B. Persuasive Email: Making a Case

Scenario

You _______ (student name) have been a supervisor at the engineering firm Buildings R Us for two years. You enjoy the position however you have never received any training to be a supervisor. Over the last two years you have had an employee (I.M.A Troublemaker) that has been very difficult to work with. For example, they are late for work at least a couple times per week, they constantly take personal calls on their cell phone, they frequently call in sick, and when you have tried to address these personnel concerns with them, they cry or get angry and say you are picking on them and dont like them.

You are going to approach your manager Tite W. A. Dime to go for a comprehensive, week-long supervisory training in Vancouver. (Buildings R Us is in Kamloops.) This will of course be an expense for the business, including the cost of travel, accommodation, meals, and the week of training. I.M.A. Troublemaker is not the only employee you have felt challenged by and you see real benefit to the business by taking this training. Tight W.A. Dime is the founder of Buildings R Us and has an old school approach to supervising, ie. its my way or the highway and is well known to dislike spending money on training.

Write a persuasive email (use an indirect writing plan: no bad news in the first paragraph) to Tite W.A. Dime to convince them to support and pay for your supervisory training.

Instructions: There are two parts to the Persuasive E-Mail Assignment

1. Audience Analysis

Write three paragraphs (separate from the letter), explaining your GOAL for the letter (paragraph 1) and analyzing both AUDIENCE NEED (paragraph 2) and at least 3 BARRIERS (paragraph 3) facing this communication. Although many details about your audience have not been provided in the scenario (gender, age, nationality, etc), use the information you do have (occupation, responsibilities, personality traits, etc) to guide your analysis.

2. E-mail

Write in email format and aim to make the document as professional as possible.

• Indirect Writing Plan for persuasive messages: 1: Obtain interest, 2: Prove your proposal or product can benefit the reader 3: Ask for action and link it to reader benefits