978-0073403267 Chapter 21 Key Lecture Points, Teaching Tips, and In-Class Exercises

Type

Quiz

Book Title

Business Communication: Building Critical Skills 6th Edition

ISBN 13

978-0073403267

April 6, 2019

Module 21 - Proposals and Progress Reports

Module 21

Proposals and Progress Reports

LO 21-1 Define reports in the workplace.

LO 21-2 Estimate time for business proposal writing.

LO 21-3 Identify sections for business proposal organization.

LO 21-4 Identify “hot buttons” for business proposal strategies and beyond.

LO 21-5 Identify sections for progress report organization.

Module Overview

Module 21 introduces students to reports, as well as proposals, which typically precede

reports and are requests to research information or solve a problem.

Reports come in all shapes and sizes. Throughout this and other modules of Unit 6, Kitty

and Steve offer information on the kinds of reports employees are most likely to write on the

job. By learning the strategies in these modules, students can likely adapt easily to other

report types they encounter in the workplace.

Progress reports are good for getting novice writers’ “feet wet.” Progress reports are personal

—they report information about what the writer has done—and are typically shorter and less

formal than other kinds of reports. While they may have headings and subheadings, progress

reports also typically aren’t as “compartmentalized” as other kinds of reports.

 Teaching Tip: For more experience with headings, have students complete

Exercises 5-10 on “Writing Subject Lines and Headings” in the Polishing Your

Prose box in Module 25 (p. 435).

We’ve also included proposals in this module. Essentially a request, a proposal must provide

adequate information to the reader before he or she can respond to the request. Proposals

usually are compartmentalized into several or more distinct sections, much like the longer

final reports that are written after a project is completed.

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 Teaching Tip: Proposals may be written in response to an RFP—a request for

proposals—which gives details on the content and format of proposals that

respond to them. Chances are your department has on file examples of RFPs for

grants or programming. Ask if you can use one as an example, blocking out any

confidential information. Business newspapers also are good places to find

RFPs, which may be printed in the classified section. Lastly, local government

often issues RFPs for goods and services; you might contact your city or county

government office and ask for copies.

As PP 21-3 shows, writing any report basically has five steps:

Define the problem.

Gather the necessary information.

Analyze the information.

Organize the information.

Write the report.

 Teaching Tip: Ask working students to share information about the kinds of

reports they may read or write on the job. What basic characteristics do these

reports have? Are reports more common in some fields than others? Which? If

they’ve seen particularly effective reports, what qualities or features made them

so?

What’s in This Supplement

This supplement is organized around the major questions posed in Module 21. It covers

Part 1: Key Lecture Points, Teaching Tips, and In-Class Exercises Page 342

Part 2: Answers to Textbook Assignments Page 356

Part 2: Appendixes of Handouts/Transparency Masters Page 358

PowerPoint presentations can be found at our Web page at www.mhhe.com/bcs6e.

Questions (with answers) suitable for quizzes are in the Instructor’s Test Bank. For

student practice quizzes with answers, see our Web page.

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Module 21 - Proposals and Progress Reports

Part 1: Key Lecture Points, Teaching Tips, and In-Class Exercises

What is a “report”? LO 21-1

Many different kinds of documents are called reports.

As PP 21-4 and PP 21-5 show, reports come in many shapes and sizes.

They can be formal or informal in nature. A good definition of a

report is “a written document designed to inform, analyze, or persuade

an audience about an issue or problem.” Common types of reports are

Information

Analytical

Recommendation (or problem-solving)

In-Class Exercise: Have students go to your college

library or their workplace or search the Internet for

examples of reports. Have them bring their findings to

class. Give the students 5-10 minutes to identify the kinds of reports these are.

How do they know? Next, have them examine the reports for language and

content. Which are most effective? Why? What qualities or features can be

used as models for their own report writing?

Figure 21.1 (p. 343) shows the three levels of reports. In particularly, students should pay

attention to problem-solving reports (also called recommendation reports), which are very

common in the workplace.

What should I do before I write a proposal? LO 21-2

Finish at least one-fourth of your research!

There’s no point in writing a report if there’s nothing important to discuss. In most cases,

reports will solve a problem the organization has—finding more efficient ways to

manufacture a product, locating a better alternative to a current practice, or purchasing a

cheaper material the organization needs. Before any of that happens, the organization

(principally, the writer) must first determine what problems exist.

Good report problems are real, important, and specific. They grow out of real problems. In

the “real world,” these problems may be brought to the writer’s attention by a supervisor. In

other cases, the writer may notice problems that could be solved.

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 Teaching Tip: Ask students to identify common business problems. How do they

know? Where can they look in organizations to discover potential problems to

be solved? Are there any publications or websites that can help them?

When writing reports for a class, students often have difficulty finding problems to solve. As

a result, some instructors assign a problem to students. Others expect students to have

completed enough hours in their programs of study or to have worked in a business

environment before taking business communication, thus affording them some experience

out of which problems may be identified. In those cases, instructors may allow students

some creative license while writing the reportCstudents get to assume they’re actually on the

job, working for an organization they know something about.

 Teaching Tip: Try to keep student reports as realistic as possible. Where you

can, have students write about something they can genuinely do. That might

mean limiting the report to solving a campus problem, perhaps for a student

organization. Even if the scope of the project is small, writing about it can teach

students skills in writing Areal world@ business reports.

Whatever the approach, students need to be able to define the problem they will write about.

As PP 21-8 suggests,

1. Narrow the problem

2 Identify the specific problem

3. Identify the specific audience that would have the power to

implement your recommendations.

Students should start out broad while defining the problem—there’s too much litter on

campus—and then narrow the problem down to something manageable—we need a

newspaper recycling program at State Community College. Problems that are too broad

often prove difficult to solve.

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Module 21 - Proposals and Progress Reports

The problem should also be solvable in a realistic time period. For your class, that might be

a matter of only several weeks. (Here, a course taught at a school on the semester system

may have an advantage, as the process can be spread out over more weeks than at a school on

the quarter system.) Even if you give students license to fictionalize the length and scope of

solving their problems, the time period must still be manageable.

In-Class Exercise: If you have students write a report for your class, have them

talk to experts about how much time solving their problem might take. This

could involve interviewing campus experts, contacting someone in local

government, or sending a questionnaire to a businessperson. (Students may want

to read or review Module 22.) Have students collect their research and write a

1- to 2-page memo report to you expressing their findings.

 Teaching Tip: If you decide to emphasize reports in your class, introduce this

module early enough in the term to give students time to develop their problems.

Expect to have a detailed purpose statement before giving the student the

go-ahead to write the report. (Many instructors expect students to submit a

proposal for their problem-solving report, as well as timely progress reports.)

Once the student identifies the problem, he or she should write a good

purpose statement. As PP 21-9 shows, good purpose statements make

three things clear:

The organizational problem or conflict.

The specific technical questions that must be answered to solve

the problem.

The rhetorical purpose the report is designed to achieve.

What should go in a proposal? LO 21-3

What you’re going to do, how and when you’ll do it, and evidence that you’ll do it

well.

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Before employees are able to begin large projects, they typically must submit a proposal.

Proposals can be internal or external. Short internal proposals may be written in memo

format, but longer proposals and external proposals use a report format, often with a letter of

transmittal.

Before writing a proposal, writers must define their problems and do enough research to

understand the nature of its solution. PP 21-11 shows important questions a proposal must

answer.

What problem are you going to solve?

How are you going to solve it?

What exactly will you provide for us?

Can you deliver what you promise?

What benefits can you offer?

When will you complete the work?

How much will you charge?

In-Class Exercise: Before developing their proposals, have students spend 10-15

minutes in class brainstorming answers to the questions on PP 21-11. Then have

them get with a partner and discuss their answers for 10 minutes in peer review.

As PP 21-12 shows, a proposal for a student report usually has the

following sections:

Problem

Feasibility

 Teaching Tip: Make sure students do adequate research to

determine whether their project is feasible. Many students—particularly ones

with little practical business experience—overestimate the amount of time and

resources that can be brought to bear in the business world to solve problems.

Have them use the web, library, or interviews with businesspeople for their

research.

Audience

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Module 21 - Proposals and Progress Reports

 Teaching Tip: For more information on audience, have students read or review

the information in Module 2.

Topics to Investigate

Methods/Procedure

Qualifications/ Facilities/Resources

Work Schedule

Call to Action

 Teaching Tip: Have students review this module’s Building a Critical Skill box

(p. 352) for information on “hot buttons.” Before they submit their proposals,

make sure they consider what hot buttons you might have that could prevent

your approval of their proposals. Ask them how they might discover what a

person’s hot buttons are. What can they do to avoid pushing them?

In the first paragraph, writers also should summarize in a sentence or two the topic of the

report and its purposes.

 Teaching Tip: Use Figure 21.4 (p. 348) to help students see the format, style,

and content of a proposal. Have them critique it—what do they find works best?

What could be improved? Why?

Sales proposals are constructed similarly to proposals for

problem-solving reports, though with more emphasis on persuading

the reader to purchase goods or services (PP 21-13). Writers should

closely follow the requisite RFP. Sales proposals use psychological

description (discussed in Module 12) and reader benefits (discussed

in Module 8).

Of special interest to most readers of a proposal will be the Budget section. While budgets

differ according to the type and scale of the proposed project, they share the common trait

that they must be realistic. Writers should develop budgets that are within the realm of

possibility for the organization and be specific with figures.

However, allowing some “cushion” with figures is common; some overage is acceptable

because market prices can fluctuate, and unforeseen expenses can sometimes occur.

Writers can always spend less than their budgets, but it may be harder to requisition more

funds after the project is underway.

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 Teaching Tip: If you require Budget sections in their reports (budgets are

optional in student reports), have students research and submit separate 1-

to 2-page memos on their budgets to you prior to submitting their

proposal. Have them use real figures, obtained through research on the

web, a trip to a local store, supplier or contractor, or after an interview

with an expert.

Student proposals and reports do not always need a Budget section. For many student

reports, budgetary information may not be vital to completing the project.

Identifying “hot buttons” LO 21-4

In a proposal, as in any persuasive document, it’s crucial that writers deal with the audience’s

“hot buttons,” or issues to which the audience has a strong emotional response.

We all have hot buttons, but they can be quite different depending on the person. Politics is a

good source of hot buttons, but so are social concerns. Culture may produce different norms

and expectations for hot buttons, as might such factors as age, gender, socioeconomics, and

even marital status. Finding an audience’s hot buttons may require careful observation and

critical thinking.

As PP 21-14 and PP 21-15 suggest, a good starting point is to

understand that hot buttons

Are issues to which your audience has a strong emotional

response.

To identify them,

Study your audience’s preferences and motivations.

Be aware they may make your audience’s decisions

seem illogical.

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Module 21 - Proposals and Progress Reports

 Teaching Tip: Ask students to identify hot button issues common in their

lives. They can stem from concerns about politics or society or even

about family, school, or relationships. What advice would they give to

writers hoping to craft a message to reach them about these issues? What

strategies might work? What strategies might not? How might writers be

able to predict what the hot buttons are, and more importantly, how to

address them appropriately?

What should go in a progress report? LO 21-5

What you’ve done, why it’s important, and what the next steps are.

As PP 21-16 shows, progress reports can do much more than simply report what a writer has

done. They can also

Enhance the writer’s image.

Float trial balloons.

Minimize potential problems.

Progress reports are common in business. Some supervisors expect

staff to submit weekly progress reports on their projects. Others expect periodic reports

while a large project is underway; for example, customers of expensive projects, such as road

construction or an extensive manufacturing process, usually expect regular progress reports.

Some government agencies may require them by law.

 Teaching Tip: If you have them, bring in a copy of a typical progress report. Ask

students to do the same. Block out any confidential information but share the

reports to see the differences in style and content. Ask students what role

organizational culture or discourse community play in determining the type and

format of a progress report. Is there only one format?

Which format is best? Who decides?

As PP 21-18 through PP 21-22 illustrate, there are three basic kinds

of progress reports:

Chronological

Task

Recommendation

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Use Figure 21.5 (p. 355) to show students an example of a student

chronological progress report. (An additional progress report example

is on Appendix 21-F through Appendix 21-G.)

While chronological progress reports are traditionally the most

common, writers should determine which type to use based on audience

needs and the type of project.

Last Word: Reports are common in the business world.

Though some can be quite extensive—covering hundreds of

pages of information—many are shorter, and even the

longer ones are constructed essentially of a series of

condensed sections. Learning to write the simplest ones

first usually teaches many of the basic concepts important to

all reports. So, start your lesson small and build up to the more extensive reports

as the term continues. It’s not the quantity of pages students write that’s

important, but as the saying goes, the quality.

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