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Minggu, 08 Juli 2012

Writing Proposal: A Proposal for a training or a Short Course

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SNAPSHOT

Writing a proposal of a specific project, how simple the project might be, has been a familiar job for each university student. Each university student has a great job of making a simple research project before graduation. This chapter, however, will not discuss how to make a proposal for a research project. This chapter is only meant to guide the students to make a proposal of school or campus activity of any types. The main point is that each student has the ability to write ideas wrapped in particular rhetorical structure, so that it will be effective and understandable.

A proposal is a representation of an idea to pursue, which is wrapped in a particular rhetorical structure, and has a rational wish to be granted. To expect that the proposal is granted, it needs to be written effectively, based a specific rhetorical structure of the following things before it is finally written down: (1) you have thought about the project, (2) you have gathered enough information.

EXPLORATION

First thing you have to do before writing a proposal is looking around the environment and try to gather information as much as possible to finally identity a problem. Then, a problem is to be formulated and stated in a question.

Problems identification

· Most student cannot speak English fluently

· Most students cannot write effectively

· Some student don’t come to some classes

· Some students don’t pay the tuition on time

Based on the problem above, you can formulate a question. To answer the question, you need to do a particular activity that needs time and energy. To begin the writing, formulate a title for the proposal. Remember, the title can be changed as the proposal writing is in progress. Don’t hesitate to write a title, and edit it again and again. The following is the rhetorical structure of the proposal:

Title

Two important things to remember while writing a title of the project to propose:

· Write the title in the form of a noun phrase

· It must be specific, denoting the register (who, what, where) of the project to accomplish (you may rewrite the title again and again, until you get the most appropriate one)

Background

You need to write your argument in at least three main paragraphs:

· Start writing from the very general field, from which the project is related

· Narrow the ideas into more specific points

· Make thesis, or statement about a crucial point to do.

Problem statement

Related to the thesis or statement about the crucial point to do, you need to restate the problem in more specific way, so that it is more rational, acceptable. It can be more than one problem to state.

Purpose

State the purpose of your project; why you need to carry out that project.

Review of related literature (this element is especially needed when you are writing a research proposal, or an article)

Write several important points related to your title, thesis, and statement of the problems about everything that you know, that generally accepted, that are supported by some quotations (what some experts have said responsibly)

Budget

Include the prospective expenses that are needed to pay for the project to accomplish

Schedule

Include the schedule of the project to be accomplish

LINGUISTIC REALIZATION

To help realize the clarity in the information or arguments you have to write in the background section, you need to be familiar with cohesive and coherent term in writing.

Briefly, it can be said that cohesive text means that there is a harmonized relation among the several parts (noun, noun phrase, verb, adverb phrase, clause) in each of the sentences throughput the text. This harmony can be realized though the appropriate use of pronoun, through the appropriate agreement between subject and predicate, the use of conjunction, and the use of elliptical construction. In other words, when you remember ‘concord’ you will understand cohesion.

Coherent text means that there is a harmony in the flow of thought from one sentence into the other sentence that follows, which is developed into paragraph and into another paragraph that fallows. If you can see that there is a relation between one sentence and the order sentence that follows, it means that the two sentences are coherent. To realize this, the use of some conjunctions such as therefore, accordingly, however, as a matter of fact, generally, based on, etc., is very common and very useful.

Example:

The predicate are bold-typed.

· There are many high school graduates who cannot go to university because of some economic reason. Their parents don’t have enough money to send them to any higher education. One of the negative sides from this parents’ disability is that some high school graduates are involved in rather liberal friendship that lead them to some crimes. Therefore, the government has recently taken some actions to anticipate this reality.

In the text above, there are only four sentences, but there are more than four clauses. Remember, one clause is always with one predicate. Therefore, there are seven clauses.

· There are many high school graduates

· Who cannot go to university because of some economic reasons.

· Their parents don’t have enough money to send them to any higher educations.

· One of the negative sides from this parents’ disability is

· That some high school graduates are involved in rather liberal friendship

· That lead them to some crimes

· Therefore, the government has recently taken some actions to anticipate this reality.

You can see the cohesive term from the text above in the following forms;

· Are àmany

· Many àhigh school graduates

· High school graduates àthem

· One of… àside

· Disability àis

· Some àhigh school graduates

· High school graduates àare involved

· Friendships àlead

· The government àhas recently taken

· Because of à some economic reasons = because they have some economic reasons.

· (high school graduates) who cannot go to university because of some economic reasons.

You can finally judge the text above is coherent enough. This is because there is a fixed relation between one sentence and the other sentence that follows. Therefore the flow of thought is clear enough. To mark whether a text is coherent enough or not is by testing how far you understand the content or the writer’s purpose. If you get confused about what the writer really wants from the text, it means that the text is coherent enough. There is interdependence among the sentence in the text. The sentence, “Therefore, the government has recently taken some actions to anticipate this reality,” cannot exist by itself. It is very dependent to the preceding sentences.

· Therefore àto mark that there is a cause and effect relation.

· The sentence, “Their parents don’t have enough money to send them to any higher educations” will not clear enough to understand before another sentence comes first; “There are many high school graduates who cannot go to university because of some economic reasons.”

WRITING PRACTICE

In this chapter, you are supposed to think smart above one important thing to accomplish. You are supposed to write a proposal for a project to accomplish based on your observation in the environment. Think that you need a sum of money for the project to be successful. The most important point of the project to accomplish is that it must be important, useful and you don’t have enough money to accomplish the project. Therefore, the purpose of writing the project is that you get the money from a specific party or sponsor or donator, by proposing your critical thinking of a problem to solve in a specific rhetoric, so that it is rational, and acceptable, and the ending of the project is really useful.

1. Writing a title for a project to accomplish

Before writing a title, you must have an idea. This idea comes up as result of an observation to your environment from which you find a problem. In your classroom environment, you observe the way of students learning English. From the observation you find that they have a problem, and you indentify that the main problem they have is speaking.

Example

Problem : speaking

Detail:

You observe that that in speaking, most students often make mistakes in the use of grammar. They seem to be afraid of saying things therefore they speak very slowly. You also find that they speak like Javanese teacher who is teaching to students. Their English doesn’t sound with a sound with a native accent. It sounds Javanese, Solonese or Sumatranese, etc. Therefore, you have an idea to conduct ‘a short’ course in English.

Example:

You draft for the title could be as follows:

Short Course in Speaking for the students of Economic Faculty of Muhammadiyah University of Surakarta.

2. Write a background for the project to accomplish

From the title you can see the key words; (1) short course, (2) speaking, (3) student, (4) economic faculty and (5) Muhammadiyah University. From these key words, then you give the level of priority to be used as the starting point for you to write. You can take ‘students’ and ‘speaking’. See the relations among them;

· Students need English

· Students need speaking

· Speaking needs a short course

· Speaking ability is important for economic students

· Muhammadiyah university needs to be good at English

Then you can write the background by starting from the discussion of English:

· The important English for student

· Among the English skills, speaking is the most crucial skill for students to have

· To be able to speak English, student need to understand how

· This expectation can be realized through the short course in English

Answer these guiding questions:

· Is English important for students? Why?

· What is the most important English skill for students to have?

· Do you think that students need to know the keys to speak easily?

· What do they need to legalize that expectation?

You act a hero in this case. You know how to help them, therefore you make a proposal for a project. The project is then constructed by holding a short course for students is order that they will be helped acquire speaking skill in a more practical way

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