Here to discuss important topics in professional writing

Monday, December 07, 2009

How to be persuasive in professional writing by Craig Holten

The goal of persuasive writing is to convince the audience to change their decision or get them to agree with your stance on the topic. Examples would be to persuade a decision on a policy or an advertisement for a product. "When writing persuasively, a writer's goal is to challenge the readers' beliefs and, ultimately, move those readers to accept another belief as being more valid than their own." Now the problem is that most persuasive topics are controversial and the readers usually have very strong opinions towards the subject which makes it very hard to change.

In my public speaking class, we had to write and present a persuasive speech. I happened to do mine on changing the legal drinking age from 21 to 18 and it did bring up a little controversy afterwards between the people who despise drinking and the people who actually do drink or just don't have anything against it.

You need to take a firm stance and do an ample amount of research in order to really get your point across in a persuasive piece.

A Winning Argument

Research has found that people accept an argument for one of four reasons:

1. They perceive the writer or speaker as having credibility

2. They are won over by the research and evidence

3. They are convinced by logical reasoning

4. They are moved by emotional appeals.

If a writer can manage to incorporate most or all of the following ideas above, there will be a very good chance that you will convince or persuade your audience to agree with your stance!

I had a blast working with all of you and taking this class in general!

http://articlecomposition.suite101.com/article.cfm/the_art_of_persuasion




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4 comments:

  1. Jamie Zarr12/07/2009 08:41:00 PM

    Good post, again. I have enjoyed reading all your posts. But, I really liked what you said about talking about the drinking age in your speech class. I spoke about that a year ago when I took my speech class, and oh my, the whole class debated about it for 45 minutes.
    Good luck on your finals!

    Jamie Z.

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  2. raphael12/07/2009 11:10:00 PM

    Good post. It is important to do a lot of research and be really sure about the information you are passing in order to be very persuasive. Good luck on your finals.

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  3. josh12/07/2009 11:23:00 PM

    I agree that credibility is a major factor in being persuasive. It is hard to persuade someone if they do not respect you. It was a pleasure working with you on this team project. Good luck with your future writing!

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  4. Heather Tirpak12/08/2009 12:02:00 AM

    Great final post. I like how you again used an example from your experience. It really helps to connect with the audience when you let them know what you’ve been through. I think that the title of your post could have been more eye-catching. Overall I think you wrote a good post, and I have enjoyed working with you on this project. Best of luck with finals.

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