The authors maintain that proposals are typically overwritten, poorly researched documents that force recipients to search for ideas of pertinent concern and rarely accomplish their objectives. They suggest that short proposals, introduced early in the negotiation process, can act as replacements for formal proposals or as interim documents leading to more productive, persuasive formal proposals. They explain why many long proposals fail and short proposals succeed.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>