Proposals

Engineers write project proposals to seek funding from academic and government sources or to describe a project to potential clients. “Selling” a customer on a project is thus an important function of an engineer’s job. Many proposals are written with cross-disciplinary teams including sales, marketing, production, and legal departments. A proposal for a client may include a price quote or estimate, also called a “bid.”

For your classes, you may write proposals for laboratory projects or to suggest solutions for a hypothetical client (usually your professor) who has given you a technical problem or design problem. Prepare your proposals with sufficient research, appropriate graphics, careful organization, and neat presentation to assist your readers and show them that you are credible.

To make it easy for your readers to say yes to your proposal, give them clear, sufficient information about the project. Begin with an introduction that includes a brief project description and lays out the cost, completion date, and rate of return on investment. In the body of the proposal, provide the following:

You can assume that your readers are receiving other proposals, so you might also provide a résumé or a section describing your skills and experiences that qualify you for the project.

O’Bryan, “Site Stabilization Plan for Erosion Control”

Related topics:

Project notebooks

Laboratory reports

Technical reports

Progress reports