ENGL510 – Foundations of Professional Communication
Writing Assignment 2 – Persuasive Message

Below you will find four documents:

1. The assignment itself – pages 2-3

2. A template to follow in writing the message called for in the assignment – page 4

3. A sample message that you can use as a model – page 5

4. The criteria that will be used in grading the message – page 6

Please read all of these carefully and let me know if you have questions about any of them.

Please also see the model persuasive message on page 139 (Chapter 8) of the textbook, as well as the Week 2 discussion of two possible versions of a persuasive message.

In Week 3, please save your assignment draft, as a Word document, using the file name “2yourlastname1,” and post it in the Week 3 Writing Assignment 2 Draft Dropbox by midnight Sunday.

In Week 4, please re-save your assignment revision using the file name “2yourlastname2,” and post it in the Week 4 Writing Assignment 2 Revision Dropbox by midnight Sunday.

Please use the following basic formatting: • Memo heading (see page 87 of the textbook) • One-inch margins all around • Left-only justification • 12-point regular Times New Roman font. (Although 11-point Calibri is Word’s default font, serif fonts like Times New Roman are more reader friendly for longer texts because the serifs draw the eye forward, while sans-serif fonts like Calibri are more effective for very brief texts in which you want to hold the eye.)

Please let me know if you have any questions at all the about the assignment or the procedures for submitting it!

Writing Assignment 2
Persuasive Message - Convincing the CEO to Approve a Public Relations Plan

You are the director of public relations for Easy to Be Green, the innovative new company that helps homeowners, businesses, and municipalities become more environmentally friendly.

The company has been active in environmental issues in the community since its founding a few years ago and generally has good community relations. Recently EBG’s director of research, who is strongly opinionated about environmental issues, spoke in public about the environmental practices of some local companies that employ many people in the community. Lately you have found that some of your local contacts seem a little less interested in EBG’s public relations initiatives, and there has even been a small drop in sales. There may be no connections between these events, but you want to be proactive about the company’s community relations.

You also want to protect the company against charges of hypocrisy. The other day you as walked through the parking lot, it occurred to you that the majority of the employees drive SUVs, pick-ups, and other kinds of gas guzzlers. This includes the CEO, whose family car is an Audi Q7. The company’s delivery and service vans are also not the most environmentally-friendly vehicles.

After a little research, you come up with a tentative plan.

You have learned that a local hybrid car dealership has been offering an interesting deal. Employees of companies that buy hybrids as company vehicles can get discounts when they buy hybrids for themselves. You think that the company should consider purchasing a couple of hybrid vans and encourage employees to buy hybrids for themselves by offering substantial rebates for these purchases.

You want to get the CEO’s approval before you pursue this idea any further. You anticipate that he will have significant resistance. The company vehicles are not due for replacement, and the rebates to employees could add up to quite a lot if many employees take up the offer. On the other hand, if only a few employees take up the offer, a significant environmental initiative will seem like a failure. The CEO is a risk-taker in terms of business initiatives but tends to be conservative in management practices. He might also be a little defensive about the hybrid promotion plan because of his own vehicle choices.

But you feel strongly that the potential benefits of this plan—for example, in long-term savings on gas, in good public relations, in helping the environment, and in increased company esprit de corps as employees get involved in an activity related to the company mission—outweigh the risks and costs. It may be expensive and a little gimmicky, but it is unusual enough to get great publicity even if it is not a huge success. You feel that if the CEO gets behind this plan, you can succeed in getting employees to sign on.

Assignment

Using the template and model given below, and drawing on the principles discussed in Chapter 8 of the textbook (in particular the AIDA approach), the Week 2 lecture, and ideas shared in the first Week 2 discussion area, write a one-page memo to CEO Bertrand Green in which you convince him to give you the go-ahead to pursue this plan. You are not asking for final approval at this point, but you can tell him that when you have all the details in place, you will provide a progress report that includes a complete budget. But you want to get his tentative approval before you continue working on the plan.

As you think about how you will write the memo, ask yourself what kinds of objections or questions the CEO might have and how you can address these within the memo. Also, how can you most effectively emphasize the potential benefits of the plan? Use your imagination to describe how the plan might be implemented and promoted.
Note that in writing this message you will need to reorganize the information in the above description and present it as much as possible in your own words. Remember that you want to get the CEO’s attention, build his interest in the situation, make the request clearly, address anticipated objections, emphasize benefits to the company, make it as easy as possible for him to say yes, and make it clear who needs to do what next.
Also note that you will not necessarily use all of the information included in the assignment scenario. Some of the information provided is designed to help you understand what is at stake but would not necessarily be appropriate to include in the message. Choose the information that will be most effective in persuading the CEO!
Finally, keep in mind that while your message should look, overall, like the Model Persuasive Message on page 5 of this document, in terms of following the template and the AIDA approach described in Chapter 8, you will need to adapt the persuasive strategies—the attention-getter, the identification of and response to potential objections, the emphasis on benefits, the proactive closing—to suit the particular needs of this message.

Template for Persuasive Messages

● Get the reader’s attention. Keep in mind that negative attention getters (“The CFO has threatened drastic cuts to our budget.”) are more powerful in focusing attention but tend to increase feelings of resistance, while positive attention getters (“We have an opportunity to take the lead in reducing costs.”) are less powerful in focusing attention but tend to increase feelings of good will. Choose the approach that you think will be most effective for your audience and purpose. Sometimes it is possible to combine them!

● Build the reader’s interest in the situation to be resolved and in the requested solution.

● Make the request; this could come earlier or later in the message.

● Motivate the reader to take the requested action.

o Reduce the reader’s resistance by anticipating and responding to objections.

o Give additional reasons or explanations, focusing on benefits to the reader.

o Make it easy for the reader to take the requested action by explaining what needs to be done or what you will do.

● End on a courteous, upbeat, proactive note, reiterating what action you would like the reader to take and making it clear who—you or the reader—should take the next step.

MODEL PERSUASIVE MESSAGE

Date: May 14, 20xx
To: Employees of 2D Design
From: Terry Jones, Production Manager
Subject: Challenge to Reduce Use of Overnight Mail

We all love overnight shipping. It makes our work more efficient and our live easier. We love it so much that we tend to overuse it. So, as with many good things, we need to cut back.

Our bills for overnight shipping are at an all-time high, and the CFO has threatened drastic cuts in the budget if these bills are not significantly reduced by the next quarter. I think we can meet this challenge without having budget cuts imposed.

I know that subcontractors do not always meet their deadlines, which often makes it necessary for us to ship overnight to our clients. Over the next few weeks, I will be meeting with all subcontractors with whom we have had deadline problems, and in some cases we may need to find new subcontractors. I also know that clients often set unreasonable deadlines. I will be working with the legal department to set up new contract policies that require clients to pay for overnight shipping when their deadlines are particularly tight.

I also know, however, that overnight shipping is often used for projects in which no subcontractors are involved and in which deadlines are not unreasonable. This means that the problem is also with our own scheduling. Therefore over the next few weeks I will be meeting with all design teams to discuss whether there are particular problem areas or if we simply need to set more realistic deadlines.

Better internal and external scheduling coordination will have many benefits. We will have better relationships with our subcontractors—and in some cases better subcontractors!—as well as with our clients. Perhaps most importantly, we will have fewer sessions of working around the clock to meet a deadline. These sessions undermine everyone’s morale and often undercut the quality of our work.

While I am meeting with the subcontractors and the design teams, you can do your part by forming new shipping habits. Before using an overnight shipping service, check to make sure the client really needs the material the next day.

• If the client really does need it the next day, see if faxing is an option; in many cases, faxed material can be used until the original arrives.

• If the client doesn’t need the material the next day, use standard delivery instead.

We don’t want to lose the freedom to use this valuable service when we really need it, so let’s save it for those times. Our goal is to cut our overnight shipping bills in half by next quarter. If we work as a team and share ideas about alternatives, I know we can meet this goal.

Grading Criteria for Persuasive Messages

Content ___/20
Content is excellent; information and ideas are correct, complete, logical, consistent, and appropriate for purpose and audience. (16-20)
*Content is good; information and ideas are mostly correct, complete, logical, consistent, and appropriate for purpose and audience. (12-15)
Content is minimally effective; information or ideas are incorrect, incomplete, illogical, inconsistent, or inappropriate for purpose or audience. (8-11)
Content does not meet requirements for purpose or audience. (0-7)

Organization ___/20
Organization is excellent; overall approach is appropriate for purpose and audience; information and ideas are arranged logically; transitions are clear and smooth. (16-20)
*Organization is good; overall approach is generally appropriate for purpose and audience; information and ideas are usually arranged logically; transitions are usually clear and smooth. (12-15)
Organization is minimally effective; there are problems with overall approach, logic, or transitions. (8-11)
Organization does not meet requirements for purpose or audience. (0-7)

Formatting ___/10
Formatting is excellent, with logical and visually appealing use of headings and bulleted or numbered lists; letter or memo format is used appropriately and correctly. (9-10)
*Formatting is good, with mostly logical and visually appealing use of headings and bulleted or numbered lists; there are clear efforts to use letter or memo format appropriately and correctly. (7-8)
Formatting is minimally effectiveness; there are problems with the logic or visual effectiveness of headings and bulleted or numbered lists; letter or memo format may not be used appropriately or correctly. (5-6)
Formatting does not meet requirements for purpose or audience. (0-4)

Style ___/15
Style is excellent; sentences are clear and concise; word choice is precise; tone is appropriate for purpose and audience. (12-15)
*Style is good; most sentences are clear and concise; word choice is usually precise; tone is mostly appropriate for purpose and audience. (9-11)
Style is minimally effective; there are problems with clarity, conciseness, word choice, or tone. (6-8)
Writing does not meet requirements for purpose or audience. (0-5)

Correctness ___/15
Sentence structure, grammar, punctuation, mechanics, and usage are correct, consistent with Standard American English. (12-15)
*Sentence structure, grammar, punctuation, mechanics, and usage are usually correct, mostly consistent with Standard American English; errors do not interfere with understanding. (9-11)
Errors in sentence structure, grammar, punctuation, mechanics, or usage interfere with understanding. (6-8)
Sentence structure, grammar, punctuation, mechanics, and usage do not meet requirements for purpose and audience. (0-5)

* Work at this level is Satisfactory.

The overall score reflects all five categories. Overall scores of 64 or more are considered Satisfactory.