Writing persuasively and analyzing your audience go hand in hand. After all, how can you persuade you audience if you don't know who your audience is?
The Purpose of Persuasion
Just like technical writing, the purpose of persuasive writing is to get someone to do something. You want your audience to do something or believe a certain way. Writers must understand their audience in order to do that. Technical writers do so in a variety of ways. They:
- influence the audience's opinion of something. (People in advertising and speech writers are good at this.)
- tell people how to build, operate, or do something.
Persuasive Strategies
Being persuasive takes a plan and strategy in order to "win" over your audience. I know that there have been some assembly instructions that fail to win me over. I was putting together an entertainment console and the instructions were so poor that I just placed all the parts on the floor and looked at the picture in order to assemble it. The picture was more helpful than the instructions. Those instruction failed to persuade me to follow them. btw-The console is still standing and it has been 5 years.
You can use the following strategies to persuade your audience:
- Emphasize the benefits for the audience (What's in it for them. Use a little pathos here.)
- Alleviate your audience's concerns ("If you follow these instructions, you will enjoy your console for years to come.")
- Appeal to their logic and reasoning (There's logos again.)
- Show your audience that you know what your talking about by presenting them with reliable evidence. (Have to throw ethos
Do you see how you learning modules kind of build on each other and some keep sneaking back in. Well, that isn't an accident.
Using "What's in it for Me"
In order to use this strategy, you must be able to shoe your audience how they will benefit from either doing something, taking a stand, or buying a certain product. The key is you must know/analyze your audience in order for this strategy to work.
Alleviate your audience's concerns
It is always a good strategy for writers to try and predict what the audience's concerns may be in relation to his or her writing.
You should try anticipate any negative reaction or arguments that could may come up in their audience's minds. Then, write something that will provide a counter argument.
Appeal to their logic and reasoning
Logic and sound reasoning are helpful when it comes to persuading your audience. You need to help your audience understand what you're writing about and how it will help them, improve their condition, increase their wealth, etc.
How do you use sound reasoning? Well, you must use those appeals of logic/logos that I covered about in an earlier learning module. (Good time to review if you don't remember.)
Organize Your Way to Persuading Your Audience
It is not only the amount and variety of information that is important in your persuasive writing, but also the way you present that information as well. To write persuasively, you must organize your information in a way that the audience will be able to process that information. If not, you will lose your audience.
Choose the Right Voice
Remember in the beginning of class when I talked about voice and how most people have their own "voice" when it comes to writing. In most of your composition classes, you have been encouraged to "find your voice" and write in it. Now, I telling you in order to be persuasive, you need to choose a style of writing and the correct voice. Confused? Don't be, because I'm going to explain.
If you write a letter to your parents, friends, or siblings, anyone who know you well, if you assume an authoritative voice, they will resent it and the communication will not be persuasive.
You want your audience to accept what your saying, not be turned off by it because of the voice and tone you are taking.
You Must Establish Credibility and Rapport
What's that word again? ETHOS! Your audience must believe that you are a credible source for what it is you're writing about. If your audience does not perceive you are being an "expert" or "credible" writer, no matter how much of an expert you are, they will not accept what you are saying. If they do not believe you, they will not be persuaded.
Exercise: Find a persuasive message of one to two pages each in length (e.g., political speech, reports, articles, etc.). Then do the following:
1. Identify the writer's objective(s).
2. Determine whether or not the writer used any persuasive strategies. If so,:
o What are they?
o Did they work well? Explain
o Would you use different strategies? Explain
3. Comment on the "voice" that the writer used> Explain whether you believe they were appropriate with their choice of voice.
4. Do you find the piece persuasive? Explain.
The response should be a page (ish).