Persuasion In Writing

"Letter from Birmingham Jail", written on April 16, 1963 by Martin Luther King Jr., was done so following a peaceful protest against segregation. King wrote this while serving time in the city jail in Burmingham, Alabama. Eight Alabama clergymen made statements about how his activities were "unwise, and untimely". They believed that he was an extremist, and although was non-viloent in the things that he was doing, believed that they were uncalled for. The clergymen "agreed that social injustices were taking place but expressed the belief that the battle against racial segregation should be fought solely in the courts and not taken onto the streets". King was arrested because of the Civil Rights activities that he was staging and taking part in, but felt as though he had good reason for doing so.

In "Letter from Birmingham Jail", King attempts to persuade readers to understand why he was doing the things that he was, and to ultimately get them to believe that he was not in the wrong for his actions. He uses elements of persuasiveness such as the appeal to reason, to character, to emotion, and through style. He only wants everyone to see that nothing is being accomplished by sitting back and letting the system go on as it is, and therefore something needed to be said. King clearly was very persuasive in his writing.

With this, I began searching for Marketing related jobs that may have persuasive job descriptions. I found a company in Charlotte, North Carolina, very close to where I live, called F.P. Marketing Inc. This company specializes in working with clients in the service industry, with a unique approach to marketing Fortune 500 and Fortune 1000 companies. Their vision, enviornment, and approach all seem to paint a very pretty picture of the outcomes expected from employees in their company; overall seemingly persuading individuals that their company would be the best to work for given this particular business.

The particular job description that I viewed was titled "Sports Minded Sales and Marketing Managers" but wasn't nearly as complex of a persuasion as King's letter seemed to be. The description didn't go into much detail as to what benefits the job offers, however, it did point out how the top individuals in the company have such great backgrounds only stemming from their involvment in the company.

There were some similar elements between the two, but not as many as I had expected. It seemed that they were on two different levels of persuasion that were not easily compared. However, it was made clear, in both, how persuasion in writing is very important in order to get the point across to the specified audience.