Exam 8: Communicating Persuasively

Chapter 8 discusses the three elements of an argument. One is the claim. What are the other two?

Which statement best exemplifies a modest persona?

A commonsense argument is usually more persuasive than numerical data.

How does culture affect the process of persuasion?

The following statement appears in a university's report to its board of regents: "Several other notable universities, including Stanford and Harvard, are offering massive, open online classes, or MOOCs. It is imperative for Old State University to keep pace in the educational marketplace." What type of reasoning does the passage display?

Which are the four categories of evidence to which people usually respond favorably?

Effective graphic design is an element of the tone of a document's argument.

A post hoc argument claims that because A preceded B, A must have caused B.

What type of argument appeals to a person's understanding and experience of how the world works?

Chapter 8 discusses four broad goals of an audience. One is security. Which is NOT one of the other three goals?

The following statement appears in a brochure supporting a law to allow ducks on a lake on a college campus: "In the other states that have allowed ducks on campus, we know of no adverse encounters between ducks and people to date." What type of reasoning does that passage display?

Which characteristic of an attractive professional persona has the writer of the following excerpt NOT shown? As you probably already know, we have a problem with our current documentation. Users cannot easily locate the serial numbers necessary to complete the online registration step. The solution below will help us address this problem and eliminate the customer-support calls we get. It will also solve a few other problems. Last week, others suggested different solutions. However, I know they will not work. The best course of action is to prominently display the serial numbers at the start of the chapter labeled "Registering Your Product." Our users expect to find the numbers in this chapter.

What does it mean to say that a report you are writing contains several logical fallacies?

In the following excerpt from a proposal seeking funding to upgrade a police department's crime lab, which technique for making a persuasive case listed below does the writer NOT use? In the past four years, the department's crime lab has experienced an increase in fingerprint evidence for comparisons. The increase in volume is a result of submissions from other rural agencies in the state. However, because our agency cannot access data maintained within the state's Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS), submissions are limited to manual searches of the 14,000 files maintained by our department. You can imagine the likelihood of missing a fingerprint match while looking through thousands of fingerprints by hand. In fact, Harlan Andrews, a Senior Investigator at the Federal Bureau of Investigation's laboratory, reports that manual searches often fail to find matches when in fact fingerprint matches exist. To prevent such errors, our department needs to upgrade its computer system to allow access to AFIS.

in most cases the best place to state your claim is at the end of the argument because you may alienate your audience if you state it at the beginning.

Which method of addressing opposing viewpoints is likely to be least effective?

Give an example of an informational constraint that you might confront in completing a project.

Ethical constraints arise from applicable laws on labor practices, environmental issues, fair trade, consumer rights, and so forth.

Chapter 8 discusses the four broad goals of an audience. One is security. Name one of the other three goals.

If you are facing constraints in trying to persuade your audience, you are not an effective writer.