You work for a company called PM Connections that specializes in assisting companies and individuals in the Dallas area who need to write long documents such as proposals, reports, and newsletters. The company also conducts seminars on topics such as communication skills, effective leadership, and document development. Peter Marlin, the president of PM Connections, has decided to create a new seminar called Effective Proposal Writing and needs to write a sample proposal for the seminar participants. He asks you to determine a suitable subject for his sample proposal and then to answer questions to help him focus on the required content.

Follow the steps below to develop content for a proposal, and then to write and format the proposal.

1. Select a proposal subject that involves a significant change in a course, a program, or a company procedure. For example, you could request that a business program at a local college include more courses in business communications, you could propose setting up a flextime program at your company, you could request the purchase of new computer equipment, or you could propose a new marketing strategy for a particular product.

2. Complete the table below with the information you need to help you write the proposal. Note that you will need to make up information. Use fictitious but realistic details. Not all the questions will be relevant to your proposal. Answer questions that help you determine information for your proposal and identify additional questions and answers where needed. Your goal is to develop the big picture of your proposal—its purpose, characteristics, sections, etc.

3. Start a new document in Word, and then save it as My Sample Proposal.docx.
4. Switch to Outline view, type Introduction as a Level 1 heading, and then in the body text write an introduction to your proposal. Remember that your first sentence should start This proposal presents a request... and include a summary of what you are proposing. You might require two or even three sentences to summarize the proposal. Adapt the answers you provided to identify content for the proposal.
5. After the summary of the proposal, include a sentence in the introduction that identifies the four or five main sections of your proposal. Finally, include a sentence that describes the outcome of the proposal. Refer to the proposals you have worked on in this project for wording ideas.
6. Enter the main sections and subsections as Level 1 and Level 2 headings in Outline view.
7. Add appropriate content under each of the headings. When you work in Outline view, you can easily change your mind about how to organize the content. For example, you can decide to switch the order of certain sections. Include enough content so that the text of your completed proposal fills at least two pages.

8. In Print Layout view, add a title page as the first page. Include the name of the proposal, the name and title or organization of the person to whom you are submitting the proposal, your name as the person submitting the proposal and the organization or company you represent, and the current date. Refer to the title pages in the proposals you have worked on in this project for layout and formatting ideas.
9. On the second page of the document, add Table of Contents as the title, center it and format it with a large font size, and then generate a table of contents.
10. Divide the document into three sections and modify headers, footers, and page numbering as follows:

a. Section 1: no header, footer, or page number

b. Section 2: footer with your name at the left margin and the page number formatted as i at the right margin

c. Section 3: header with the name of your proposal centered and bolded, and footer with your name at the left margin and the page number formatted in the 1, 2, 3 style at the right margin and starting on page 1 11. Update the table of contents, save the document, and then print a copy.

Transcribed Image Text:

Information for a Proposal What are you proposing? Hint: Think in terms of making a change. Who has requested the proposal? What need does your proposal address? What does the reader want? What is the competition doing? What are the characteristics of the project outcome (e.g., products and services, methods and procedures, etc.)? What qualifications do you and/or other principal stakeholders have? How much will the project cost?