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AS CAREFUL COMMUNICATORS, we plan, draft, and quality control our persuasive documents mindful of motives, methods, and missteps.
We realize the tenuous territory we have entered when presuming to have the power of persuasion. How do we recommend a course of action for our clients or managers without appearing too aggressive? And by recommending anything, do we imply that their ship needs shaping up? Worst of all, how dare we assume that they themselves have not already considered the proposed course of action?
I often tell clients that persuasive writing offers unique challenges in the corporate and journalistic worlds. We know meaning ultimately emerges from the reader. However, creating clear policies, procedures, routine requests, or responses seems far less taxing to us as writers than crafting a high-impact proposal or position paper. With those thoughts in mind, this article describes some helpful ideas to writers seeking to move their readers to act.
Persuasive Motives
In a proposal, we aim to motivate management into action; in a position paper, to inspire a response or further investigation; in a legal analytical brief, to win a judge's ruling on our behalf; in a business plan, to secure funding; in an admissions essay, to gain acceptance into a university program; in an editorial, to persuade our readership into embracing or rejecting a public policy or issue. However, we also need to think about for whom must we strengthen, create, or reverse an opinion. And in doing so, we want to ensure that we address these readers' concerns related to the issue.
We strengthen the opinion of readers inclined to favor our viewpoint but who may lack sufficient information or rhetorical luster to support their position. Why would we bother strengthening the opinion of someone who already agrees with us? Because these readers potentially stand as our greatest allies - if only they had the ammunition to fire away on our behalf. When writing to these readers, we should arm them with as much statistical evidence or research-based opinion as reasonable.
We try to create opinions of readers with limited knowledge on the issue. In most cases, I have found that these readers represent my greatest opportunity. If they have not thought much about the topic or feel indifferent about...