English 101
Worksheet for the Problem/Solution essay
10 points
Due: Tuesday 5/19
Instructions: Answer the following questions in as much detail as possible. You can handwrite
on this sheet, or you can type your answers in the Word document available online, in the Unit 3
module.
1. What is the problem that your essay will propose a solution for?
2. What community or group does this problem affect?
3. Who is your audience for this piece of writing? Why do you want to address this
particular audience?
4. Why will your audience care about this topic? If they don’t already care, why should they
care?
5. What solution are you proposing?
6. What kind of publication or presentation is suitable for what you have to say? That is,
will your paper be a letter to the editor of a particular paper, an extended blog entry, a
speech, an article in a paper or on a website...
7. How will you have to style your writing to reach this particular audience? What will get
their attention? What don’t they know that you will have to explain? What kind of
vocabulary will engage them?
8. How might your audience disagree with you? Think of all the ways they might argue
with your points.
(over)
9. How might you address or accommodate their arguments?
10. How might this problem and the solution you provide be relevant to people outside this
community? How might others outside the community learn from this? Can the method
of solving the problem be applied to other situations?