Question

Read and conduct a critical analysis of postings. For response, your critical analysis of your classmate’s posting should be written to include the following topics: Identify important information (facts, experiences, data and so on). Identify the main conclusions drawn. Analyze the key concepts to understand your classmate’s line of reasoning. Identify the underlying main assumption(s), of your classmate’s thinking. The focus for your critical analysis is not whether or not you agree with the post, but how well was their position presented.

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1. What options did you choose?
   1. I chose to lay out the facts to my boss in my opening. This was not the best choice. I had originally opted to provide real life examples, and I thought that would have been presented later in my letter. I didn’t think that I should have opened with that.
   2. I chose to lay out the facts to my boss about conducting a survey. My choice was not very persuasive and, again, not the best answer. The reason that I made this choice was that I thought that she would basically be on board with the idea and would not require persuading.
   3. I felt that polling ex-customers might reveal more valuable feedback. Especially if one of the reasons that they left was for more reasonable fees.
   4. I felt that customers should be asked what they felt were “reasonable” fees. This would allow some feedback as to what the customers might expect. They probably compare the fees that they are charged with their friends/family.
   5. It is always important to be competitive with similar organizations. Therefore, I felt that it would be necessary to find out what other banks are charging.
   6. My conclusion choice was correct according to the simulation. It felt a little odd though. The conclusion felt as if I were directing my boss in what do next. It has been my experience that it would be better to lay out the options for them and let them decide. Even if all the information (numbers, forms, etc.) in the simulation were included just the same, it would seem better to let the boss be the boss.
2. Did they achieve the desired result?
   1. According to the simulation, yes.
3. What would you do differently next time?
   1. I would start off being more persuasive right from the start. Even if I felt that the boss would likely agree with me.
4. What other thoughts do you have on the process of writing persuasive messages as a result of completing this exercise?
   1. It really is about selling an idea that might receive some push-back. It would be best to anticipate the push-back and cover all the bases in order to gain the desired result.

Answer 1

The analysis seems to be quite structured and meaningful. Even a layman can understand the choices made by the author. However, a thing which I would like to highlight is always stating that “this is not the best choice” reduces the overall credibility of the author. The readers may assume that the author is having self-doubt and is not quite sure about the choices made by him. Talking about what the author could have done differently next time, the author states that he feels he needed to be more persuasive from the very beginning. However the rationale behind the same that ow it could have helped the author has not been provided adequately. Overall I feel the analysis went in the right direction with minor glitches.