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Contents 1 Assignment purposes 2 Length 3 Course policies 4 Structure 4.1 Front matter and introductory material 4.2 Body of proposal 4.3 End matter (Editorial Coordinators compile this section) 5 Special Assignment Criteria 6 Resources 7 Submission

Photo by T. Smith, 2009, with subjects' permission

Assignment purposes

• Team formation and planning
• To understand the structure & aims of the course and assignments
• To propose a website that meets the needs of your community partners
• To learn how to write and present an audience-sensitive proposal in a professional manner
  

Length

• Minimum of 1000 words single-spaced, in professional format, plus any borrowed material and appendices.  
• No maximum word length is suggested because you must write enough to complete the assignment while being as concise, precise and emphatic as possible.You must ensure that each claim you make is backed up with sufficient examples and details, so limit your claims to the most important and unique highlights. 
• Informal presentation to community partners of your proposal ideas, including visuals of web design: 7-10 minutes each team, as scheduled.  This will help to ensure that the proposal is audience-sensitive and based on collaborative learning and consultation with partners.
  

Course policies

Please familiarize yourself with Dr. Smith's Assignment style guide, grading rubric, and revision policy located in the navigation bar to your left.  They contain important information such as what counts within your official word count, grade level expectations for A, B, C level work, how to format website citations, and whether you can revise a given assignment for a higher score.

Structure

• Title and subtitle unique to your team's proposal.  Audiences you submit to include Dr. Tania Smith, Zoe Fleming, and Erin Kaipainen with their titles and organizations.  Include all names of proposers, designate your Editorial Coordinator as such, and list each person's major and year of undergraduate study.  Refer readers to your Appendix A for a more complete profile of the team.
  
• Insert this standardized introduction content to open proposal document with information about its audiences, purposes, and contents.  This section is primarily for potential third-party readers.  It also provides a general context for the proposal so that you know it's been covered and do not dwell on the obvious within the subsequent sections. Please use and only slightly adapt this standardized introduction, supplementing it as needed. It does not count within the word count. 
  
  
• This proposal is for a service-learning project to be conducted by a team of # students within COMS 463: Advanced Professional and Technical Communication at the university of Calgary, taught by Dr. Tania Smith in the Faculty of Communication and Culture. 
  

• Overview of proposed activities and outcomes for learning, for team / partnership development and maintenance, and for website content/design development. This is essentially an "executive summary" of what is included in the remainder of your proposal.  Do not assume that "summary" means providing vague generalizations that could also be made by other teams. Each sentence should be descriptive of an actual activity or product feature or resource, rather than merely name a type or a category. It should go beyond stating the obvious and merely remind readers of audience-known information while building on it, providing unique descriptive phrases that relate to your team's work. Therefore, you will need to write this after the body of the proposal is written so that it truly introduces what is found there.
  
• Background rationale. Within the known project definition and course structure, why has your team decided to take its particular approach to learning, partnership and service? What larger social contexts, needs, ethical issues, constraints are especially important for your proposed activities and products?  What is at risk for yourselves and others? This section basically provides the historical, social, and cultural "scene" in which your proposed activities and products are placed, so make sure each statement is well reasoned and relates to your proposed website, methods and resources.

Body of proposal

• Organize the main body of the proposal so that it efficiently covers this information without unnecessary repetition, not necessarily in separate sections or in this order.  However, use the key terms "website" "learning/partnership outcomes" "methods" and "resources." As you research this, refer to the assignment descriptions on this website, especially the page for the 35% final website and presentation.
  
• Proposed website. Include a unique description at three levels: a) the website's overall macro-level structure expressed as a flowchart of pages in relation to each other, b) medium-level samples of design, page layout and tabs, menus, links, and c) micro-level samples of the kind of text that will accomplish the goals of the project.  Name your two designated presenters.  Since you are proposing, you may use screen captures or quotations of existing websites and explain how elements of their work would be avoided or imitated. This section must clearly flow out of the background rationale.
  
• Learning outcomes and partnership outcomes.  How will the project develop your skills and knowledge in line with the course goals, how will it educate other parties involved, and how will the project sustain and develop networks and long term partnerships between people and organizations?
  
• Methods for both learning and for developing the site's content and design, such as team project management (refer to your appendix B and C), research, peer and partner review. It must be clear how each proposed method relates to the rationale, website, and resources.  You should emphasize equally your learning and research methods and your processes/steps in production.
  
• Resources, including the skills, information and knowledge you already have, those provided within the course, and those you will need to take initiative to develop.  Your known resources include your team members (refer to appendix A), the instructional team, textbooks, lectures, labs, the library and online material, material discovered by asking community/campus partners.  We know this already, but how will you use some of them? link each resource to a method, website element, or background rationale.
• No conclusion is needed. This is not an essay but a functional document. 

End matter (Editorial Coordinators compile this section)

• References in APA format using APA style, organization and page layout.  APA links and guidelines are provided to students.  Sufficient information must be provided for each item:  all borrowed images, quotations, paraphrases, and all websites / documents named in the proposal.  Each reference item must match with an in-text citation that makes use of its first item (author name(s) / title).
  
• Appendix A: Team member profiles (max 100w each: major, year of study, relevant background, who is your Editorial Coordinator, who is a presenter at the final public presentation)
  
• Appendix B: Team contract outlining internal roles, policies, communication methods, record keeping and consequences for failing to uphold the contract.  Please refer to criteria in the self/peer evaluation forms which contribute to your participation scores. 
  
• Ensure that the bulk of your team communication is visible and archived with instructional team access: you must make a plan to use of the EC's project management site (which can be set up early if desired) and Blackboard group pages discussion boards for standard communication, rather than personal email, facebook or telephone (these may supplement).
  
• Consider challenges such as member illness, technology compatibility issues and errors, group member miscommunication, how long a message can go unanswered, how does absence from classes/labs matter, what to do if a member drops the course, what to do if your EC or presenters want to change roles or are unavailable/inactive for any reason when they are needed, a member's low participation levels, member's substandard work, or lateness for internal deadlines. 
  
• Do not expect the editorial coordinator to manage everything for you or take up the slack if elements are not completed by members.  Leadership, initiative and responsibility should be distributed among the whole team.
  
• Appendix C: Project schedule, using the GANTT Chart Template provided as attachment to this page (below).  Modify it as needed.
  
• Presume an average of 8 hours per week per person of learning & service time (4 in-class hours, some of which will be lab and tutorial time to accomplish work, plus 4 hours for reading, writing, and other learning; this is an average and will vary, with more time just before deadlines).
  
• If any member chooses to put in additional labor and time over the whole term, it will be considered volunteer service work or voluntary upgrading of your competence if basic prerequisite skills are lacking.  Increased assignment quality and learning outcomes may be motives for individuals to choose to put in extra time.  However, teams should not expect individuals to go above and beyond this norm since many excellent students have busy schedules which make doing so impossible. You can each do your best quality work within the parameters of the course.
  

Special Assignment Criteria

• Proposals often suffer from being too vague. Omit all unnecessary wordiness, but realize brevity is not a virtue if it results in fragmentary reasoning.  Provide examples wherever possible even if they are based on critiquing/praising others' work, giving examples from your past experiences, or providing hypothetical anecdotes. The proposal must be detailed enough to convince people you know what you are doing and why, and that it is feasible given the time and resources at hand.  
• It must not merely repeat what your audience already knows about the project (i.e. when the established deadlines are, what the general goals and mission of the website project are), but it should allude to it and then build on it new, unique, specific information about your and your group's vision. 
• This is not a business proposal from a team of web development consultants.  You are a service learning team proposing to do certain activities within the terms already set within a course.  Keep that in mind for the content (i.e. no budget, no website maintenance plan, only course-approved technologies) and tone (that of  a learner, not a proud expert). The proposal must be very sensitive to the values, language and organizational cultures of the proposal's main audiences (Dr. Smith, Zoe, Erin).  You will learn these in the first month of class if you are attentive.

Language, page layout

• The proposal itself must use features of good professional writing illustrated in the Redish text, especially regarding headings and organization of information within sections (inverted pyramid), visuals, charts, page layout, bullets, etc, so skim the Redish text as you finalize the proposal.  The quality of writing is always an important criterion.
  
• Use first person and appropriate verb tense, as in "Our team will... Barbara has created journalistic articles... Zoe Fleming from Volunteer Calgary explained... Dr. Smith hopes..."
  
• Avoid passive voice (as in "the website will be developed") unless it is necessary, preferring the active voice "The website will include."

Resources

Submission