8/10/2019 gsb-assn7

1/2

Business 32101-81 Advanced Professional Writing

WRITING A SSIGNMENT #7 (H YDE PARK ) / #6 (G LEACHER )

Due as assigned by your lector:Hyde Park campus, due Monday, February 16;Gleacher Center, due Thursday, February 19

Write a short (1 page maximum) persuasive letter or memo. Your first problemwill be to conceive a plausible situation for such a text. It might be a letter to a client, itmight be a memo to your boss. Whatever rhetorical situation you choose, be sure that itcalls for professional prose (not a letter to a friend) and that your reader would reasonablyexpect a short text.

Last week, the challenge was to be consistently clear as you dealt with severalaspects of an argument. Now, the challenges are: (1) to choose the most effective aspects(because you can't include everything); and (2) to arrange them in an effective structure.This second challenge, the challenge of structure, includes the specific problem of

whether you should use any point-last structures. Part of the task you face is decidingwhether the rhetorical situation calls for any point-last organizations. You may decidethat any paragraph in your text should be point-last, or you may even decide that theentire text should be point-last.

But we hope that you'll think carefully about the effects of point-first and point-last organizations. Very often, when writers try to be persuasive, they unconsciouslyadopt point-last structures because they assume that it is more persuasive to give theirargument first, and then state their point. Such a structure can certainly succeed, but it'srisky. If you put the point at the end, you run the risk that readers will get confused: ifthey don't know the point, they may not have enough themes to follow the argument.And if you put the point at the end, readers may simply get impatient and stop readingbefore they even know what the point is.

Then why would you ever run this risk? Most often, skilled writers use point-laststructures when they know that their readers are hostile to the point. The writer wouldweigh the risk of confusing the reader (using point-last) against the risk of antagonizingthe reader (using point-first). There's no rule here: you have to judge the particularsituation. And that's what we ask you to do for this assignment. Don't arbitrarily chooseto use either point-first or point-last structure. Instead, consider the reader's attitudetoward your point, and weigh the risks. We believe that in the real world, this is justwhat you have to do. The only difference is that for this assignment, you'll be able toinvent whatever reader you want. In the real world, you'll have to play the cards you're

dealt.

Critique Assignment:

Continue to use CO-CORE to edit unclear sentences.

Continue to use Old/New to edit information; look for successful and flawedStress positions.

Winter 2004

8/10/2019 gsb-assn7

2/2

Business 32101-81 Advanced Professional Writing

Analyze the discourse structure of all the paragraphs in the body of the text:paragraph: Do the issue positions of the paragraphs establish effective themes? Dothematic strings run throughout the paragraph? Does each paragraph have a clear point?Where does the point appear? Is that the best place for it?

Assess the discourse structure of the text as a whole, taking into account what youperceive to be the reader's attitude toward the point. Does the text have a clear point?Where does the text point appear? Is that the best place for it?

Winter 2004