Proposal Film

Final Thoughts

Introduction

When I entered this class I wanted to learn more about proposal writing, but more specifically, I wanted the motivation to write my thesis proposal. What I found was a supportive environment that allowed me to explore my ideas on a topic, to express these ideas in an organized form and in such a way that my audience would expect and appreciate them, and to think about my research from different perspectives. I gained the ability to write proposals in any situation, as long as I take the time to evaluate it first, and I’m ending the class with an eloquent thesis proposal. Honestly, what I’ve accomplished in this course is beyond what I imagined possible in a five-week period.

As stated in the other three progress reports, my MAPC thesis proposal explores the connections between organizational narrative and strategic communication through the genre of profiles. I will conduct a textual and visual analysis of profiles used by universities on their websites or in print publications. While this study is the culmination of my master’s degree program at Clemson, I’m not certain I would have been able to flesh out my ideas in such detail had I written the proposal on my own. All the pieces were there, but the class continually pushed me to focus on each part of the proposal with a purpose and finally to look at the parts as a whole design.

Work Completed

I’ve written my thesis proposal following the MAPC guidelines, but I’ve also gone beyond these suggestions. My thesis proposal package includes the 10 page proposal with front matter of a letter of transmittal, cover page, table of contents, and abstract, and back matter of an extensive bibliography and biography. I’ve also created my first film – a five minute presentation that highlights the connections between silhouettes and viewpoints, texts and their contexts, and profiles and strategic communication. Thought this film assignment was quite a challenge, I am very proud of my work, and I appreciate the opportunity to explore my topic in a more creative medium that the traditional written proposal. Essentially, this film allowed me to focus on a very visual part of my topic and to see my proposal in a completely different way. I never expected to create a film to supplement the required thesis proposal, but now my proposal would seem incomplete without it.

Next Steps

The next steps include submitted my proposal to my course instructor and committee chair for comments and revisions. I realize that the proposal is only the beginning of a long process of research, but thanks to this course, I’ve created a strong foundation. The next steps also include reflected on this journey in the final report, where I will describe the decisions I made; however, because of the rhetorical focus of the class, I feel able to justify each choice. I also feel confident in my ability to use technology to persuade and connect with my audience. I may use InDesign in the future to give my papers a more professional look, and I will definitely keep Audacity and Jing on my computer for future use. I also plan to teach MovieMaker to my students in English 103 in the fall.

Conclusions

I’m leaving this course with a better understanding of the rhetorical situation of proposal writing and with the knowledge and technical skills to create written and visual proposals. I enjoyed working with other students in the course, and I appreciate the support of the MATRF staff, particularly their software training. The short time period, almost daily meetings, and working environment made this class successful, since it simulated other proposal situations. Upon reflection, I realize that this situation was the most conducive way to write my thesis proposal. I had to decide on an idea; convince myself and my classmates that it was worth pursuing; learn more about it through research; cull down this research into three pages; explain my plan for studying the topic; delineate the schedule for this research; persuade my primary audience from the introduction through the conclusion, and present my ideas in an appealing form. I can’t imagine anything else I would want to add to this course, except to say that it should be offered every summer.

Writing Proposals - Chapter 12

We’ve reached the end of the book, and there’s still so much to be done. This last chapter addresses the final touches to the proposal, mainly the front and back matter. We might consider the presentation as part of our main concerns as well, since it supplements the core of the package: the proposal itself.

The front matter can include a letter of transmittal, cover page, executive summary and table of contents, but when considering including these components, I wonder how many times we need to repeat ourselves. If we include an introduction, do we need an executive summary too? Would an abstract be the academic equivalent, or is that something we save for the thesis itself? Do we need a letter of transmittal? If we are sending a digital copy, could we substitute an email of transmittal? I think it might be a nice touch, particularly to include contact information. Also, the book specifies that a table of contents is not necessary for a proposal of less than 10 pages, but it certainly couldn’t hurt to display the structure up front. Again, I have to wonder whether adding a page is justified though.

In addition, the title page, letter of transmittal, and table of contents, as front matter, set the tone for the proposal. We can use the letter to establish a relationship with our readers, and the title page and table of contents can signal our professionalism and attention to detail. However, having written mostly academic essays, I find it difficult to invent a cover design that still fits within my conventional notions of research papers, and has enough differences to make my proposal unique and attractive.

I also want to examine my use of terminology and citations as I consider the inclusion of back matter, though for a 10 page proposal, extensive back matter again seems to add more weight than it is worth. Instead, I will consider the inclusion of definitions as sidebars, thus enhancing the creative design of the proposal. By looking at the proposal as the sum of its parts as we learned in the visual communication chapter, I can consider these final additions within the overall design and purpose of the proposal, and rethink any areas that creep outside my mission or stray too far from the conventions.

Film Objectives and Outline

The film will focus on the opportunity to investigate profiles in detail – answering they why question of my proposal.

Objectives/Emphasis

• Spatial and written profiles are selective ways of viewing the world – silhouettes (TRO)
• Profiles of community members construct organizational identity, even if in the case of universities multiple voices overlap
• These profiles can be read an analyzed individually and together (intertextuality).
• Textual features are a way to gain access to situations, context, culture, or ideology.

Outline (storyboard presented in class)

• Intro: Silhouette of iconic university building (.5 min)
• 4-6 Silhouettes of university buildings – 10-15 seconds each (1 min) End with comment of reflection and reproduction – silhouette of reflection pool webcam image.
• Screenshot movie of reflection pool webcam (1 min)
• 4-6 profiles, 10-15 seconds each (1.5 min), voice over quotes
• Corpus of profiles – highlight tower shape – fade into first building silhouette (.5 min)
• Credits and Special Thanks (.5 min) “We will become silhouettes” by The Postal Service

Proposal Style Sheet

I will use the style sheet below to design my thesis proposal, with substitutions made as necessary during the InDesign layout process. However, by categorizing the texts into styles, I will be able to make global edits throughout the document as I see it take shape on the screen.

Line Level:

• Serif font for body text (Bell MT) (Adobe Caslon Pro as alternate)
• 12 pt. font size for body text
• 12 pt. font for table cells and other text boxes
• 10 pt. font for captions, bold title
• Italics for book titles, bold for emphasis, no use of underline

Paragraph Level:

• 1.5 space leading or approximate space for interlinear comments
• Sans serif font for headings (Gill Sans MT) (Franklin Gothic Book as alternate)
• H1 = 16 pt. bold, more leading before, less leading after (so they attached to section)
• H2 = 14 pt. italic, more leading before, less leading after
• Indent first line .4 inches
• Hanging indent of .4 inches for Works Cited
• Left justification, little to no hyphenation
• Small round bullet points or numbers depending on list type

Page Level:

• One column, 1 in. margins on all sides
• Header = MAPC Thesis Proposal ~ name ~ page number
• Graphics = centered with tables labeled on top and figures labeled below

Additional styles, including bibliographic information, will follow the MLA Handbook.

Writing Proposals - Chapter 11

I wish I used more graphics in my writing; unfortunately, I usually think of them as an afterthought. It’s very difficult for me to think of graphics as I compose, even when stumbling through a section that could benefit from a visual representation. I tend to think in words, not in pictures. However, this chapter presents a great overview/reminder of the type of graphics we might find useful in our proposals, and some of the suggested types will probably find their way into my thesis rather than my thesis proposal, though I intend to check my sources for any graphics that I might adapt to my methodology section. This section is the densest part of my proposal, and a graphic could do a lot to explain and elaborate on my plan. I will also consider inserting a screenshot of an example profile, though I believe at this stage the graphic would take up more space than it is worth.

I also think it is important to consider the flow of the proposal, since graphics can both enhance and interrupt this flow. For readers who will most likely skim or selectively read the proposal a graphic can display information in a concise space; break up the text; and restate main points, since it never hurts to say things more than once, in different ways of course. Thus, the graphics will need to be integrated into the proposal with the same quality or ethics as the writing style.

Furthermore, we need to make certain to label all areas of graphics in as much detail as the space allows. As the chapter suggests, we should label x- and y-axes and use callouts to specify important features. In a previous course, I learned that labels appear below figures and above tables (tabletop is an easy way to remember this distinction), and in conjunction with the previous chapter, I believe such consistency will support the overall design of our document.

Multiple Presentation Ideas

As I begin to invent scenes for the multimodal presentation, I find myself choosing between multiple options of visuals and various levels of technical difficulty. Since I’ve never created a film before, I want to limit this endeavor to something I can accomplish in a weak and to a topic that will represent my entire proposal in five-minutes. Below I’ve sketched some initial ideas that I will turn into a storyboard over the weekend, but I would appreciate any advice or suggestions about how to create a persuasive presentation that catches the attention of the audience and highlights the main points of my proposal.

The profiles I want to examine are already multimodal, so the most obvious choice is to construct a film around existing profiles. I could use screenshots to turn web-based profiles into images and then transition through these images like pages in a book, a pseudo-viewbook of sorts. As a result, this presentation would resemble an admissions publication. While admissions are part of the strategic communication of a university, I want to show more than just this perspective.

However, profiles, in the traditional sense of the term, show a side or a perspective, and I think I want to play up this history in the multimodal presentation. Specifically, I want to include silhouettes as the visual manifestation of the original spatial profiles. To connect this representation to the university setting that I plan to analyze, I could create silhouettes of iconic university buildings (see silhouette of Clemson's Tillman Hall). These silhouettes would symbolize the university’s identity, and I could read descriptive profile passages to overlay the individual voices that construct this identity. Through this creative composition, I hope to convey the personal profile in conjunction with the university context of strategic communication. Specifically, I think the main point of this presentation will be to emphasize the construction of profiles and the construction of organizational identity. To make this connection more explicit, I could use some sort of transition that builds or deconstructs the image into pieces. Then the next image would display the actual profiles that partially construct the identity.

Another option is to interview my supervisor who edits the profiles I write for the Office of Publications and Promotion. She would be able to describe the current situation from a professional standpoint and perhaps explain why universities use profiles strategically.