Planning a persuasive letter with limited word count
You must write a 200-word Swedish letter to the local council arguing for more bike lanes. You have three arguments: safety, environment, and cost. You also have one personal anecdote about a near-miss with a car. The task rewards a clear line of argument, varied sentence structure, and appropriate persuasive register. You have 25 minutes and must leave 5 minutes to check grammar. You are tempted to include all three arguments plus the anecdote.
1. How should you select and order content to fit 200 words persuasively?
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At 200 words you cannot develop three arguments plus an anecdote equally. Choose a structure: a brief personal anecdote as a hook (2 sentences), then two developed arguments, then a call to action. Drop or compress the weakest argument to one clause. For example: anecdote about the near-miss, then safety as the main argument with a concrete detail, then environment in one sentence, then a specific request ('Jag föreslår att kommunen prioriterar en cykelbana längs X-gatan'). Cost can be omitted or folded into the request. This gives a clear line of argument rather than a list. Use varied structures: a rhetorical question, a subordinate clause, and a short emphatic sentence. The judgement is selecting for depth over coverage, because the rubric rewards coherent argument and range, not the number of points mentioned.
2. How do you use the 5-minute check efficiently without weakening the argument?
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Use the check for high-frequency, high-impact errors: verb-second word order in main clauses, agreement and definite forms, preposition choice, and consistent formal register ('Ni' capitalisation if used, no slang). Read the letter once for meaning and once for form. Do not add new arguments in the last 5 minutes; that risks incoherence and word-count overrun. If you must cut, remove redundancy rather than evidence. Check that the call to action is explicit and that the opening states the purpose. Finally, count words and trim filler ('väldigt', 'egentligen') to stay within 200. The judgement is protecting the argument's coherence while fixing accuracy, since late additions usually lower both clarity and correctness.