Response to Student Proposal

What was the main claim of the student proposal?

Could you suggest clarifying/streamlining her supporting details?

Is there an outside source (logical appeal) that you could suggest?

What emotion did the author try to evoke?  Was is persuasive?  Could you make a suggestion to strengthen the pathos?

What was the author's ethos based upon?  Was this an effective appeal?

How would you judge the overall persuasiveness of the entire argument?
Was there a main weakness you could point at?

Eliminating Wordiness

The following link will take you to a series of exercises intended to help your writing by highlighting unnecessary words.

https://owl.english.purdue.edu/exercises/6/9/

Please copy and paste the exercise into a MSWord doc and make the corrections.  Save your file and we'll review it in class.

Student Example of Proposal Letter

5563 Himalaya Rd

Denver, CO 80249

April 20, 2016

Mr. Oscar Munoz

President and CEO

United Airlines, Inc.

233 S. Wacker Drive

Chicago, Il 60606

Dear Mr. Munoz:

I wanted to express my gratitude and let you know what a wonderful experience it has been—being a loyal United Airline customer. I recently watched your online video titled, CEO Oscar Munoz Thanks United Airlines Customers. In the video you specifically state, “United Airlines is proud of the game changing innovations introduced over the years, we know there is more for us to do to improve our airline and your travel experience with us— upgrading and investing in the things that are important to our customers.”  After watching the video, I’d like to propose a proposition that will benefit United Airlines by saving time and money.

As you may or may not know, United Airline passengers have continuously addressed their concerns, requesting sanitary traveling conditions. To be explicit, more passengers have encountered several grotesque objects while searching for reading material in the back seat pocket in front of them, only to find other passengers bodily fluids in air sickness bags, dirty diapers, old food, and gum.  On another occasion while I was personally flying with United, I opened up the tray table during an in-flight beverage service to find what appeared to be dried up chocolate smeared across the tray table that was later identified as human feces. This implies, the specific area had never had been properly disinfected or any debris had been disposed of.  I was mortified to personal experience this, I felt embarrassed, I would have ever encountered such an experience that left me feeling so sad.

Mr. Munoz, I wanted to bring these types of unsanitary conditions to your attention because these types of issues only raise health concerns, and place United Airline passengers and their crew at risk for becoming ill with disease causing bacteria that remains lingering on the planes surfaces for an extensive period of time. This affects all passengers from all ages who travel aboard United Airlines. Passengers want peace of mind to fly comfortably and safely to their travel destination knowing they are flying in a clean sanitary cabin.

United Airlines is in desperate need of clean and germ-free cabins. You might assume your airline cabins are being disinfected and tidy thoroughly between flights, but as it turns out there is no regulation requiring United Airlines to do that, and the current investments that United makes by sub-contracting janitorial companies who are responsible for keeping United Airlines clean on every trip are not upholding the level of service United Airlines claims they have. In spite of what passengers do— United Airlines is responsible for their aircraft cabins cleanliness. These unsanitary conditions bring health hazards, and nothing yet has been enforced, ensuring these cleaning companies maintain United airlines cabins are thoroughly clean in between each flight.

United Airline customers pay their hard earned money to fly United, expecting comfort and accommodation only to find out United Airlines is silencing these passenger’s grievances with United Airline credit and offering them different seat assignments. Some passenger’s complaints were met or resolved with several $300.00 vouchers and an apology for the poor condition of the plane. The passengers were told the head of maintenance would be personally contacted at all airports involved. 

These methods do not resolve the issue at hand; United Airlines can save time and money without practicing the handing over of credits and wasting time to reassign passengers to another seat if availability permits.

A positive healthy change may redevelop progress in revenue if the Airline establishes and enforces a health policy regulation as an example: United Airline can establish and direct hire cleaning crews, who are committed to keeping United Airline cabins clean and on time, delivering customized high—impact cleaning programs within the tightest of timeframes. Not only will this prevent passengers to fly with your competitors; American Airlines Group, Delta Air Lines, and Southwest Airlines who have reported record profits over United Airlines for maintaining phenomenal customer service and who are known to have a regulation and direct hire cleaning crews in effect for their airline. These cleaning crews are continuously keeping clean cabins between each flight. Safety is evident that there is enough time to de-ice or refuel planes before takeoff, so should there be enough time for maintenance cleaning, to quickly sanitize and vacuum the cabin.

The focal point is to enforce and establish a preventative measure by endorsing a health sanitary regulation for cleaning crews who are directly employed by the United Airlines. Mr. Munoz, reconsider the resulting increased consequences for sick passengers and airline crew, by preventing the overall spread of infectious diseases aboard the world’s third-largest airline carrier United Airlines.  Medical studies have proven germs can survive on plastic surfaces, such as armrests, tray tables and lavatory door handles, as long as seventy two hours. 

Since grocery stores provide at their own expense, disinfecting wipes for their customer’s convenience to sanitize their grocery carts, it would be beneficial for the airlines to provide the same for their passengers, along with a small disposable bag for trash. The Clorox brand Disinfectant Wipe was put to the test and germ samples were taken before sanitizing to get a total germ count from a cart handle and again after sanitizing.  The ALS Laboratory Group of Microbiologists discovered the wipes killed eighty percent to one hundred percent of the germs in seventeen out of twenty-three samples that were taken. The remaining six samples saw significant reductions.  Many health clinics and hospitals provide hand sanitizer soap, masks and Kleenex tissue to stop the spreading of air born microorganisms when sneezing or coughing.

According to Consumerist.com article titled, Filthy United Airlines! Disgusting Garbage-Filled Airplane Is Not Clean Before Next Flight Departs, In 2014 a couple flew United Airlines and as they boarded the airplane they found it full of “cigarette butts, candy, used tissues, pretzel bags, maxi-pad wrappers, crumbs, dirt, pens, balls of “goo”, and god knows what else just because United Airlines didn’t have “time” to clean the plane?”

This claim is effective since, other airlines other than United have organized to structure the same regulation, and prevent the spread of infectious diseases who thorough cleanse, and disinfectant lavatories, door handles, tray tables, armrests and galleys to enhance a safer and healthier germ free environment.  This will certainly improve your United Airlines and the passengers travel experience, by upgrading and investing in the things that are important to United Airline customers.

Thank you, for your time and consideration regarding this important matter.

Sincerely,

Ursala Undergrad

Work Cited

 Margo, Meg. "Filthy United Airlines! Disgusting Garbage-Filled Airplane Is Not Cleaned             

Before Next Flight Departs." CONSUMERIST. Mar. 2014. Web. <https://consumerist.com/2007/03/22/filthy-united-airlines-disgusting-garbage-filled-airplane-is-not-cleaned-before-next-flight-departs/>.

Johnson, Julie. "United Airlines, Other Carriers Taking Planes' Cleanliness to New Heights."

 Tribunedigital-chicagotribune. 2015. Web. 2015 Apr. 2016. Web.

<http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2009-01-29/news/0901281119_1_american-airlines-united-airlines-airline-customer-service>.

"Routine Aircraft Cleaning Schedule." Routine Aircraft Cleaning Schedule. U.S. National

 Library of Medicine, 2009. Web. 15 Apr. 2016. Web. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK310704/>.

"CEO Oscar Munoz Thanks Customers." United Hub. The United Hub Team, 05 Apr. 2016.

             Web. 17 Apr. 2016. <https://hub.united.com/httpswwwyoutubecomembedttnl0m-        

             6hworel0-1710282457.html>.

******FRIDAY July 1*****

We made it to Seattle!!  The whole family is here for a wedding.  My girls have been playing with their cousins non-stop.

Today I'd like you to start by spending FIVE WHOLE minutes freewriting a response here in blogger  to the prompt The Problem.

Also, please complete Sentence Combining #4.  This should be posted to the blogger as a reply.

I'd also like you to complete an exercise Parallel Structures-- this exercise should be a reply to the post here in blogger.

Lastly, please workshop your proposal letters with 2 peers.  This means groups of three.  Exchange using Google docs, or as an email with a MSWord attachment.  Your revision comments should be phrased as rhetorical analysis. 

• What is the main claim-- is it clear?  
• Who is the primary audience-- do they have the power to enact the claim? 
•  Is there strong logos? Are there any weaknesses in logos?  
• What emotion do they evoke? Can you suggest one?  
• Have they established their ethos? 
•  Is the overall argument effective?

That makes a total of three in-class writing exercises and one workshop (comments on two peer drafts).

For homew3#ork, please revise your essay and read the Student Example of Proposal posted here in blogger.  

ENJOY your long weekend.  I'll see you Tuesday.

The Problem

All good proposals SOLVE A PROBLEM. What is the problem that your proposal will solve? Start this discussion by stating clearly what your proposal claim is. Follow this with a descriptive writing (try-out those showing language skills again!) exercise-- describe in vivid detail the problem as it exists.

Set the scene! Even develop a character. 
Note any other groups that might be affected by this issue. 
Consider painting a picture of the worse-case scenario (even writing it in the present tense, as if it is happening).  

Sentence Combining #4

Combine each group of sentences into one.  Leave the underlined sentence alone, and attach the other sentences to it.  You can change any part of the other sentences you want, but try to get each group of ideas to flow smoothly in one sentence. Try using absolutes or participial phrases when possible!

After creating this new sentence, use it as a scaffold-- create a sentence of your own using the same structure and format as the one you made from the combination.

1.

When I walked in, Grandpa was sitting at the kitchen table.

The newspaper was spread before him.

His morning coffee steamed in his mug.

2..

The maneuvers of the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds are an awesome sight.

The F-16s zoom toward one another at a wicked speed.

3. 

Kasparov stared at the chess board.

His head was in his hands.

He was depressed.

He was thinking only of the computer that was beating him.

 4.

Hummingbirds seem to defy the laws of gravity.

Their tiny bodies hover in one spot like miniature helicopters.

 5.

The chili pepper has been called the world’s most popular spice.

The chili pepper is used by cooks from Central America to Asia.

 6.

Carlos walked up to the arena’s front entrance.

The concert ticket was in his hand.

Parallel Structures

There are two broad categories of parallel structure: literal repetition and grammatical repetition. Literal repetition is simply repeating the exact word or phrase to create an echo, a trancelike refrain. In the “Tell-Tale Heart,” Edgar Allan Poe repeats a clause to create tension as a murderer describes the haunting beat of his dead victim’s heart:
I talked more quickly—more vehemently; but the noise steadily increased. I arose and argued about trifles, in a high key with gesticulations, but the noise steadily increased. Why would they not be gone? I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the observation of the men—but the noise steadily increased. (306)

Authors create grammatical repetitions using structures such as participial phrases, absolutes, prepositional phrases, appositives, and so on. Almost any grammatical element can be used as long as the sound patter is consistent. Take the classic phrase from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address: “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” Or Julius Caesar’s famous quote, “I came; I saw; I conquered.” The sentence structure in each clause is identical and the syllables nearly identical (they build), creating a rhythm behind the writer’s words.

Parallel structures can enhance images but the lack of parallel structure can disrupt them. Choppy rhythms distort perceptions and interrupt the consistent flow of ideas. In a sentence like “Melvin enjoys rock music, football, and to collect stamps” the uneven rhythm of “to collect stamps” acts like abrasive, static noise in the middle of a quiet song. To flow smoothly, the sentence requires a steady rhythm: “Melvin enjoys music, sports, and stamp collecting.”

If you would like further explanation please see the OWL's explanation: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/623/1/

How are the following examples disjointed in their parallel structure? Can you fix them? In a comment to this post, please attempt to fix the unparallel part of each sentence.

1) Lulu pushed the hair from her eyes, wiped the sweat from her forehead, and the volleyball was served.

2) Bubba was tall, muscle-bound, and often acted mean.

3) Stealthily, cautiously, and moving at a slow pace, the cat crawled through the weeds

4) The City Room was immense, reporters rushing down the aisles, shoving copy at each other, bustled back again, flinging gestures, shouting into telephones.

5) Flying through the air, screaming bloody murder, as he fell to earth, the boy thought to himself, “This is gonna hurt.”

Now create three sentences of your own practicing parallel structure:, please look over your own essay-- pick any sentences you'd like and create parallel grammatical structures out of them.