Chapter 3 Notes and comments

Evidently, Johnson-Sheehan advocates reading a proposal situation as a rhetorical situation. As we discussed in class last time, the focus is not only on the audience, but also on explaining the critical information of a proposal, and how best to address it. Brevity seems to be the key.

This focus on brevity and the audience permeates the strategy section. I like the worksheets on p 39 and 42 as focusing tools for examining the possible audiences who will read the proposal.
It is also important to determine the all major objectives. I performed a kind of this analysis when I was examining the focus areas for my proposal in order to maximize the research areas. When examining a huge proposal area, like that found in a thesis research proposal, it's important to break down the large topic into smaller, easier to handle objectives. Then, as the example on p45 explains, you have to rank those objectives and address them in order of importance. This will not only help organize the proposal, but will also help organize the research.

This process appears to be time-consuming, but it looks like it works.

1) Grant writing people: Have you used these kinds of strategy techniques? How did they work for you?

2) Rhetoricians: This rhetorical situation seems very similar to Bitzer. Do you think another rhetorical theory would provide more information and help focus proposals?

3) A question about the tertiary readers: should we concern ourselves with other people who would read our proposal outside of the primary and secondary subjects? For a thesis proposal, who would a tertiary reader be? How would we assess and then address their needs?