To: Professor Holmevik
From: Virginia D. Baird
Introduction
This proposal will develop a course to teach technical and rhetorical skills needed to write research proposals to graduate Ph.D. students and faculty in the field of Landscape Architecture in the focus area of health and design.
Work Completed
I wrote the first draft of my proposal and got feedback from Professor Holmevik. In response I have reduced my "not need to know" information thereby reducing my overall length. My literature review was just a bibliography at this point and I have flushed it out. What I had in the bibliography was moved to the proper place. I still have a section on NIH currently funded grants in the bibliography and I'm not certain how this material should be used. I'm leaving out the "this is how you take current work with Cities and Counties and turn it into research" and I feel that this piece is integral to my argument. I had six points and that needed to be reduced to to five and I have now consolidated two of my points and filled in information that was just outline last week.
We addressed the budget section but it was not pertinent to my proposal since I am doing this as a thesis/project and will be putting considerable time into it but will probably not need materials to complete it. I hope to contact other universities offering similar courses but there should not be a cost. The Medical School of South Carolina is working on an online master's in research administration and there is currently a degree offered at Johns Hopkins for medical doctors.
We have covered writing in plain sentences and plain paragraphs and when this is appropriate. The main item I took from this conversation was to write to your audience using language they expect to hear. I will be writing to university professors but my proposal is not intended for a particular discipline and while this is a highly educated audience the language will be geared to research in general. I still need to go over my language and weave emotion words into the text at strategic moments. I have adjusted some sentence length to longer sentences to slow the pace while using short sentences to intensify the urgency at some points.
Using a set design I have balanced my pages and pulled out information that I want to emphasize. I think my alignment now works well but will continue to look at it and revise as needed. There is some grouping into smaller and larger text but all text is currently Times New Roman and I would like to make some of the headings different. My audience is more progressive than traditional and I need to add more progressive elements. I've used a pull out but need to set it up better. I would like to add a sidebar with a story within the story. I had created a style sheet but need to revisit after new ideas were discussed in class.
Next Steps
I need to look closely at my sentence structure to be certain that the emphasis is in the right places. Rework my design and pay close attention to balance, alignment, grouping, and consistency.
My chair will be available later this week and I will ask her to read my proposal and give me feedback. Next week I will meet with her and begin the process to set up my committee and have my GS2 approved.
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