Refer to the handout on rhetorical techniques and the assignment itself for more information.
Date: February 27, 2007
To: Bradley Dilger
From: Josh Germinal
Subject: Prospectus
Hi Bradley,
I want to write my argument about the poor quality of the elevators in the dorms at WIU. I live on the tenth floor of Thompson and the elevators are a pain for me all the time. They are slow and too small so I sometimes have to wait for two or three when they are full. And they break down a lot. I think WIU needs to do whatever it takes to get them fixed. They should also add elevators or make the existing ones bigger. I take the stairs sometimes, but I can’t do that with laundry. And last week I fell on the stairs because they were slippery.
So, I'm going to argue that the Thompson elevators suck and WIU needs to fix them by any means necessary. I did some searching on the WIU site and I found out that WIU budgeted $933,420 for elevators in Linc/Wash. So maybe there is money for Thompson since it is 19 floors (Linc/Wash are 14). I need to find out more about this project. Maybe WIU is already planning to fix the Thompson elevators. What do you know about it? If that’s true, then I’ll argue for speed, bigger size, and a few other things.
I think I’ll use the following techniques: (1) examples/real event: I’ve been late to class because of problems with the elevators, even though I’ve started getting up earlier to avoid the rush to use them. (2) invented instance: I will argue that if these problems were happening in Sherman Hall they would be fixed by now! Can you imagine if it took Al Goldfarb 10 minutes to get to and from his office? (3) definition: I will close by making a list of the things that WIU needs to be able to say the elevators work.
Also, do you think I should make the argument based on safety like if there was a fire? Or is just working from a student perspective OK?
Josh