Writing your proposal will solidify your understanding of what you are writing about, how you are going to write about it, and why you are writing about it. In short, it will give you a firm handle on both your topic and how to write about it.

In generating your own position you must consider and demonstrate the relevance, the importance, the significance of your thesis and position. In other words, you must connect the topic and your interpretation of it to something beyond the current course of study and explain why others should care. For instance, this might involve explaining how your material applies to your life outside of class, or how it applies to the culture in which you live, or how it reshapes or reasserts the justifications behind your actions and philosophies as a member of your current society. * a clear statement of the topic in question * your initial position on the topic (this position may very well change as you do research; such change is natural, so don't fight it) * the impact your preliminary sources had in shaping your position (note: any preliminary sources you consult should appear in your AnnoBib [see section D, below]) * ideas for the specific, narrow audience of your choice and why the topic is relevant to them (even if you think the topic is relevant to all Americans, that's too broad; you'll need a very specific audience, so think in terms of demographics)—you don't need to know which audience you will choose at this point, but you need ideas for who that audience might be and how the Inquiry Essay might need to change based on the audience in