Corporations and financial institutions use a prospectus to inform stockholders of changes in public stock offerings. According to the Stanford Graduate School of Business, the Securities and Exchange Commission requires changed stock offer pricing be made available to investors before the stock is traded.
A business plan prospectus is prepared to provide a picture of your business for potential investors. It describes what you do, how you do it and gives all the reasons why your company is a good investment choice. These documents are all the banker or private investor might see of your business, so it is important that they be well written and persuasive.
Scientists, graduate students and professors all write research prospectus, which explains a course of research the writer desires to pursue and describes how it would be conducted. The prospectus is basically a request to do the research using funding and equipment supplied by the reader of the prospectus. Researchers submit their proposals to university department heads or private company research and development executives, or government agency officials.
According to University of North Texas, a research prospectus is an argument showing exactly why a project should be undertaken and why you, the prospectus writer, are best qualified to conduct the proposed research.
Many times scientific or scholarly work can be made into a popular book. The work of Carl Sagan, for example, is popular the world over through the books he published. Literary agents and publishing companies search through the prospectus and determine if they think the idea will make a profitable book.
According to Island Press Publishing Company, a proposal to publish a book should include a prospectus that describes the book contents, identifies its target audience and why it is important. The prospectus must show why your book idea works in as many ways as possible. Your prospectus is your salesman pitching your book idea to publishers.