What Makes a Good Business Submission on Smoking

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What Makes a Good Submission?

Some comments on
“Environmental Tobacco Smoke Kills”

Submission to the Queensland Government on the
Review of Tobacco and Other Smoking Products Act 2001 (downloadable from Learning@Griffith, Assessment section).

Title

The submission to begin with has a basic title page carrying the interest group’s logo, the title of the document, and the subject on which the submission is based. It also mentions the word count, which is not essential, but desirable. It then has a very straightforward contents page. It is clear from this that the submission received a high distinction mark for its content (i.e. the evidence, persuasiveness of argument, etc) not the quality of the contents page, even though the quality of the presentation is still high throughout.

Name and background of your client

This student has very succinctly described the history of the Queensland Cancer Fund (QCF) in one paragraph.

The issue you are addressing

The next paragraph simply states what problem the submission is addressing: the ill effects of environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) in public places.

Historical background to the issue

This section starts under the heading “Key Developments”. This paragraph puts the issue in historical context, in other words it informs the reader about the bad effects of smoking- even for non-smokers.

The Body (main section of the submission)

The tone of the language it uses is important. Under the section “The Silent Killer”, it says that it is “worst of all, smoking is the leading preventable cause of premature death and illness in the state but the Government still haven’t acted”.

Again, discussion of the problem is followed by discussion of the policy solution and benefits being proposed.

The submission provides evidence to show that smoking bans have positive effects. One of the submission’s strongest points is how it shows the societal effects of the problem.

This section provides further evidence as to why ETS is not acceptable and how smoking has detrimental effects on workers and clients who may not be smoking themselves. They may be working in smoke filled locations such as pubs.

Conclusion

Like the introduction, the conclusion is very succinct. It simply sums up the evidence, and concludes that a particular course of policy action is needed if the problem of passive smoking is to be solved.

Other Factors that make this submission so good

Another factor is the fact that there are virtually no spelling or grammatical mistakes. Make sure that your submission reads well, that it has been proofread and spell-checked several times.

The referencing is also excellent. If you want a guide as to how to reference for your business submission, simply follow this one. Note that web addresses are listed only in the reference list, and not in the body of the submission.

A Note of Caution

The headings used in this submission should not be copied exactly because they are specific to this particular submission, and this particular subject area. You will need to come up with your own headings and structure for your own submission. This is an excellent submission, but the headings and its structure were not its standout points.

Its strongest points were its clarity, persuasiveness, the evidence it provides, the fact that it pre-empts and rebuts arguments of its competitors, and how it frames its arguments around what is in the “public interest”, not commercial interests, or private interests of groups. It tries to convince government that the QCF’s views are in the public interest. All successful interest groups must do this.