You live on Maple Street, which is riddled with potholes to the point that drivers and pedestrians are now at risk. In fact, within the past week, a van and a car collided after the car driver swerved to avoid a large pothole. The driver of the car, Sam Parsons, suffered a broken arm and facial cuts; the driver of the van wasn’t hurt but was shaken up. The car was a write-off.

Using concrete and specific details and the AIDA format, write a letter to your local city councilor asking him or her to fix the potholes on your street ASAP, before further accidents and perhaps even a death occur. (You may remember this scenario from the bad-news exercises; this is the persuasive side of the pothole issue.)