Writing Effective Emails

Ethos (a Greek term for authority, character, credibility)

Read the following emails: V.Bissou and Mr Moses Odiaka

When you have finished reading those letters, open up a new Word document and write a short essay answering the following questions about those emails:

• How do the writers work to gain your trust here? Which of the strategies the writer uses to gain your trust might work on a less sophisticated or less critical reader?
• Where do the writers fail to gain your trust? If these were the first such letters you've ever seen, at what points in each letter might you begin to doubt that the writers really had your best interests at heart? Why?
• What strategies does the first writer (the widow) use and how do those strategies differ from the ones the second writer (the banker) uses? What similar strategies do you see in both emails?

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