you have to persuade them that you can do what you say you want to do.

• This is what a proposal does: it proposes. The goal is to prove you have what it takes to act on your word, to follow through. What is most convincing, then, for your backers is a clear picture of how you intended to meet your goal. To build a house, you should have blueprints, estimates of costs, what materials you want to use, and where you intended to get those materials from. You should also have a specific place in mind to build, too, and a list of who you intend to work with.

• What you are arguing in such a case, like in this first essay, is that you know what you want to do already—you have it all sketched out—all your audience needs to do is give you the go-ahead: fund it.

Methods (cont.)

• In academic proposals, this means being able to explain what kind of sources you intend to use, for example: • Census bureau data on socioeconomic trends from 1914 - 2014• Percentage of graduates from American universities versus Australian universities• The number of gun related injuries and deaths annually• How many traffic accidents are related to alcohol versus texting• The age at which a majority of schizophrenia symptoms present themselves• What the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders describes as a psycho- pathology

compared to popular myths]• Genetic studies on the number of cases of knockouts for a trait within a population• The frequency of student loan defaults according to the credit bureau reports

These are the kind of concrete descriptions of research materials that illustrate to your approving authority that you have done some preliminary research and that what you want to look into further is actually researchable—warranted. This is like clearly stating all the materials you would build with.

Methods (cont.)

• You may also have to explain how you intend to use those resources/materials. Just because your target audience has the authority to approve or disapprove of your project does not mean that he or she is an expert on your topic.

• Evidence does not always speak for itself, and a good writer does not want to leave interpretation up to the audience without offering a bit of helpful guidance—direction, persuasion. This is where the rhetoric comes in. You have to prove that you know what to do with those materials, not just that you want to buy them.

• Having wood, pipes, cables, concrete, and skilled laborers does not mean you can combine those in the right way to ensure that they produce a house, much less a good one. You cannot just say you need a shopping list of materials to build, you have to be able to illustrate how you will use those materials, a timeline for development, and what kind of final product you expect in the end.

Working Thesis

• Your methods are usually the hardest part of the proposal, but they are important and usually should be developed in parallel with a working thesis. Both require a bit of forethought—vision. You are creating a kind of prediction about what you think you may find by doing research, and to do this, you formulate a tentative hypothesis: what seems to be the case at the outset. (You have to start somewhere, after all.)

• Every hypothesis has to have a null-hypothesis, meaning an opposing view or a counter-position. If your working thesis does not have an arguable opposite, chances are it needs revising because it is not arguable. That means there is nothing to prove. In such a case, you will probably need to ask a different question.

• Remember, as you develop your plan, you do not want to overestimate what you can do. The more specific your goal and problem, the more likely you can actually motivate a single, specific change; the more realistic your goal, the more likely you will be able to succeed at it. You are not changing the entire world in a mere six page (or less) final research paper. Thus, it is in your interest to admit what you can do and define the limits of your project—Toulmin’s qualifications. This helps your audience to know you have thought everything out.

Beyond the Classroom

• The general concept behind proposal writing for a research paper is not unlike what you might write as a personal statement or cover letter. Those are also proposal arguments; you are trying to prove that you have what it takes to be the person they select.

• What is most convincing is not words but actions. If you can show that you did your research—know the company, what it wants, how you would fit in their culture to each other’s benefit—they do not have to labor over their decision or guess at your worth. You would stand out over the other candidates. They would, therefore, be able to see by what you write that you are already the one they want because you did the work for them. That way, everyone gets what they want. That is successful rhetoric.

• It is always important to keep your audience in mind. In all rhetorical situations, you (the author) are the one who has the responsibility for controlling the situation. To get what you want, even if that is to benefit the audience, what they do is up to you—how you say it, what you say, how they receive, understand, and remember what you said. Make it easy for them to act; help them find what they need and make it seem simple. You’re the expert. Show it.