A grant / thesis / dissertation / multimodal project proposal should include, at minimum:
- a 150-word abstract;
- For tips on writing abstracts, see my “Abstracts and Annotated Bibliographies” and Amy Benson Brown, “Crafting Abstracts to Define Your Article’s Scope and Significance,” Academic Coaching & Writing (February 3, 2014).
- a project description;
- a rationale (this is where you integrate your literature review);
- a discussion of your methodology (drawing, of course, on your methods proposal in your Progress Report);
- a production plan (a timeline outlining what you need to accomplish, and when, to execute the work);
- a discussion of your relevant expertise and experience; and
- a bibliography / mediagraphy of relevant work.
If you do plan to seek funding for your work at some point, you’ll find multiple guides for grant-seeking and proposal-writing. See, for instance, S. Joseph Levine’s “Guide for Writing a Funding Proposal” (updated April 5, 2015), Adam Pzreworski and Frank Salomon’s “On the Art of Writing Proposals: Some Candid Suggestions for Applications to Social Science Research Council Competitions” (1995), and the Foundation Center’s “Introduction to Proposal Writing” short courses. And of course Sage has a whole bunch of expensive books about grant-writing; you can find them in the library or request them via interlibrary loan.
While a syllabus could be traditionally or experimentally formatted, it should include, at minimum:
- an inclusion statement where you explain who you want to engage with the class: is this an undergraduate course, a class for adult learners at a public library, an online class for an intentional learning community or professional organization, etc.?;
- a description of the course structure: is this a weekly semester-long course, a month-long asynchronous online class, an intensive weekend workshop, a self-directed learning program, etc?;
- five to seven learning goals;
- a brief teaching statement, where you explain your pedagogical methods;
- a set of assignments/milestones and in-class activities, and an explanation of which methods students will be deploying for each;
- a schedule of readings/resources — containing at least 20 sources – with contextual framing and light annotations, which will help students understand why particular texts were chosen, how they should engage with them, why they’re sequenced as they are, etc.;
- anything else worth mentioning, particularly regarding the methods involved in the class’s construction and execution, and the methods students will practice
A multimodal project should include, at minimum:
- a 150-word abstract you might use to pitch your project for a conference or exhibition;
- For tips on writing abstracts, see my “Abstracts and Annotated Bibliographies” and Amy Benson Brown, “Crafting Abstracts to Define Your Article’s Scope and Significance,” Academic Coaching & Writing (February 3, 2014).
- the multimodal work itself, presented as intuitively and accessibly as possible;
- if the project is formally or technically complex, brief instructions for engagement;
- a 300-word support paper where you reflect on how your chosen methods of execution served your larger intellectual and creative goals
For other formats: we can agree upon submission components on a case by case basis.
