Procrastination

Introduction

The following proposal is for an advertising campaign designed to promote environmental conservation and sustainability. The goal of the project is to change the behaviors of college students to be more environmentally sound. This document explains how the goal of the project is to be achieved. Specifically, the type of information, the method of presentation, and the visual style of the advertisements are covered.

Rhetorical Strategy

The advertisements proposed intend to redirect the general behavior of college students in the Western region of the United States to be more mindful of the environment. It will consist of a series of advertisements placed in selected areas that college students will most likely encounter. The following will be a discussion of the intended purpose, audience, and technique.

Proposing as a Series of Rhetorical Moves

In reviewing my initial email to Janet and Dave, it is clear that I made use of several rhetorical strategies to establish that the problem was worthy of being addressed and that I was qualified to propose solutions.

In describing the problem, I appealed to readers' pathos to establish that the problem was creating stress for both the consultants and clients. I used the statement “The library has been swamped” to create a sense of the consultants drowning in requests for consulting services. To balance out the sympathetic appeal, I used my authority as a writing consultant—my first hand experience of the problem—to lend my argument credibility and to establish an ethical concern for the problem. Throughout the opening section of the email, I tried to persuade them that the issues at the Library were worthy of being addressed, and I set up the first “P” of the “PIP” structure.

Next, I underlined the logical reasoning behind my assessment of the problem by laying out the process that Ninna and I followed to realize that the number of hours of consulting time available that night was insufficient to meet the student demand. I pointed out the dilemma faced by consultants who are forced to choose between cutting sessions short and making students wait for long periods of time to create a sense of urgency. I then suggested some possible methods for balancing the supply of and demand for services and raised the logical argument of the problems created by tardy consultants and the problem of attrition. I suggested the pragmatic reasons for looking at the problem quickly, as it seemed logical that demand for services would increase as the semester continued on. These sections of logical appeals could be considered the “inform” section of my proposal, as they detailed the facts in an attempt to give Janet and David a sense of the situation at issue.

I closed with an additional appeal to the directors' emotions, stressing that their help was required. The end of the proposal attempts to persuade them to consider my concerns and encourage a discussion, most likely among themselves and with other Writing Center consultants (although this is what I had in mind, I do not think ...