Page 287 - Writing Winning Business Proposals

278 Appendix E

◉ If you find an abstraction, look elsewhere in the sentence to see if the sub-
ject (the topic) you’re discussing really is explicitly or implicitly about a person
or people or an organization. Sentence 1 is about ACME. Sentence 2 is about
engineers. Sentence 3 is about business operations.
◉ Place the subject you’re discussing into the subject slot of the sentence.
◉ See if the sentence is trying to express a causal relationship (a large number of
sentences with abstract nouns try to do so). If the sentence is trying to express
a causal relationship, use a sentence structure that immediately announces to
your reader that such a relationship will be drawn: for example, “Because of X,
Y occurs” or “As a result of X, Y occurs.” By following these steps, you can eas-
ily revise the three problem sentences:

1. Because of its new approach to the air flow problem, ACME has become a
major player in designing and constructing complex commercial buildings.
2. Because of new regulations from the state and tighter building codes from
the city, the engineers are less efficient.
3. Because of the shortage of support staff and the absence of proper control
systems, your business is less efficient.

I’ve italicized the main clauses (or parts of the main clauses) to illustrate the
effects of these transformed sentences. Notice that the subjects and verbs are
closer together and that the main clauses, the groups of words that really contain
and emphasize your message, are clear and emphatic. The message in sentence 2
is no longer that “new regulations from the state and tighter building codes from
the city are taking up more and more of the engineers’ time,” but that “the engi-
neers are less efficient.” The original sentence focuses on regulations and codes;
the revision, on engineers and their problems. The original talks about things; the
revision discusses a problem that people have.

The Subject Slot in SITUATION, METHODS, and BENEFITS

The generic structure slots situation, methods, and benefits each in their
own way call for concrete nouns in the subject slot. In situation, the subject
(the topic, the idea you’re writing about) is an organization’s problem or oppor-
tunity. Therefore, a good many of the sentences in situation should take as
their grammatical subjects the name of the organization or pronouns that refer
to it. Consider these paragraphs from the first draft of a situation slot in the ABC
proposal: