** Topic: Choose a real organization and compose a guest column meant to externally announce a change. Research and consider choosing an organization that has undergone/undergoing significant change within the last three years. However, most newspapers will not post a column that’s merely a public relations effort (trade journals do, however), but they will print (or at least be open to printing) a column in which an organizational leader articulates changes meant to respond to a crisis.** Directions: Compose a guest column for a prominent newspaper or news site, one that does print editorials, Opposite-Editorial page and guest columns. Your goal is to compose a persuasive piece that communicates to readers a clear, ethical direction for your organization.** Content creation:- Most organizations have statements that publicly express their mission and values, so, depending on which organization you choose, read these statements as a basis for understanding their public character (ethos);- If you are choosing a company under intense pressure to change due to perceived or admitted wrongdoing, then read both the primary and secondary sources to better understand the reasons for the crises—and, perhaps, their arguments for changing their norms, practices, policy.** Research: to better understand the nature of guest column, consider reading a few for the newspaper/website for which you are intending to write.** Rhetorical Approach: Your purpose is to move beyond mere opinion-presenting by making a valid argument. Valid arguments involve making a claim and supporting this claim with clearly stated reasons and a strong thesis statement (claim+reason). This requires evidence balanced typically by using appeals to emotion, logic and ethics. In a column-based argument, you essentially present your conclusion in the first paragraph. Then, spend the rest of the column supporting your thesis with evidence and appeals. Done effectively, the column is popular, persuasive writing at its best: argumentative, reasonable, concise.** Way to organize your argument to keep it focused:- Begin by declaring your initiative. Use the claim+reason thesis-based formula.- Focus tightly on why you are making and supporting this change: show (by giving more reasons) how this initiative or call for change will help address or resolve some of the more important problems that concern your organization and audience.- Then, present evidence why this change is the best choice. Express your opinion, then support it with factual information.• to help support your claims, use results-oriented language to illustrate your organizations accomplishments or achievements—and connect these accomplishments (from the past) to what you are advocating as a way to illustrate how things will improve for the future.- Concessions: to build more credibility, you should strongly consider dedicating a few sentences to address some potential challenges re: your initiative (“though our initiative addresses important first steps, our focus is to clean up the entire spill…”) as a way to counter-argue these potential or perceived weaknesses; provide insight and understanding: educate your readers to ease their fears for supporting your initiative.- Remember: your goal isn’t to merely argue; your goal is to persuade people to assent (either entirely or proportionally) to your argument by giving them reasons and evidence.- Near the end, clearly re-state your position and issue a call to action. Here, you could list your initiative as a way to call others to join your rolling bandwagon.- Finally, use clear, powerful, direct language—use the “words that work” approach from F. Luntz to reach a broader audience yet appeal to the elites who read columns; emphasize active voice, use accessible words and shorter sentences to keep your reader moving. As he writes in Rule #10, context and relevance should be a part of your reasoning and evidence.
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