How to write this sentences in a work proposal?

Question

I am writing a formal work proposal, and I have a question about how to list the items in the index of my proposal. Because English is not my first language (Spanish is), I'd like some help making sure I index these correctly.

For example, in my index, should I use:

• Description of the project or Project Description
• Benefits of this proposal or Proposal benefits
• Preliminary schedule of the project or just Preliminary schedule

Are there any rules or guidelines that would help me know the best way to set up my index for entries that could be listed in more than one way?

Answer 1

Risking to express a controversial opinion, I would say that technical documentation has slightly different priorities than normal texts. Being in I.T., I read and write tons of technical papers, and I always prefer readability and text size versus formal grammar.

Think for a moment, your reader is often a non-native speaker as well, but, most certainly, they are a busy person. Overuse of large grammar constructs may just increase the size of your writing, without adding any value.

No, I don't say your document should be ungrammatical. Instead, it must be based on keywords, the shorter the better (unlike my answer :-)
Let's review individual phrases (I took those from your original edit):

• Description of the Project vs. Project Description — are you really sure that project is strongly necessary? If you leave just Description, wouldn't it make your documentation more succinct? I think, it would; There's also special terms, purpose and abstract to denote sections containing verbose description of a project and its rationale;
• Justification of the project — I wouldn't use justification at all. It has several meanings, and you may confuse your reader. Alternatively, it may be review, analysis, or clarification, depending on the context;
• Definition of the scope of the project — there's a term, Scope of Work;
• Bounding of the projects — use Special Requirements or Dependencies instead;
• Benefits of this proposal — just a keyword, benefits, seems to be sufficient (indeed, if not of this proposal, of what then?);
• Competitive Advantages — it's a term by itself, stick to it;
• Deliverables of the project — Deliverables and Artifacts are standard terms;
• Preliminary schedule of this project — just schedule. Everyone understands that it your schedule is proposed, therefore it is subject for change, and, because of that, is preliminary;

Summarizing:

• Use keywords, separate the wheat from the chaff;
• Use widely approved terminology, don't reinvent the wheel;

Answer 2

As a general rule, for section headers, I would favor the briefer forms, such as: Project Description, Project Justification, Project Scope, Benefits, Project Deliverables, Preliminary Schedule, etc.

In an actual sentence, though, either form could be used; for example, either "Here is the preliminary schedule for this project" or "Here is the project's preliminary schedule" would be acceptable.

In an index, you need to take a best guess as to which word the readers will look for when they want to find the information. I would avoid starting any index entry with "Project", as your index would be flooded with entries under the letter P. Instead, I would use a form like this:

D
Deliverables for the project
:
S
Schedule for the project, detailed
Schedule for the project, preliminary

It's not uncommon for an index to list multiple forms for an entry, but usually the page number is only given in one place (this makes the index easier to maintain should new information be added). So, you might consider using something like this, if you feel it would enhance the usability of the index:

P
Project Deliverables: see Deliverables for the project

Answer 3

Use the simpler forms whenever they are unambiguous. If it's a pair like project description, you're fine. But take Project computer maintenance: Projecting the maintenance of the computer? Maintenance of the project computer? Computer-aided maintenance of the project? Projecting computer-aided maintenance?

The longer forms are more unambiguous, so always use them whenever the shorter forms can be read more than one way.

Answer 4

If the entire document refers to a single project, the use of 'project' throughout the document will seem redundant.

So your document could have the title of 'Project Proposal' and your index, or table of contents, could contain elements like 'Description', 'Scope', 'Roles', 'Deliverables', and so on.

There is an example here that talks about a particular organization's document style guidelines. It also provides a primary example as is devided into several sections with bold labels. In this example, the writer refers to 'Headings/Subheadings' as opposed to 'Document Headings/Subheadings' as all the items in this document refer to 'Document' guidelines.

I hope this helps.