you will persuade your stakeholder/stakeholder group with a respectfully and effectively crafted argument. Because you are speaking to your audience, rather than about them, you will demonstrate your understanding of the stakeholder and employ persuasive strategies (without overtly presenting the research about the stakeholder from previous assignments–you’re just going to use it to figure out how to approach the persuasion). You should also be able to address reasonable counterarguments to your position that might arise from your target audience.
Audience Assessment (You will have already done the following if you did your Essay 2 correctly): Use audience analysis as prewriting techniques to help you determine the best approach for your argument. For instance, if you are interested in persuading climate change believers to a particular solution for curtailing global warming such as improving their personal carbon footprint, you don’t need to prove that climate change is real. If you are going to change someone’s worldview on climate change not being a real problem, that’s one situation where you would be able to use facts to do so; however, using facts alone probably won’t be enough because they likely already have access to those facts and reject them, so you will also need to be vigilant about debunking their favorite theories that reject accepted climate change science.
Learning and Writing Goals: In this essay, you have the opportunity to practice the argumentation skills necessary to be an effective citizen. Keep in mind that persuasion is not refuting someone else’s views but rather engaging their beliefs and values to encourage them to consider or adopt a different perspective on the issue. We want to see you argue thoughtfully and intentionally, seeking to persuade your audience by addressing the particular level of stasis where they will most likely be affected by your argument.
