My Argumentation Style In my persuasive letter, a critical and didactic voice from my perspective as a student was created using argumentative diction to persuade a school official to implement a district-wide approach open campus policy. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay My stylistic choices, strong diction for argumentation, and typical argumentative/persuasive structure (from the SpringBoard template) are the strongest and help the most to show my purpose and create my voice. When I talked about how the open campus policy affects students' lives at school, I used words like unworkable, restrictive, and hindering. This type of diction applies pathos and helps influence the reader to feel stronger about how a closed campus is negatively affecting students. I also used diction to help give students perspective and demonstrate that they cared about this issue and wanted to see change. I did this by using words like need, desire, and the phrase “incentive to improve one's grades and attendance.” Words like these not only strengthen my argument in terms of pathos, but also help create a didactic tone. They help create a critical perspective towards school politics. Another element used well in this piece was the first person perspective of the student created by the use of the pronoun I and verbs (unfortunately not strong enough) showing that I am a student, I am affected by these policies and I see how this affects other students. These verbs are used in sentences like “I think” or “I see.” Stating myself “as a high school student” at the beginning of my letter appeals to ethics and allows these phrases to have credibility. Some other rhetorical devices that I used well to support my argument were qualifiers and conditionals. The qualifiers as often (unnecessary) made my argument more believable and not nonsensical. Using the conditional "do it" in my call to action makes it easier for the reader to understand what I'm asking for and what my purpose is. Although I would have preferred to use a stronger conditional like "If we create a conditional open campus policy, students will have a better incentive to improve their grades." As strong as my argument was based on good use of diction and rhetorical devices, the argument and voice in my persuasive letter was severely hampered by some inconsistencies in my rhetorical triangle, syntax errors (including diction) and the lack of comments. What I see as the main problem in my essay is my rhetorical triangle, specifically the audience. My letter is addressed to "Chris Nation," a Washington State school board official when discussing a District 81 matter. In the body of my letter I often refer to the specific District 81 schools and their policies. Even my opening sentence is “it's time to create a district-wide open campus policy.” A government official is actually the wrong audience for this topic; I should have named the superintendent of District 81 in the audience. The other big obstacle is my syntax which involves too many long sentences or sentences of the same length and sentences with insufficient evidence. In my first and second paragraphs, 90% of the sentences are 12-14 words. Using too many similar sentences in the same style makes my writing boring and less persuasive. It overemphasizes the critical voice I was.