Write a handout by summarizing the material

Persuasive Strategies

Most documents written in the professional workplace are “persuasive documents,” meaning one of the document’s goals is to make the reader feel a certain way about a certain issue. Your resume and cover letter are both examples of persuasive documents—but I bet you’ve always considered them informational documents, right?

Persuading a reader requires a strategic approach.

Common Mistake

Most college writers make a major error in the “approach step” of the writing process when tasked with writing a persuasive document: they fail to view the content, voice, and layout from the perspective of their intended reader. Instead, they package the document in a manner that appeals to them—big mistake.

The author of a persuasive document must consider the knowledge base and prejudices of the intended audience during the “approach step,” specifically during the rhetorical analysis, outlining, and research components.

The author must also be especially cognizant of the reader’s questions (remember, “stream of curiosity?”) as he/she drafts and revises that persuasive document, ensuring the document’s organization and the content’s delivery match the questions felt by the reader.

Knowledge Base

Let’s say you have to teach your roommate about a topic covered during a class session he missed due to illness. You can expect your roommate to know a great deal about the context of the topic; you won’t have to explain much of the background information. Now imagine you’re teaching the same content to your parent; you would have to explain some technical terms—you might even have to start your explanation in a whole different place.

Readers come with differing knowledge bases, which affects what information we include and which information we don’t include. We’ve considered this subject when working on Module 1. But now, you’ll need to carry that same idea into the writing of persuasive documents. Match your document’s organization—especially any explanations--to the knowledge base of your intended readership.

Prejudices

When reading persuasive documents, audiences naturally bring their prejudices. Let’s use as an example a cover letter for a job opening. If the cover letter has punctuation and grammar errors, the reader is likely to assume certain things about the applicant, namely that he or she is sloppy and probably doesn’t take his or her work seriously.

Readers bring their prejudices with them as they consider persuasive documents, and it is the writer’s job to try to anticipate what those prejudices might be and to craft their document in a way that doesn’t provoke those prejudices.

For instance, let’s say that you’ve found a job opening you’re interested in. You research the posting and find that the company prefers people who have internship experience. (Prejudice!) But you don’t have internship experience. What is the strategic move in this case?

Your first instinct might be to write something like, “I don’t have internship experience, but I do have hands-on training from many classroom experiences.” Good thinking; here you are trying to draw attention to how you may meet their qualification for hands-on experience. However, consider how the reader will experience that sentence.

The reader sees “I don’t have internship experience” and thinks: Unqualified. When the reader reads, “I do have hands-on training,” the reader is still feeling the effects of thinking Unqualified. This is an example of prejudice turning a reader against you, despite your best efforts to win that reader over.

A better play when dealing with reader prejudice is to emphasize strengths and deemphasize weaknesses. For instance, you might omit any mention of your internships (the lack thereof). Instead, you might write a whole paragraph about your hands-on experiences, letting the reader come to the conclusion that you have an equivalent “internship-like” experience.

Emphasize the strengths. Deemphasize (or omit!) the weaknesses. Those rules apply on the sentence, paragraph, and document-organization levels.

Reader Questions

In this class, you’ll be writing a proposal to a specific audience. A major part of your job when designing that document, both on the large organizational level and on the paragraph level, is to match the content to that audience’s specific questions.

Let’s say you’re trying to persuade your representatives in student government to allow more concerts on OSU property. The audience is likely to have a question very early on—maybe as soon as they read the title--“What is the problem with the number of concerts we have now?” The smart writer will answer that question when the reader has it, namely upfront in the document.

In this case, student government representatives want their constituency to feel heard and appreciated (represented!); therefore, a smart move might be to articulate how a lack of hip-hop or metal concerts makes students who appreciate those types of music feel under-valued on campus. Such an articulation of the problem is custom built for that specific audience, helping the audience feel connection with the writer. Connection builds persuasion.

Structure your document to answer the questions of your audience as your audience has those questions, and phrase your “answers” in ways that are likely to appeal to the intended audience.

The Take Away

Persuasive documents require a strategic approach that is best summarized as, “Put yourself in your audience’s shoes, and write the document that audience needs to read to be persuaded.”

Consider your audience’s knowledge base, prejudices, and natural questions as you approach, draft, and revise the document.