OUTLINE
I. Introduction
a. Text type: News blog on The Telegraph, a British news website
b. Speaker: Kara Gammell
c. Thesis: Text I is a blog post on a reliable website called The Telegraph in
which the writer aim is to persuade the target audience to buy insurance
before it’s too late.
II. Body Paragraph 1:
a. Speaker: Kara Gammell, a finance reporter from The Telegraph
a. Sponsor: The Telegraph, a well-known British news report website
b. Person point of view: Switching between first person and second
person.
b. Occasion:
a. Time: 03 Dec 2012 @7:00 AM
b. Place: UK
i. The Telegraph is a UK website and use of pounds for money
III. Body Paragraph 2:
a. Audience: Educated middle class or higher British people, target
specifically on women
c. Evidence: “These days, many women of the house…” and “female life
insurance rates have increased by as much as 20pc.”  warn women
to buy insurance before the price is too high rather than men
c. Purpose: To inform audience about good life insurance plan and persuade
them to buy life insurance even if they don’t want to think about death yet.
d. Tone: enthusiastic (about the topic), friendly but also serious
IV. Body Paragraph 3:
a. Structure: separating the blog post into two main subjects. Having
sub-topic.
b. Use of short paragraph  reader tend to have short span of attention
 makes it easier for the reader to read and understand
c. Chronological order  get deeper into detail chronologically in case
some audience don’t have enough time to read the whole thing.
V. Body Paragraph 4:
a. Use of real quote from a trusting source
a. Evidence: A quote from Ian Hughes, chief executive of Consumer
intelligence
b. Site sources to appeal to ethos
a. Evidence: “In fact, when you look at figures from Brewin Dolphon
which show two in three people die without a will…”
c. Provide statistics  again appealing to ethos
a. “Especially when you consider the face that one-in-20 children lose a
parent before they are finished full-time education.”
d. Use of bold front to highlight main idea
a. “female life insurance rates have increased by as much as 20 pc.”
b. “insurance”
c. “A grim reality”
e. Metaphor and jargon
a. “women of the house are the breadwinner”
 Use of metaphor: comparing women of the house with
breadwinner. Also a cultural jargon towards the British people.
b. “…putting our heads in the sand”  metaphor. Using this phrase to
represent people who try to ignore or hide the facts that they don’t
want to face.
VI. Conclusion
a. The speaker, Kara Gammell, was able to gain the audience ethos by using
statistics and quote from profession to achieve her purpose of informing the
audience about life insurance and persuade them to buy insurance now rather than
waiting.
Paper 1 Essay:
Text 1 is a blog post by Kara Gammell published on a well-known British website in
2012, The Telegraph, about the topic of life insurance. The writer uses several
stylistic features to appeal to the audience ethos in order to inform them about life
insurance and persuade them to buy insurance before it is too late.
The speaker of this text as stated above is Kara Gammel who is a finance reporter
from The Telegraph. Kara Gammel chooses to switch between the use of first person
point of view and second person point of view to make the tone of the post more
friendly and inviting. For example, she starts the post of second person point of view
by saying that “it may surprise you to know that many don’t have life insurance in
place…” while she quickly switches to first person in the second paragraph by
stating “I know that most of us don’t like to think about dying as it is too
depressing”. By using a mix of both person points of view, the audience feel as if
they were talking to their friends or colleague, someone they can trust and who care
about their future. It is clearly seen that the text was published online on December
3, 2012 at 7 a.m. for blog post often include detailed account about the time
published under the title of the blog post. The setting of the blog post is world wide
as websites are universal.
Having said that the setting of the post was world wide, the targeted audiences are
however specifically educated British people who’re able to read and who have
enough money to be able to pay for insurance. Evidence that support that the
targeted audience are women in UK includes the use of pound for money and the
mentioning of women throughout the text such as “…many women of the house are
the breadwinner” and “…female life insurance rate have increased by as much as
20pc.” The purpose of text 1 is to inform audience about good life insurance plan
and persuade them to buy life insurance even if they don’t want to think about death
yet. The tone of this text is enthusiastic and friendly but also serious. The speaker
shows her enthusiasm and interest in the topic of insurance in order to be able to
persuade the audience into buying insurance. The friendly but serious tone also
serve the purpose well as friendliness help the audience connects better with the
speaker, therefore a trust bond are made and the seriousness makes the topic
relevant, showing that insurance is a serious topic that have to be taken care of.
The structure of the text was divided into two main points, where the first points
focuses on the general information about insurance and the second sub-point
focuses on the “grim reality” of life and how it could be fix through good insurance
plan. The speaker also chooses to use short paragraphs for readers now a day tend
to have short span of attention. In order for the audience to keep their focus on the
topic of life insurance, the speaker makes it easier for the audience to read and
understand by breaking it up into short sentences and paragraphs. The text was also
presented in a chronological order where the first few sentences explain a broader
concept of life insurance and get deeper into detail towards the end. This makes it
easier for the audience to absorb in all the new information and help audiences
who’ve never came across the word insurance to understand the concept before
moving into details.
Other stylistic features include the use of quote, statistics, font, jargon and
metaphor. The use of real quote from a trusting source such as a quote from Ian
Hughes, a chief executive of Consumer intelligence makes the text more trustworthy
and is therefore a better blog post as its purpose is to inform and persuade
audiences. The text further appeals to the audience ethos through the use of
statistics and citation. For example, Kara Gammell states in the blog, “In fact, when
you look at figures from Brewin Dolphon which show two in three people die
without a will…” and “Especially when you consider the face that one-in-20 children
lose a parent before they are finished full-time education.” Some words or phrase
was also bolded in order to highlight the main idea of the text such as the word
“insurance” and the phrase “female life insurance rates have increased by as much
as 20 pc.” Furthermore, the blog post starts with a cultural jargon that only people
from the UK could understand by mentioning about how “women of the house are
the breadwinner”. This is also an example of metaphor as the speaker is comparing
women of the house with breadwinner. But since not all readers understand what
breadwinner is, it does not have powerful effect towards audiences out of UK. This
leads back to support the fact that the targeted audience of this text type is educated
British people. Another metaphor that is presented in this text is “…putting out
heads in the sand”. In this metaphor, the speaker uses this phrase to represent
people who try to ignore or hide from the truth that they don’t want to face such as
the topic of death. The use of metaphors helps the audience have a better
understanding of the picture and a better effect towards the audience emotion
towards themselves. From this metaphor, some audiences that have been hiding
their heads in the sand may starts to understand and therefore raise their heads up
and face the truth. This again ties back into the purpose of the blog post.
The speaker, Kara Gammell, was able to gain the audience ethos by using statistics,
quotes and other stylistic features to achieve her purpose of informing the audience
about life insurance and persuading them to buy insurance now before it’s too late.