Reference no: EM132206621

Persona and Tone: Rhetorical Square Exercise

You and your friend decide to really splurge and go to an exclusive, expensive restaurant for an elegant meal. After careful consideration and some research of restaurant reviews in Sacramento Magazine, you choose a place and make a reservation. All dressed up in your finest clothes, you arrive promptly at 8:00 p.m. (your reservation time), but you end up waiting 25 minutes to be seated even though the restaurant isn’t crowded.

Once the hostess finally appears and seats you, you wait another 20 minutes before a bus person approaches your table with bread and water. As he goes to place a glass of water on the table, it slips out of his hand, and the cold water spills on your new silk dress/shirt. The bus person apologizes profusely, disappears to get a towel to wipe up the water, but never returns. You see several waiters standing around, seemingly idle, but none come to your table.

After another 15 minutes, a waiter appears to take your order. She neglects to tell you the evening’s specials but does inform you that since you are ordering so late, the kitchen has run out of the dish you intended to order. You wait another 30 minutes for wilted salads to arrive; there is too much vinegary salad dressing on them, plus your companion had ordered soup.

After another 45 minutes, your entrees arrive. The waiter must be reminded who ordered what. The entrees are cold and crusted on the top of the food; they have obviously been sitting around for some time. Within five minutes of being served, the waiter presents you with a check for $92.00 and reminds you that the restaurant will be closing in 10 minutes.

You can’t believe all that has happened! When you get home, you sit down to write about your experience.

Choose any two of the voices below and write two letters, one in each of your chosen voices. Label your letters and upload them in the same document.

1. Angry Voice – you are really mad and decide to write to the restaurant critic who gave this place a 5-star review to let him know what happened to you.

2. Humorous Voice – you decide to make a joke out of it and write to a close friend to tell him/her about your evening.

3. Pitiful Voice – things like this happen to you all of the time, so what’s new. You write to your sympathetic mother/father who will feel sorry for you and send you the $92.00.

4. Sarcastic Voice – you decide to write to the waiter and let him know what you think of his “skill” as well as that of his fellow employees.

5. Concerned Voice – you are sincerely concerned that business is conducted in this manner, so you write to the restaurant owner to let him know what happened with the hope that he will make changes to improve the service at his establishment.