Analysis of Proposal Texts for STEM Writing Education : A Comparative Study with Report Texts to Propose Teaching and Learning Strategies

This study analyzed the topic structure of proposal texts to establish essential information for writing education of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics university students. The analyzed corpus consists of 36 award-winning proposals (42,625 syllables) from 2023 competitions, categorized by ‘fixed’ or ‘free’ formats. The analysis, which utilized tools such as ‘T-units’ and ‘topic clusters’, compared the characteristics of proposal texts with those of report texts to derive pedagogical implications. The findings revealed that proposal texts follow a ‘Summary-Introduction-Body’ superstructure, with core topics focusing on [Method/Plan] and [Expected Effects] to persuade concerned judges of the idea’s feasibility and outcomes. Based on these findings, four pedagogical implications were derived. First, students should learn about the ‘Summary-Introduction-Body’ structure, which is different from the ‘Introduction-Body-Conclusion’ structure of report texts. Second, writing instruction should focus on concretizing ideas by emphasizing the methods and expected effects. Third, students must practice both phrasal and discursive sentence styles, along with the effective use of visual aids. Finally, the current study revealed that using first-person expressions like ‘I’ and ‘we’ can enhance persuasiveness by highlighting the writer's practical agency.