ENGL 102 Composition II · Essay 4 Writing Examples
Writing that works — and writing that doesn't
A research-based proposal requires you to do five things well in sequence: define a real problem for a specific audience, establish its context and stakes, survey what others have already proposed and why those proposals fall short, make a detailed case for your own solution, and anticipate and rebut the strongest objections to it. The examples on this page come from students in ENGL 102 who worked through that sequence on topics they chose themselves.
The page is organized by the sections of your essay. Scroll down to find the section you are currently working on.
Each section has a set of tiles. Click any tile to open an annotated excerpt — a short passage from a student essay with highlighted sentences and explanations of the specific writing moves on display. Inside the excerpt, hover or tap a highlighted sentence to read its annotation. When you are done, close the excerpt and click another tile.
From inside any excerpt, you can click Read the full proposal to read that student's complete essay. You can also click any essay title below to go directly to a complete essay.
The four sample essays
- Argues that a wave of anti-trans legislation is harming transgender youth and that only a dual strategy — passing the Equality Act and pursuing strategic litigation through the ACLU — can adequately protect their rights. The essay is notable for its systems-level thinking and its treatment of federal versus state power.
- Proposes an international regulatory framework, including a global oversight body and mandatory transparency requirements, to govern the use of CRISPR and other gene-editing technologies in treating severe genetic disabilities. The essay navigates competing scientific, ethical, and disability-rights perspectives with care.
- Proposes a three-part policy package — tuition-free public college, cost-of-living stipends, and academic support services — to close the college attainment gap in the American South, where only 34% of adults hold a degree. The essay is a strong model of research integration and evidence-driven argument.
- Proposes embedding trained family therapists in public schools to provide accessible, ongoing mental health support for children experiencing parental divorce, funded through existing federal education grants and a phased pilot program. The essay is a strong model of an operationalized, implementable proposal.
- Identifies a real, specific problem worth solving
- Explains why the problem exists and who it affects
- Surveys what others have proposed — and why those proposals fall short
- Argues in favor of a particular, detailed solution
- Responds fairly to those who would object
Capture the reader's attention, introduce your topic, and present your thesis.
Explain the problem: its causes, who is affected, its history, and any key terms. Every answer should be supported by evidence from your research.
Survey existing solutions and explain their limits.
Be fair to other proposals — your job is to show their limits, not misrepresent them.
- What solutions have already been proposed? Explain them clearly.
- Who made them — scholars, organizations, policymakers?
- Have they been tried before? What were the results?
- Why don't these proposals work well enough?
Argue for your specific solution in detail.
Vague proposals are unconvincing proposals. Specificity is everything.
- What exactly is your plan?
- Who is responsible for enacting it?
- What resources will it require?
- How long will it take to show results?
- What does success look like?
- Does anyone already support this approach?
Address objections fairly and persuasively.
- Who would object to your proposal, and why?
- What are their strongest objections?
- Why are they wrong, or why does your proposal hold up anyway?
Provide closure, summarize your main points, and offer a call to action or prediction about the future.
All sources in MLA format, listed alphabetically.
These examples come from ENGL 102, Composition II, taught at USC Upstate. Students chose a current, controversial topic, identified a problem related to it, researched that problem using at least five credible sources, and wrote a complete research-based proposal arguing for a specific solution.
The proposals on this page are organized around the five required sections of Essay 4. Each section has a specific job to do. The examples show what that job looks like when it's done well, what it looks like when a common problem gets in the way, and what transferable techniques are worth borrowing. Annotations connect what you see in the excerpt to what you need to do in your own draft.
All identifying information — student names — has been removed. Documents are identified by student letter (Student A, Student B, etc.) so you can open any student's complete proposal from within any annotated excerpt and trace how the same writer handles different sections of the genre.
1. Introduction
Your introduction needs to accomplish three things in close succession: open with a claim about the scope or stakes of the problem that pulls the reader in, preview the structure of your argument in one sentence, and close with a thesis that names both the problem and your proposed solution. The thesis is not a topic announcement — it is an argument. It should be specific enough that a reader could disagree with it, and complete enough that a reader knows what you are proposing before they read the rest of the essay.
2. Context / Background
This section does not merely describe the problem — it examines it. Your reader needs to understand the problem's history, causes, affected stakeholders, and stakes before you can make a credible case for solving it. The difference between description and analysis is often a single sentence: not just "the problem exists and affects people" but "the problem exists because of X, affects Y specifically, and has been getting worse in the following documented way." Every paragraph should end with an analytical conclusion, not a statistic.
3. Overview of Other Proposals
This section earns the right to your own proposal by demonstrating that you have seriously considered the alternatives and found them insufficient. Each competing proposal should be named, attributed to whoever has championed it, explained in enough detail for your reader to understand it, given any prior-attempt context that exists, and evaluated for its specific limitations. Mentioning a competing proposal in a subordinate clause is not analysis — it is dismissal. Your reader will trust your proposal more if they can see that you engaged fairly with the alternatives.
4. Explanation of Your Proposal
This is the most important section of your essay. It must answer five questions: What exactly are you proposing? Who is responsible for carrying it out? What resources does it require? How long will it take? What does success look like for the people affected? A proposal that cannot answer all five is still at the level of advocacy rather than implementation. Name your proposal, list its components, identify specific actors, and describe the outcomes in concrete human terms — not in abstractions like "things will improve."
5. Respond to Naysayers
The naysayer section is where you demonstrate intellectual honesty and rhetorical control at the same time. Your job is to represent the strongest objections to your proposal in terms the objectors would recognize as fair, and then rebut each one with a specific counter-argument grounded in evidence or principle. A weak naysayer section presents objections in dismissive language and responds with assertions. A strong one steelmans the objection — gives it real force — and then dismantles it. The stronger you make the objection sound, the more impressive your rebuttal becomes.
6. Conclusion
A conclusion has three jobs: provide a sense of closure, summarize your main argument (not every section — your argument), and leave the reader with a call to action or a prediction about what happens if your proposal succeeds or fails. The most common failure is spending the conclusion re-summarizing the wrong material — the background or the competing proposals — instead of the student's own case. The second most common failure is the formulaic opener ("In conclusion…") that signals to the reader that the writer has run out of things to say. A strong conclusion earns its emotional register by widening the stakes: it connects the specific proposal to something larger.