Writing: Transactional and Persuasive Communication
Writing: Transactional and Persuasive Communication
This domain tests purposeful writing for a specified audience, form, and task: letters, articles, speeches, reviews, leaflets, and reports. Marks depend on matching register and conventions, sustaining a clear viewpoint, and using persuasive techniques with control.
Core rules
- Decode the prompt: audience, purpose, form, and required tone. A letter to a head teacher differs from a blog for peers.
- Open with a clear thesis or purpose; signpost stages; close with a decisive request, recommendation, or call to action.
- Use persuasive devices selectively: direct address, triads, rhetorical questions, anecdote, statistics, concession and rebuttal.
- Keep paragraph logic visible: claim, support, consequence. Do not stack devices without argument.
Worked example
Task: a school article persuading students to use reusable bottles.
Opening: “Every lunchtime, our bins fill with bottles that took centuries to make and seconds to discard. You would not throw away a week’s pocket money, yet that is what we do with plastic. Join the refill scheme this Monday: bring one bottle, cut your waste, and pressure the canteen to install a refill point.”
Reasoning: “Every lunchtime” addresses a familiar routine; “you” positions readers directly; the pocket-money comparison makes the cost concrete; the triad gives three manageable actions. The closing imperative supplies a call to action rather than a vague summary.
Traps
Using the wrong form conventions, such as a letter without a salutation; shifting register mid-text; making unsupported claims; overloading rhetorical questions; forgetting counterargument; and ending with “thank you for reading” instead of a purposeful close.