Reports and Proposals

1.

• Informational reports: offer data, facts, feedback, and other types of information without analysis or recommendations.
• Analytical reports: offer both information and analysis, and they can also indicate recommendations.
• Proposals: offer structured persuasion for internal or external audiences.

2. Primary research contains information that you gather specifically for a new research project, secondary research contains information that others have gathered (and published in many cases).

3. Reliable: would produce identical results if repeated.

Valid: measures what it's supposed to measure.

4. A conclusion is a logical interpretation of facts and other information. A recommendation suggests what to do about the information.

5. An RFP is used to include instructions that specify exactly the type of work to be performed or products to be delivered along with budgets, deadlines, and other requirements.

Test Your Knowledge Chapter 9

1.

• Who is my audience?
• What are my audience members' needs?
• What do I want them to do?
• How might they resist?
• Are there alternative positions I need to examine?
• What does the decision maker consider to be the most important issue?
• How might the organization's culture influence my strategy?

2. When analyzing your audiences, take into account their cultural expectations and practices so that you don't undermine your persuasive message by using an inappropriate appeal or by organizing your message in a way that seems unfamiliar or uncomfortable to your readers.

3. Emotional vs. Logical appeals. Emotional appeals attempt to connect with the reader's feelings or sympathies while logical appeals are based on the reader's notions of reason; thee appeals can use analogy, induction, or deduction.

4. Three types of reasoning

• Analogy
• Induction
• Deduction

5. AIDA model. The AIDA model is ideal for the indirect approach and organizes the presentation into four phases:

• Attention
• Interest
• Desire
• Action

The AIDA model also has limitations such as:

• It essentially talks at the audience, not with them
• It focuses on one-time events not long-term relationships