When technical students begin their professional careers, they are not always adequately prepared for the complex communication demands that will be made of them/spl minus/especially during the process of developing a technical proposal. A real-world investigation of technical proposal development is an excellent way for the technical writing course, often constrained by time and standard writing assignments, to prepare students to meet these demands. The investigations include practice in collaborating, planning and scheduling, and oral reporting.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>