Rotary Club Invites Speaker The Rotary Club in your city would like to invite the attorney general of your state to speak at its monthly meeting. Although the attorney general seldom accepts these kinds of invitations, you believe that you can persuade

Question

her to make an exception by asking her to discuss one of her special projects, ethical business practices. A complicating factor for you is that the meeting you want the attorney general to attend is only two months away. Required: As secretary of the Rotary Club, write this request, adding whatever terms of persuasion you feel would be necessary to influence the attorney general to accept. Address the letter to Ms. Susan Reston, Attorney General of your state.

Answer 1

Write the letter inductively, beginning with a short, attention-getting paragraph.
1 . Note the importance of ethical business practices as a societal concern.
2 . Describe the interest of the Rotary Club in the ethics issue.
3 . Ask the attorney general to address the Rotary Club on the topic of ethics, stating the exact time and place of the meeting.
4 . Close with a reference to benefits that both the club and the attorney general will receive. State expected date of response from the attorney general.
5 . Omit clichés.
6 . Make sure grammar, spelling, and punctuation are perfect.

A proposed solution follows.

Dear Ms. Reston

The lack of ethics in business is a common problem as shown by the following headlines:

"the former chief executive pleaded guilty Tuesday to six charges, including securities fraud, obstruction of justice, perjury and bank fraud.".

"former CEO pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy and securities, wire and bank fraud on Wednesday.".

Our Rotary Club wants to inform our business community in the current standards of ethical business practices. Some may not be aware of what constitutes an unethical action or decision, and may not understand the consequences of unethical behavior. To address this important issue, the Rotary Club's meeting scheduled two months from now is " Ethics: Protect Yourself and Your Business.". The meeting will be October 6 at 11 a.m. at the Marriott Hotel, Fairview Parkway.

Since you are one of the state's legal experts on this topic, we would like to invite you to be the guest speaker at this meeting. Our business community needs the current information and legal advice that you can provide. The pitfalls and legal consequences of poor ethics are far to costly for the average business owner to try to navigate alone. Your expertise and advice could help prevent many of our members from making unethical decisions that could negatively impact on our businesses and reputations. As our speaker for this meeting, we can offer you travel expenses and a $100 honorarium.

Please let me know if you can join us for our October 6 meeting by contacting me in the next week. I can be reached at 1-800-345-6789 or at the email noted at the top of this letterhead. We'd love to have you. I'll be expecting to hear from you by August 1.

Sincerely,