Persuasive Letter
Criteria
You are the Placement and Career
Planning Director of Practical University.
Your task
is to publish an annual report consisting of survey data reflecting:
beginning
salary for each degree
include
high, low, average and total number of job offers made through your office
Need a
survey completed by graduating students (percentage of survey returns over
recent years has dropped.)
Sixty
percent receive job contacts through your office but only 36% report the
salary data.
Report
is useful for following reasons:
Can
help assess marketability of university’s products (graduates)
Can
be useful in determining which majors are in most demand
Can
serve as a career-counseling guide for students beginning their academic
programs
Quality
of report depends on having complete and current data from students.
Send a
letter to most recent alumni (graduates) requesting they complete and
return the survey (survey remains anonymous).
Data
will be compiled into stats by major field of study.
Questions
to ask yourself:
Consider
what might motivate students to comply with your request.
i. Pride
in their university?
ii. Provides
help for upcoming graduates?
iii. General
cooperativeness being an alumni?
iv. Incentives?
–
What information from the above would you use in the
letter?
–
Format: One page
letter, business format, no more than three main paragraphs with closing. (Teacher will provide handout of business
format.)
–
Times New Roman/12 pt/single space main
body/paragraphs.
–
No less than 3; no more than 4 paragraphs
(Remember the three forms of APPEAL!—logos, ethos, pathos discussed in session 1 lecture)