It’s rare to spend a day without running across documents that promise to solve a problem: advertisements alert us to solutions for problems (with our health, our love lives, our breath) that we might not know we have; e-mail messages ask us for our help with problems ranging from hunger to funding for the arts; and entire Web sites, such as Project Vote Smart and FightGlobalWarming.com, promote solutions to problems. Unfortunately, the number of unsolved problems far exceeds those with solutions. As a result, writing to solve problems is a common occurrence.

In your work writing a problem-solving essay, you might turn to sources as varied as books, reports, pamphlets, posters, memos, opinion columns, and blog entries — any of which might define a problem or advance solutions to a problem. The following examples illustrate three of the problem-solving documents you’re likely to encounter: problem-solving essays, proposals, and news features. In this chapter, you’ll find discussions and examples of guest editorials, advice, and audio reports.