Additional Exercises

Chapter 8, Additional Exercise 6: Persuasion in a Website

Form small groups to study the website of a large organization such as the American Red Cross, the White House, Fidelity Investments, or Microsoft Corporation. Have each person in the group study the site separately and consider the following questions about the site:

What are the various audiences for the site? (Briefly describe the major pages it contains.)
What are the various purposes of the site?
What are the various techniques of persuasion used in the words and the graphics?
How effective is the site as a persuasive document? Which techniques are effective, and which are ineffective? How might the site be made more persuasive?

Come together as a group and share your perceptions about the site. Draft a 1,000-word memo to your instructor presenting your findings. (See Chapter 14 for a discussion of memos.)