ABSTRACT
Marketing brochures, proposals, business plans, and the like share similarities with technical writing—they both seek objectivity and clarity—but they incorporate two important differences. The first part of a marketing effort should be a mission statement. The project statement avoids becoming an empty generalization by explaining how the idea was given architectural form: The design borrows materials from the rural environment, using corrugated metal, galvanized buckets, bluestem grasses and plumbing pipe in new, and unexpected ways. The cover letter should always be written by the chief project contact and should be written to the client's stated representative. The letter or statement of interest, however, is the major writing task for any proposal. Drawings and specifications complement each other. Specifications are not requests; they are sets of instructions concerning materials and installation techniques. During the course of a project, the demand on the architect's ability to communicate rarely ends with the drawings and specifications.
