Chapter 9: Persuasive Letters
Mission: Write a persuasive letter that is no more than one and a half pages utilizing AIDA and rhetorical strategies.
Persuasive letter scenarios
Scenario 1: Request to fix potholes [exercise 4, page 188]
You are a citizen writing your local councilor to complain about dangerous potholes on your street. These are so bad that potentially seriously accidents have occurred. Using the facts from the exercise and making up any other details you need to make your letter persuasive, use AIDA in a well-formatted, well-written letter making a case to the councilor that the potholes need to be repaired now.
OR
Scenario 2: Selling fitness equipment to a hotel
Ellen Chang is the general manager of a firm, Fit-R-Us, that sells fitness equipment such as treadmills, exercycles, rowing machines, elliptical trainers, weight machines, barbells and dumb-bells, and the like. Her company also offers full-featured fitness-center packages for companiesthe package includes everything a company gym would need at a reasonable price. For example, Fit-R-Us has installed several fitness centers in hotels as an added benefit for patrons. Write a well-formatted, well-written letter that will persuade Simon Harpal, the president of the hotel chain Sleep-Eaze, to add fitness centers that use Fit-R-Us equipment. Make up any details you need to make Ellens letter both realistic and persuasive.
The assignment is worth 20 points and is due [insert date here]. Other details are the following:
Feel free to make up any details, names, etc., you think are necessary to support your arguments.
Pay particular attention to audience.
Use proper business block-letter format.
Use no more than a page and a half (about 400 words) for the persuasive letter.
The opening and closing should use the proper business format spacing.
You will be marked on:
effective bad news/persuasive (AIDA) technique
proper business-letter format
use of three rhetorical techniques (ethos, logos, and pathos)
good professional writing (Eight Cs, including grammar).