Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Proposing a Solution
Task Summary
Persuade us a local problem exists and to accept your solution to it. (Key
chapter: SMG 7)
Length: 1,000-1,200 words
Final Draft Due Date: __________________
Description
Tips
1. If your reader doesnt take the problem seriously, you cannot possibly
persuade him or her to accept the solution. (If I tell you it will only cost
the federal government $500 to send all of the aliens back to Jupiter,
youre only likely to think that expenditure is worthwhilesmall as it
isif you think we have a problem with aliens from Jupiter.) For this
reason, most good proposals make an effort to get readers to care
about the problem first. Once we care about the problem, the solution
might not seem as expensive or painful.
2. If your reader has his or her own idea on how to solve the problem, and
you never talk about that idea, the reader may think you werent
Proposing a Solution |2
thorough enough. Even if the reader thinks your idea is good, he or she
will probably think that his or her own idea was better. For this reason,
good proposals also evaluate alternative solutions: Indeed, the best of
them will often list a bunch of possible solutions and then evaluate each
of them, comparing them to each other until arriving at a best choice.
For an example of this, see Crystal Allens paper on how to save
endangered turtles, located here: http://bit.ly/QYjIIF.
Related Readings
St. Martins Guide Ch. 7, 23, 24; They Say/I Say Ch. 6-7; and Chapters 4-5 of The
Craft of Research.
Supported Outcomes