Project Proposal: Bad Example:
Micro/Macro Performance
I was thinking that I might do a performance of painting two small paintings. Like 2 inches sqwared. I’ll probably paint these in front of the class, but I might also just video myself doing this at home and show the video in class. I like to paint and if UCCS offered a painting major, that’s what I would do. I’ll paint one still life of a plant or something like that. The other would be of myself using a mirror. My face just small. Can you get a video projector or TV for me in case I video myself? And a video cassette player. For my big performance maybe I would see if I could rent one of those big fat sumo suits from a party supply store or something. I could challenge my girlfriend to a fight in front of the class but she couldn’t really hurt me since I was wearing a big fat sumo suit. My girlfriend and I sometimes fight, but we never hit each toher. We’re just be acting. I think that since performing is all about the actors, I would just make one of the actors bigger than normal. Since one actor would be small (my girlfriend is super skinny) then the other actor (me) would look really huge. I would just be reading a book or something and my girlfriend would walk in and start yelling at me about something like I left the toilet seat up. The book I am reading is one I made in my other class about my grandma who died a few years ago. It is shaped like a person and has different color paper in it. The person is my grandma and I wrote about a time that she showed me the asparagus in her garden and then we ate it. So, my girlfriend is all yelling at me and I start yelling at her and then she’ll try to punch me, but I won’t feel it. Then I can roll over her or something and we can just fight. I saw someone using the sumo suits at a student activity a couple years ago and it was pretty funny. I think I might know who to ask where they got them. After a while my girlfriend will start yelling at me about how her mom used to abuse her (not really, just pretend). I’ll stop bumping her and rolling around and say I’m sorry. We’ll make up. So I’m really big and the fight will be really big and then we’ll make up showing that everyone has things that they carry around and that we can get along.
This was a proposal turned in by a student at another University for their Performing Arts class.
Link: https://performanceartlab.wordpress.com/2008/02/06/project-proposal-bad-example/
My first thought after reading this proposal was, “Where do I begin?’ There are so many things wrong with this proposal it’s hard to focus on one. My first question is “What is the assignment?’ There are too many topics going on in this proposal that I am unsure of the topic and the audience. Is the writer a painter, videographer, or an actor? The writer also failed to include their name in the proposal. The writer starts his proposal with what he might do for the assignment; “I was thinking that I might do a performance of painting two small paintings.’ This first sentence is more a thought then a statement. The writer states several different performances but doesn’t state their final performance decision. The other problems I see with this proposal are misspelling, bad grammar, rambling, and fragment sentences.
Overall, I think this proposal is lacking in several areas. The writer needs to create an outline of his proposal to help guide him through his proposal assignment. First, there needs to be a summary “The summary covers the major elements of the proposal but devotes only a few sentences to each’ (Markel pg. 429). Second, there needs to be an introduction to help the readers understand the topic and who the writer is. Third, the body of the proposal needs to give the details of proposal. The last paragraph should be the conclusion of the proposal.