Letter of Advice

Week 5 Guidance

Hello students! Welcome to your final week of COM 200. This week you will be completing your Letter of Advice. Remember to use the outline from week 3 to keep your letter on task.

Overview of Readings and Assignment

For this assignment, you will be writing a letter of advice to a newly engaged couple. The purpose is to apply the knowledge you have gained in the class to give this couple advice on how to communicate with each other for a long and healthy relationship. You will use the outline you created in Week 3 to guide your writing. This paper must include a title page, introductory paragraph, thesis statement, conclusion that restates the thesis, a minimum of five scholarly sources (including two from the ProQuest database in the Ashford Online Library), and a reference page. The letter must be eight to ten pages in length (not including the title and reference pages) and be formatted according to APA guidelines.

You must choose five techniques of communication presented during this class to guide the couple. To distinguish between the different techniques, please use section headings that label the technique you are using for your advice. Since this is a letter, you can write it using a first person approach. Although you are writing a personal letter of advice, the assignment requires you to support your writing with information from five scholarly sources. Please be sure to cite your sources not only on the reference page, but also within the text.

Page range for this assignment is 8 minimum, 10 maximum (excluding title and reference page)

The main point of this letter is to demonstrate your mastery of the communication techniques/styles that you learned about in this course. The instructor wants to see you use critical thinking to draw conclusions on how this couple can work together and use their communication skills learned in this letter to help their marriage thrive.

Assignment Ideas

A great way to approach this assignment is to brainstorm the relationships in your life. Look at how they function and compare them to the different forms of communication styles/techniques that you learned about in this class. What conclusions can you come up with when brainstorming? How do the relationships around you work and what areas have room for improvement in regards to communication?

Another great way to get ideas would be to interview people that you know that have had long relationships. Ask these people for advice on how they communicate with their partner. Or, watch movies and TV shows that feature relationships as part of their theme. There are many great movies that show effective and ineffective communication techniques. Take notes on what you see and compare them to the different techniques/styles you learned about in this course.

Formatting

APA guidelines require that use Times New Roman 12 point font throughout your entire document. Additionally, your paper should be double-spaced. Similar to the previous assignment in this class, your paper must include a title page and reference page. I encourage you to visit the Ashford Writing Center to ensure that your title page, reference page, and headings are all formatted correctly.

Resources & Quick Tips

When many students approach this assignment they often are confused by the idea of writing a letter that is academic in nature. The key of this format is to follow the APA style of writing essays, but from a first person angle. Take a look at relationships you have observed and apply the concepts from this class to them. If you begin to feel overwhelmed, please do not hesitate to email me for some guidance or redirection.

Turnitin is also a terrific resource that you can use before submitting academic writing. Turnitin can be accessed through the Learning Resources area of our classroom and used to check for originality and proper use of citations within papers. This tool can be used by students to help avoid academic dishonesty.

Lastly, you can turn to the Writing Reviser tool to help provide you with automated feedback on organization, style, and grammar in writing your paper. This resource can be found through the eCollege classroom as well. Of course, you can always also refer to the Ashford Library for additional materials.

I look forward to reading your letters. I know they will be great! If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to email me anytime

Format of the Essay

Here is what the format of the essay should basically look like. Introductory remarks with thesis and plan of development

Heading #1 (which will be a shortened version of the first learning outcome)

Topic sentence

Source support

Source explanation

So What? (what advice would you give the couple based off this evidence. The advice can either be direct advice or you could give the advice in a personal example, or a combination of both).

Heading #2 (which will be a shortened version of the first learning outcome)

Topic sentence

Source support

Source explanation

So What? (what advice would you give the couple based off this evidence. The advice can either be direct advice or you could give the advice in a personal example, or a combination of both).

Heading #3 (which will be a shortened version of the first learning outcome)

Topic sentence

Source support

Source explanation

So What? (what advice would you give the couple based off this evidence. The advice can either be direct advice or you could give the advice in a personal example, or a combination of both).

Heading #4 (which will be a shortened version of the first learning outcome)

Topic sentence

Source support

Source explanation

So What? (what advice would you give the couple based off this evidence. The advice can either be direct advice or you could give the advice in a personal example, or a combination of both).

Heading #5 (which will be a shortened version of the first learning outcome)

Topic sentence

Source support

Source explanation

So What? (what advice would you give the couple based off this evidence. The advice can either be direct advice or you could give the advice in a personal example, or a combination of both).

Conclusion: brief summary of what you discussed, restatement of the thesis, final thought, letter closing.