Writing Proposals - Chapter 4

I appreciated that this chapter included a special case of research grants and literature review which applies to those of us working on thesis or project proposals. Moreover, I think we can gain insight from other sections of the chapter, and I want to speculate on some concerns for academic and professional proposal writers.

First, how does Guideline 3: Blame Change, Not People translate to research proposals? With this special case of literature review and research gaps, how do we balance a critique of prior research without stating that it is no longer valid? In other words, I think there is a precarious, perhaps even stylistic balance, between reviewing current literature, building upon it, refuting it, and finding your own space to insert a new idea or voice. While Johnson-Sheehan’s advice still applies, in that we certainly don’t want to attack fellow scholars, I think more should be said about developing a research gap by focusing on change rather than people. Such a discussion would easily tie into the sections on structuring the proposal according to different trends in the field or in its evolution over time.

Second, I cannot stress enough the importance of triangulation in academic research. As a student of research methods I learned about triangulation of data, methods, and theories, and I think any of these strategies would be useful to provide a more complete, albeit still subjective, perspective on a subject. In addition, I stress triangulation to my students in English 103, though I’ve not referred to it in such technical terms. For their first research project, I require them to use at least three different types of sources: a book, a periodical, and a website, so they not only explore the reliability and relevance of these different sources of information, but they also learn different citation details. I’m particularly interested in the book’s list because I would have never chosen electronic sources, print sources, and empirical sources as parallel items in a list. Instead, I tend to think of sources as books, periodicals, electronic sources, and miscellaneous, which in past works cited has included films, advertisements, interviews, and presentations.

I guess the terminology would depend on the subject. Likewise, I also want to discuss headings in proposals and in the MAPC thesis as well. The examples in the book use descriptive headings for each section, but for the theses I’ve read through the headings seem more utilitarian or conventional such as introduction, methods, results, analysis, discussion, and I wonder to what extent we need to stick to these conventions or if more descriptive headings might be a better approach in certain situations. For instance, I’m reminded of Flower, Hayes, and Swarts’ scenario principle and their suggestion to use readers’ questions as headings. Should we think about our readers as we create our headings, and if so how do we structure the document into sections and label them to meet readers’ expectations, ease the document’s usability, and attract their attention?

Progress Report #1

To: Dr. Holmevik
From: Amy Jessee

Introduction
This 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 print publications.

Work Completed
At this point in the writing process, I’ve completed an analysis of the rhetorical situation with an emphasis on the audience. Through in-class worksheets, I’ve evaluated my proposal idea to see if it will be accepted as fulfillment of the MAPC program requirements, and I’ve focused on my thesis committee as the primary audience to which the proposal will be addressed. Within this primary audience, I’ve identified Dr. Williams as my committee chair and a member of the gatekeeper audience, and due to his current teaching assignment in Spain, I’ve asked Dr. Hilligoss, my assistantship director, to serve as my point of contact for the summer months. By analyzing the situation or context, I now have a good understanding of what I am going to do and who I will be writing for, even if the details of my proposal are still in the research stage. For the literature review, I’ve completed extensive research on strategic communication for a previous course, particularly concerning brand identity, issue management, and auto-communication, and I believe I have the necessary background in rhetoric and identification and in the methodology of critical discourse analysis should I chose to use these theoretical approaches.

Next Steps
For next week, I hope to complete research on the narrow subject of my proposals: the profile genre. While I have first-hand experience composing profiles, I have done little investigative research in the history of the genre and its prevalence in university websites. Since I’m also interested in the visual components, I should add more research about this aspect as well, and I hope to narrow down my research methodology as I review the literature about the subject. At this point I have some concerns about tackling a new research area, but I am excited to learn more about a genre that I enjoy writing. I know that my challenges will include be finding the seminal articles in the field to establish my credibility since I’m a relatively new scholar; culling down the information into my own words and ideas so that my literature review is not quote-heavy nor too long for a 10-page thesis proposal; and working on the overall structure of the proposal even as I draft the first section. I want to make sure my proposal is a cohesive strong argument that lays the groundwork for my next year of study.

Conclusion
At this point, I am pleased with my progress on the project. I’ve selected a topic that I am truly interested in on both academic and professional levels, and I think I’ve identified a research gap that will hopefully result in a publishable piece of work. I’m grateful for the comments of the class, and their helpful advice about the rhetorical situation and my own ideas. This supportive structure and the time constraints of the class not only mirror an actual proposal writing situation, but also force me to get my thoughts on paper and move forward with my grand schemes for research.