Note: This is the second exercise in the Consultancy Simulation, the second project in Professional Writing. This exercise is graded on a point scale: 1 – 5, with 1 being the lowest score and 5 the highest.

Assignment Guidelines

The Pitch assignment has one deliverable. Choose from one the following options:

1. an informal 1 page memo to your team that articulates a problem that is important to you (or responds to a Request for Proposals)
2. A one-minute video that pitches your topic. Important Note: Because this is an informal class exercise, you do not need to provide a transcript of the video).

Context: The second exercise in the eight-week long team Consulting Simulation. The success of the remainder of the project rests on the quality of these initial pitches and a team’s selection of an appropriate, viable project focus.

Audience: Members of your team, your instructor

Purpose: Your aim is to

1. establish the existence of a problem,
2. establish the value of investigating it
3. secure your team’s buy-in for pursuing the investigation.

Your proposal will contribute to the “idea bank” that your team creates in order to choose a really viable and worthwhile issue to investigate for the next eight weeks.

Audience: For our simulation, you’re pitching your idea to your team and instructor. Your goal is to sell others in the class to take up your project for the Recommendation Report.

Student Learning Outcomes

This assignment aims to help you:

• understand the role of pitches, or informal proposals, in workplace settings
• reflect on the ingredients of good pitches, including appeals to kairos, ethos, pathos, and logos
• engage in preliminary research, invention heuristics, and visual literacy
• define and describe a problem, stakeholders who care about the problem, and potential solutions to the problem that warrant additional research
• practice information literacy competencies, particularly
  • Authority is Constructed and Contextual
  • Scholarship as a Conversation
  • Searching as a Strategic Exploration.

Tips!

You can make your research process easier and more rewarding by selecting

• a small-scale problem
• an issue where you already have some knowledge or expertise
• a client/topic for whom you have a sincere interest in finding solutions

Stumped?

• Try talking to friends and family, since they know you and your interests well and can often point you to something obvious that you’ve overlooked.
• See if there are any problems within one of your communities (school, work, home, civic) you’d be interested in seeking solutions to.