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English 216
PAPER #4: PROPOSAL
Assignment and Heuristics

The Assignment

In the preceding assignment, you were asked to analyze the written and verbal representations of an issue. This assignment asks you now to do something even more difficult: you are asked advocate that something be done (or not be done) or to argue that some procedure be changed. You can argue for or against specific policy proposals that have actually been made or you can propose (and argue for) a policy suggestion of your own.
 
Try to convince an audience that a certain action should or should not be taken in response to a situation or set of circumstances. Your starting point might well be something that bothers you and that you feel should be changed.  Of course, you might have to convince your readers that it is a problem for them too, if that is not obvious.  Here are some suggestions:

• Propose an improvement relating to a department, a service, living quarters, an  organization at ASU or in your workplace.
• Propose a method of improving writing/communication skills here at ASU or at an organization for which you work.
• Propose improvements to dorm policies, admissions policies, or testing policies at ASU.
• Propose a change in an existing policy or procedure at ASU or at work.

As you work out the rhetorical situation for this assignment, pay particular attention to the audience for your proposal. You should be able to specify an actual audience and forum for which you would present the proposal. Consider what your purpose is--to take action or to create grass roots support for an action that someone other than the audience would take.  Your audience should be asked either to undertake the action proposed or to support the action proposed.

Composition:
The audience for this paper is the person or people to whom you plan to make your proposal.

Your completed response to this assignment should clearly articulate the policy or procedure you are recommending.

It should review the reasons why change is necessary and demonstrate what will happen, and to whom, if your recommended policy or procedure is adopted. It should also demonstrate what will happen, to whom, if your recommendation is not adopted. It should discuss means of implementation and enforcement of the policy or procedure you are recommending, as well.

Generally, an unsolicited proposal follows a basic organization pattern of problem/solution. Here is a list of the features that usually appear in a proposal:

• statement and discussion of the problem (includes background and purpose statement)
• list of long-term and short-term objectives
• statement and discussion of the proposed solution, including:
• an explanation of how the solution can solve the problem;
• methods to be used and procedures to be followed;
• personnel involved;
• material equipment and facilities to be used;
• amount of time required to implement the solution;
• cost of solution.

Your presentation of all these materials should be as persuasive to your audience as you can make it. You might consider including charts, graphs, images, and other visuals in your response. Your presentation may take the form of a paper, a website, or a powerpoint presentation.

Composing Schedule:
Heuristic work: 11/15, 11/20 11/27
Drafts: 11/27, 11/29, 12/4,
Complete Draft Due: During Final Exam
 

This assignment developed by Dr. S. Crowley, Dr, K. Heenan, & Dr. P. Webb

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Heuristics: Paper #4

If you are recommending that a policy be implemented, you must compose it. Find out how similar policies are enacted in similar situations, and compose a plan for implementing your suggested policy. You should also determine how the policy you recommend can be enforced.


If you are recommending that some practice be changed, you must first compose your recommendation. Then find out who can make the changes you suggest, and find out what procedures must be followed in order to make the recommended change. Try to find out how your recommended change can be implemented and enforced, and offer suggestions for achieving this in your proposal.
 

1. Ask the following policy questions of the proposal you will defend:

(a) Should some action be taken?
(b) How will proposed actions change the current state of affairs? Or should the current state affairs remain unchanged?
(c) How will the proposed changes make things better? Worse? How? In what ways? For whom?
(d) Should some state of affairs be regulated (or not) by some formalized procedure?
(e) Which procedures can be implemented? Which cannot?
(f) What are the merits of competing proposals? What are their defects?
(g) How is my proposal better than others? Worse?
 
2. Now write out your answers to the following questions:

• Given the audience, time, place, and situation, what actions can I recommend?
• Will my audience be receptive to me and to my arguments?
• Are my recommendations possible to implement? desirable?
• Can only part of my recommendation be implemented? If so, what are my priorities?