In-Class Writing, Business Letter of Dissuasion

During today’s class, write a letter addressed to Professor Ellis (using his school address found on the City Tech English Department website–Google it). The letter should follow this format (you may look back at your letter from last week for further guidance):

Your address (okay to make it up)
Today’s Date

Dr. Jason Ellis
His Address

Dear Dr. Ellis,

One sentence greeting (e.g., How are you doing today?)

Paragraph of 6-10 sentences that makes the argument that I should not read the article that you read for today’s class. Open with your thesis and include reasons supporting your thesis. Weave summary into these reasons. Include the author’s name, article title, magazine title, and issue or date information. Remember to italicize the magazine title and put the article title in quotes.

One offer sentence in closing (e.g., If you would like to discuss the article, please let me know.)

Sincerely,

4 lines

Your Name

Copy-and-paste your letter into a comment made to this blog post.

6 thoughts on “In-Class Writing, Business Letter of Dissuasion

  1. Bianca20campbell

    123 ocean ave Apt 3
    Brooklyn NY 1226
    March 21, 2017

    Jason Ellis
    300 Jay Street
    Namm Hall 512 (N-512)
    Brooklyn, NY 11201

    Dear Jason Ellis,
    How is the weather treating you? I was reading the article named “Dealing with North Korea is a team sport, and the U.S needs China on its Side by Admiral James Stavridis which is in the TIME magazine that came out February 20,2017.

    I don’t think you should even waste your time reading this article. One reason is the article makes fun of Kim Jong Un. “He is also, at 32 relatively young, morbidly obese, possibly addicted to opioids and possessed of a really bad haircut” (Admiral James Stavridis, February 20, 2017, Pg 24). Yet the article is about how dangerous North Korea’s ownership of untested nuclear weapons is to us. If they are so worried about him trying to test it on us why would you post an article making fun of him if you do not want a problem with him. Another reason is because this article wants to makes North Korea the United States main focus. With all the inner turmoil that we are having right now the last thing we need is to start a problem that can escalate to a war with another country. The author of the article continues to make North Korea seem like it’s going to be the worst thing that will happen to us and that we need to start preparing for it with China. These contradictions makes no sense.

    I hope that you will take my advice and not read this article. Enjoy the rest of your day.

    Sincerely,

    Bianca Campbell

  2. Scotte Ng

    1234 94 Street
    Today’s Date
    Dr. Jason Ellis

    Jason Ellis
    300 Jay Street
    Namm Hall 512 (N-512)
    Brooklyn, NY 11201

    Dear Dr. Ellis,

    How are you doing today?)

    In this article I’ve read today in the Popular page. I thought it would be all science, but however in the magazine itself there was one article I saw that really made the magazine awful. In this magazine in one section was the Looking Glass section. The article itself should not be in the Natural Science magazine because it’s showing more of the entertainment side of science not the serious informational part. In the article it mentions Pokemon GO a very popular game that has no impact on future technologies. It also has information on where we had formerly slept at which is irrelevant. The information here is not very useful and should be opted for a better section. This section has also information on random subjects like Field Trips, Spyglasses, Zombies, Run!, and Google translate which are not all science why are they in the article in the first place? Natural Science is used to inform others about the future science projects being developed and important background information on science itself. Having the iOS application seems unnecessary and a new page should be opted out. The article section is (“Looking Glass by Knvul Sheikh”) Popular Science PG 15.

    If you want to read about science and their scientific advances please skip the first two pages.

    Sincerely,

    Scotte Ng

  3. glasgowshinquella

    123 Avenue A, 1st Flr
    Brooklyn NY, 11201
    March 21st, 2017

    Jason Ellis
    Department of English
    New York City College of Technology
    300 Jay Street
    Namm Hall 512 ?9/N-512)
    Brooklyn NY 1201

    Dear Dr. Ellis,

    How are you doing today?

    I unfortunately read an article by Linda Ocasio and it wasn’t the greatest. I wanted to tell you more about it so just incase you came across it, you wouldn’t waste your time. The article was titled Everything You Need to Know About Vouchers in the newspaper New York Teacher on February 2, 2017. I thought it was poorly written because it seemed to be very opinion biased as well as sarcastic. Furthermore, the article only argued only one side of the topic and not the other.

    In the article, the topic of Trumps’ position on school vouchers was discussed. However, article did not give you pure factual evidence of how the voucher system will affect the public school education system. The voucher system is used to help parents support their children going to private of religious schools who are on a low income budget. The article then goes on to essentially blame Trump for the reduced budgets in public schools due to the fact that the budget system does take away money from public funds and thus cuts funds for public schools. Although Trump is not the best presidential candidate, he did not create the voucher program. It has been in existence for years. I believe the author of this argument did not support her argument that Trumpp should not have increased the budget for the voucher program but instead argues that the voucher program is his fault.

    I believe that this article could have been better written and supported its original argument in a clearer fashion. Please let me know when you are available so we can discuss avoiding this article.

    Sincerely,

    Shinquella Glasgow

  4. Thania Miah

    123 45th Avenue
    New York, NY 10002
    March 21, 2017

    Jason W. Ellis
    Department of English
    300 Jay Street
    Namm Hall 512 (N-512)
    Brooklyn, NY 11201

    Dear Dr. Ellis,

    How are you doing today?

    I came across this article by Shell/WIRED Partnership which I would recommend you not to read. The article is titles “Make The Future” and it is from WIRED magazine, The 2017 WIRED World. I thought this article isn’t good reading material for you because although it is an article about technology I feel like it’s missing a couple things.

    This article discusses Shell’s “Make the Future” campaign, which is focused on young entrepreneurs and people with bright ideas. It then goes on to discuss someone by the name of Tom Robinson and his idea of “building products that can “breathe” using moisture-absorbing biodegradable walls that reduce damp and limit asthma, and which release the moisture when the air is drier.” (Shell / WIRED Partnership. (2017, Feb). p. 39). My issue with this article is that because it is a partnership article with the magazine itself it is going to be very biased. I believe with this you’re better off researching it yourself than reading it from the magazine. There is a lack of information on the actual subject of the article. The article itself isn’t too long but does provide visuals which helps the reader understand the company more. But it lacks in the information aspect, because of how brief it is I believe that it isn’t even worth reading. You’re left still confused about what exactly this article is trying to teach you. It just seems like it’s glorifying it’s own company rather than being informative about a new technology that they are developing and there is no real publisher of the article it’s just the company. In the end you’re better off researching this topic on your own if you’re truly interested in it.

    I believe that you are better off skipping this article.

    Sincerely,

    Thania Y. Miah

  5. jstephenson

    242 Pineapple Street
    Brooklyn, NY 11201
    March 21, 2017

    Jason Ellis
    Department of English
    New York City College of Technology
    300 Jay Street
    Namm Hall 512 (N-512)
    Brooklyn, NY 11201

    Dear Dr. Ellis,

    How are you doing today? Earlier today, I stumbled across a mindboggling article by Jim Caras that I thought was worth sharing. The article “Burns Fat, Improves Sleep… and Beautifies Hair, Skin & Nails,” was in the March/April 2017 edition of Energy Times Magazine, a magazine that focuses on the latest innovation in health and nutrition. I thought you should read this article about Type 1 Collagen Peptides because it is another advertising scheme that is marketing to a negative self-image. The article tries to position collagen as a product that can help burn fat, help joints recover, and energies the body. Currently, collagen is associated with only being for beauty or joint support.

    I disagree with advertising Type 1 Collagen Peptides as a source for fat burning because the article does not provide any source of where I can learn about their clinical trials. Another thing that I notices was that the article pushed many numbers/data at you. To the average person this was information overload. The article was incredibly long and overly information about the data that it made me immediately not like the product. In addition, the article was not approved by the Food and Drug Administration, which most pieces that are pushing a drug is usually reviewed by. This makes me question the accuracy and the fair balance in this article.

    If you would like to discuss the article in more details, please let me know.

    Sincerely,

    Jodieann J. Stephenson

  6. C h a u n c e

    1414 Merriam Ave, Bronx, NY 10452
    3/28/2017

    Dr. Jason Ellis
    Department of English
    New York City College of Technology
    300 Jay Street
    Namm Hall 512 (N-512)
    Brooklyn, NY 11201

    Dear Dr, Ellis

    I hope your week is starting off well.

    Today I came across a news article in the Daily News that was written by Errol Louis The article was talking about how the people who went against Vladimir Putin have all either been arrested or killed under mysterious circumstances. He would then end the article with the question “What are the financial ties between the Putin kleptocracy and Trump administration ?”(Louis, 2017, p. 23). The whole article in my opinion was poor propaganda against Trump and Putin collectively and should of not made the newspaper in the first place. For starters U.S. and Russia have been at odds in recent years. The U.S. have been interfering with Russia and Eastern Ukraine situation and Russia. Another fact Russia recently bombed a army base near U.S. troops in Syria; another ongoing confrontation between the U.S. country. My final point is the cases the Mr. Louis was referring to. For example Mr. Louis referred to the Estemirova, Magnitsky, and Markelov cases of 2009 where they were exposing some of the various practices in Russia’s government under Putin ,but ending up dying under various circumstances. However, Mr. Louis tied this all up with a question, “ Why would American Businesses, Consultants, and political operatives willing to do business in the first place with a tyrant ?”(Louis, 2017, p. 23). These claims are clearly up for debate, and not only that he did not mention in anyway how these businesses were trying to do business with Russia. The article just uses a bunch of events in Russia and is not worth a read.

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