Practical Guide to Enhancing the Readability and Professionalism of Written Proposals

When you are writing a proposal, you want to persuade your reader with strong content. However, you should also make sure that your proposal is easy to read and is formatted correctly. If it isn't, the strength of your proposal is weakened, even if you have a good argument. Let's take a look at a complete proposal. You'll read a section of the proposal and be asked to think about how it could be changed to make it easier to read. Then you'll see how it can be improved. Read the introduction to a proposal. How can we make it easier to read? Is the tone OK? How could you improve it? Pause the video if you need more time. Let's see how we can improve the introduction. First, "I'm going to" doesn't sound very professional, so let's use one of the phrases that we learned to introduce the purpose. The purpose of this proposal is. Also, I don't think we need to give the examples of the flavors in the introduction, so let's delete them. Finally, the last sentence sounds a little casual. Let's join it to the previous sentence so it looks like this.

Read the next part of the proposal. How can we make it easier to read? Pause the video if you need more time. I don't think using "as you know" is a good idea. It gives the impression that you're not telling the readers anything new and may be wasting their time. So let's start by giving this section a heading "Background" and let's make it bold so that it stands out. We can delete "as you know" and "you can see it" and join these two sentences into one. Finally, let's join those last two sentences and simplify it by taking out some unnecessary information.

Read the next part of the proposal. How can we make it easier to read? Pause the video if you need more time. In this section, we are going to do several things, including using white space to make it easier to read. Let's start by giving this section a heading Findings. We will include a blank line before the heading too. Next, let's use "I have attached" as a simpler way to refer to the results of the research in another document and "to summarize" to introduce the summary. It's hard to see those flavors in the middle of all that text. So let's make two simple lists. Notice we used "the following" when we introduced the list. Finally, let's make that last sentence into its own paragraph with white space before and after.

Read the next part of the proposal. How can we make it easier to read? Also, do you notice any spelling, punctuation or grammar mistakes? What heading can we include here? Pause the video if you need more time. Again, let's start by making it easier to read by giving this section a heading Recommendations. Now, instead of listing those four flavors again, we can use "the word above" to refer to the previous list. Now, it's always a good idea to check your writing for any mistakes. Did you find any in the last sentence? Here they are. We need to capitalize I. Then remember, after "proposed," we can use the ING form of the verb, not "too." "Chocolate" is spelled incorrectly, so let's correct that. And finally, we need a period at the end.

Okay, this section can have the heading "Outcomes." So let's do that. Now, looking at the rest of it, the main problem is that each sentence is on a separate line. So that's easy to fix. Now there are a couple of phrases that we don't really need. So "that's my suggestion" isn't necessary because it's obvious this is a proposal. Also, "thanks for reading" is not very professional, so let's delete that too. And "let me know what you think" also sounds a little informal. So let's just keep the sentence: "I would be happy to discuss this with you further and answer any questions. So please let me know." As the tone of the proposal is a little more formal, we can take out that "I look forward to hearing from you soon" at the end and just finish with the name. So, let's recap. To make a proposal easier to read, be concise. Don't include unnecessary information. Make sure the tone is appropriate. Being a little more formal and professional is often a good idea. Use headings and whitespace to divide sections of the report and use lists to make it easier to see important information. Write all the sentences on separate lines because in English people tend to read in paragraphs. But you can have one sentence in its own paragraph to make it stand out or if there is only one sentence in that section of the proposal. Finally, check your writing for grammar, spelling and punctuation errors.