In looking at the page stats for this blog, I'm surprised to find that my earlier post on Formatting Your Proposal seems to be the most popular entry. I'm not really sure why this is -- are people looking for special formatting tips or are they trying to figure out how to deal with the MS Word monster? Maybe if someone would tell me, I could address some specific formatting issues. But since no one ever seems to leave any comments, I am in the dark. Here is your chance to make some comments -- about formatting, about the blog in general, or about another topic. See the little post a comment line at the end of each post on the left? Just click on it and write something.
Getting back to the topic of this post. Earlier, I wrote something on The Importance of an Outline. In addition to what I said there, another important aspect of a good outline is that it can set the stage for the formatting of your proposal in terms of headings, subheadings, body text, etc. Whenever possible, I try to develop my outlines using the format that I will use in the proposal itself. So, for example, if you are going to use numbered headings and subheadings (e.g., 2, 2.1, 2.1.1) in the actual proposal, you would create your outline that way instead of using the more basic outline levels such as A, 1.,(a). You would use the same fonts, font styles and sizes in the outline that you intend to use in the proposal. In addition, you can set the margin sizes, tabs, page numbers, etc., right in the outline document.
Once you've done that, you can give the outline or pieces of the outline to those who will be writing the specific sections. They can write their stuff directly in the outline template that you have given them. Voila, you've saved yourself (or whoever will be doing the final formatting) a lot of time and effort.
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