For your first task, you are to write a business letter or memorandum, addressed to me, proposing a project for your formal report and demonstrating that you can successfully complete both this paper and the other required papers for this course. Before beginning this assignment, read very carefully the assignments for the remaining papers, noting especially the audience(s) and purpose(s) for each paper.

You should assume that I chair a committee that will decide whether to fund your project--or to admit you to this course--and in the past we have funded about 5% of the applications. Not all members of the committee are specialists in your field, though two of them are. Your rhetorical purpose in this paper is to persuade me to accept your proposed topic and audience for later papers. You should seek to convince me that you understand the assignments and know one subject well enough to write about it to different kinds of audiences.

When evaluating your proposal, I will use these criteria:

1. A clear statement of purpose for your formal report, identifying

• the complete audience,
• the organizational problem,
• the technical investigation that aims to solve that problem, and
• the use to which your audience will put your information.

2. Persuasive evidence that you can write the report, including

• your qualifications to investigate the topic and
• the availability of time and resources to complete the report;

3. Competence with a conventional letter or memorandum format.

4. Clear evidence that you have identified appropriate audiences and purposes for the other assignments in this course.

In addition to the obvious purpose of establishing a topic for your formal report, this assignment gives you an opportunity to demonstrate your skill in achieving a purpose and adapting to an audience.

Hint: Include a current résumé with your proposal. (I include below some material on job application packages that you may find useful.) And refer to this document in your memorandum or letter to me. For Web-based materials, click here.

Choose a project that will give you practice at writing a document that you might have to prepare as part of your future professional duties. Thesis topics are particularly appropriate. I attach below some information that may be helpful.

Let's say that you are to write a job application letter and a résumé that you could use to convince a real employer to hire you. (Much of this advice, particularly for the vita, applies also to this proposal as well.) You need to establish that as an employee you would be competent, responsible, and personable. In the job application package, your purpose is to get a job interview; in the proposal, your purpose is to survive the initial cutting.

Job Application Letter

Selection of Material

Opening: The opening of your letter should establish a link with your audience, and it should present a tactful claim about your qualifications so that your audience knows why you are writing and why he or she should continue reading.

Body: The body of your letter should explain the special relevance of the facts presented in your resume to the particular job you want your reader to help you get. Some information should be included that shows you know something about the particular company or person to whom you are writing and that this is not a form letter. You should support all of your generalizations with specific evidence.

Closing: Your closing should mention an interview and, if possible, should prompt your reader to make some response to your application.

Arrangement of Material

You should arrange your material so that it best meets the needs of your audience from most to least important according to your audience's perspective, not your own. Make sure that within your paragraphs you move from general to particular.

Presentation of Material

Your letter should neatly present your facts in a conventional format for business correspondence, and it should present the facts in a brief but readily understandable manner. An extremely high standard of editing is essential.

Résumé

Selection of Material

Heading: The heading of your resume should state your name, address, telephone number. If you use both a university and a home address, specify the dates for using them. A statement of career objective is optional.

Body: The body of your resume should provide your reader with the evidence that will lead him or her to choose you, rather than someone else, for an interview. Prove that you would be a competent, responsible, and personable employee. And what do you suppose grant-review committees will be looking for?

Arrangement of Material

The facts in the body of your resume should be ordered from most to least important, as judged by your reader. Select either reverse or normal chronological order and then use that order in all of the chronologically arranged lists in the resume.

Presentation of Material

Your résumé must be typed and should present your facts neatly in a format that gives visual prominence to important information and is easy to read. An extremely high standard of editing is essential.

The following criteria are appropriate for judging a standard job application package. Some of these criteria which ones? also apply to this first assignment.

Packages

Yes No

1. Your opening paragraph indicates the specific job for which you are applying? __ __

2. The body of your letter

a. organizes information about your education __ __

b. provides sufficient information about your background __ __

c. provides sufficient information about your background __ __

d. conveys enthusiasm for the profession or for the specific position for which you are applying __ __

e. indicates that you've learned something about the prospective employer before applying __ __

f. relates work and education to the specific requirements of the job for which you are applying __ __

h. Draws selectively from the information on the vita __ __

3. The closing paragraph is neither too aggressive nor too passive __ __

4. The form of the letter includes an appropriate salutation and __ __

uses standard grammar, punctuation, and __ __

avoids awkward, wordy, or imprecise diction __ __

5. Your résumé puts information in order of importance to the reader __ __

includes all essential identifying information __ __

presents information concisely __ __

provides adequate visual separation of sections __ __