What Is Persuasion?
Persuasion is the act of getting a sentient being other than yourself to adopt a particular belief or pursue a particular action. This tutorial will teach you how to excel at doing just that. Our examples will assume a variety of different specific circumstances, but the principles we present will be applicable in a myriad of situations. Whether you're trying to persuade a pseudo-intellectual that his political beliefs are, in fact, as savory as unwashed socks, or whether you're trying to persuade a vicious dog to please kindly release your coccyx, the techniques of persuasion you must employ are fundamentally the same.To be persuasive, you must make use of a number of different tactics. The more you can utilize in conjunction with each other, the more persuasive your argument will be. We will start by isolating and identifying each of the different techniques, and then we'll show how they can be used together in a single compelling argument. You persuade a man [or woman] only insofar as you can talk his language by speech, gesture, tonality, order, image, attitude, idea, identifying your ways with his or her.
Is Persuasion a Good Thing?
Persuasion is ethical when you are:
Influencing your reader by providing information and aiding understanding and trusting your reader to choose.
Being truthful and non-deceptive.
Backing your claims with evidence.
What is Message?
Any notice, word, or communication, written or verbal, sent from one person to another.
OR
In computer systems in general, a message is an information unit that the system sends back to the user or system operator with information about the status of an operation, an error, or other condition.
what is persuasive message?
A request for action when you believe the receiver may be-unaware, disinterested, or unwilling.
OR
A communication to try to change the opinion of a receiver.
A persuasive message is one that is designed to convince someone to do something. The purpose is to persuade or convince. An example would be the use of advertisements in magazines or on television. The advertiser wants consumers to buy their products. You can get things done by other people two ways, by telling them what to do, or getting them to do what needs to be done. Persuasive manner refers to the later part where you get people to do something without forcing them to do it, yet you gently tug them towards what needs to be done. It is more art than science.
Persuasive manner in some senses appeals to your human side than to the external aspect of the goal or work. You connect with the other human being and understand what they want and then tie this with what needs to be done and things get done without anybody feeling pressured.
Planning the Persuasive Message
•Analyze your receiver. Identify the receiver’s motivators his or her goals, values, and needs.
•Use the you-viewpoint. Stress the receiver’s interests and benefits.
Primary Purposes of Persuasive Messages
•To get the receiver to read or listen to the entire message.
•To have the receiver take the requested action.
How are they written?
In business the most important skill is communication. In an environment where ideas are the business, it is important to be able to communicate those ideas effectively. However, the most important piece of is the persuasive message. This is because most of the messages you send in the business world will be persuasive in some manner.
The Planning Process
There are certain steps you need to follow in order to plan an effective persuasive message. In fact, planning is the first step in creating effectively persuasive messages. If you don’t plan your persuasive message you can easily loose track of your audience and your goals. In planning an effective persuasive message you should first have an objective. This is the goal of the message and very important to keep you on track. Next, you need to target your audience. Who are you hoping to persuade? When you are finished coming up with your goals and your audience it is time to gather your information. What do you know about your target audience? Organize the information in a format that you can understand. Lists actually are simple forms of organization. Start listing age, gender, nationality, or any other traits that your target audience encompasses. This will help you write your effective persuasive message.
The Creative Process
An effective persuasive message will provide answers before the questions have even been asked. In addition, effective persuasive messages will attract attention, build interest, and encourage desire. The overall message will entice the reader to perform some action. This is the ultimate goal of your message.
Now, the beginning of your message should grab your audience’s attention. You can’t persuade anyone to action if you can’t persuade them to read the rest of the message. Some items that may grab attention include an open ended question, a statement that your audience agrees with, a compliment and a lot of others. This is where you will use the information you gathered about your audience earlier. Now, let me give you a couple examples of open ended questions that will help create an effective persuasive message. My goal here is to get individuals to donate to my charity. “What would you do if you had a million dollars?” Now, this statement does not ask mention anything about donating. In fact, it doesn’t even seem to be tied in yet. However, it does provoke thought and grabs attention. I would personally follow up with a statement such as, “Luckily, you don’t have to be a millionaire to help find a cure for cancer.” An agreeable statement can also grab attention without giving away your message. “Cancer is a horribly painful disease to suffer from.” This sentence grabs attention by stating something your reader is sure to agree with.
Another attention grabber that can create an effective persuasive message is the compliment. An example of this might be the following statement. “We would like to thank Hartford Real estate for being one of the most thoughtful and caring businesses in Oklahoma.” This attention grabber needs some follow up but is a great way to introduce the message. Now, it is time to explain the benefits. This process should be implemented with your audience in mind so that your end product will be an effective persuasive message. There are two ways to incorporate benefits. There are direct benefits and indirect benefits. Direct benefits for donating money for cancer research may include the fact that the patron receives a plaque saying they donated to your cancer research fund. An indirect or implied benefit may include a statement such as, “With your help we will be one step closer to a cure for cancer.” You should include at least one or two direct benefits. Now, it is time for your request. This is conveniently positioned after your statement of benefits to help you create an effective persuasive message. This will allow you to build up there interest so that, by this point, they should be asking for the request. “How can I help cure Cancer?” Right after the request you will want to recap the benefits again. This reminds them of why they are going to go through with it. To end the effective persuasive message you will want to use a friendly statement that gives a date that you would like to have some action occur. This might be contacting you by a certain date, or reserving a spot by a certain date, or letting you know they received your invitation by a certain date. Adding the date gives it urgency and ensures that the message does not end up in a procrastination pile with so many other messages. Now, a couple of ways to ensure the effectiveness of your message will be the language you use and the type of appeals you incorporate. You want to be specific and use concrete language. “We treat 3,000 people every year.” The 3,000 makes this statement more profound and concrete. In addition, you will want to use descriptive language like the sentence used earlier. “Cancer is a horribly painful disease to suffer from.” In addition, you will want to use emotional and rational appeals. That means you want to appeal to their emotional side with statements about helping to cure cancer. However, at the same time you want to give them cold, hard facts about treating 3,000 patients each year. It is also imperative for you to address the readers concerns. This is another place where your planning comes in handy since your audience can not ask you questions when you are writing. However, they will be asking these questions while they are reading and you should do your best to anticipate and address these questions. This advice along with the rest of the tips will ensure that your message is effective in its persuasion.
Using the Three-Step Writing Process for Persuasive Messages
Persuasion is the attempt to influence the attitudes, beliefs, or actions of members of your audience.
Following the three-step writing process helps you make your persuasive messages more effective.
Persuasive messages differ from routine positive messages in numerous ways:
They target audiences who are inclined to resist
They are generally longer
They are usually more detailed
They often depend heavily on strategic planning
When planning persuasive messages (Step 1), you
Analyze your purpose
Analyze your audience and gauge their needs
Establish your credibility
Make sure your ethics are above reproach
When analyzing your purpose, keep in mind that
People in your audience are busy and reluctant to do something different
Competing requests are plentiful
When analyzing your audience, you need to
Gauge audience needs
Consider cultural differences
To assess audience needs, take into account
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: Determine your audience’s level of needs (physiological, safety and security, social, esteem and status, self-actualization).
Demographics: Determine the age, gender, occupation, income, and education of your audience members.
Psychographics: Determine the personality, attitudes, and lifestyle of your audience members.
Because the process of persuasion is different in different cultures, understanding culture
Helps you satisfy your audience’s needs
Helps you earn your audience’s respect
Organizational culture also heavily influences your message’s effectiveness:
When you accept and use your organization’s traditions, you establish one type of common ground with your internal audience.When you reject (or never learn) these traditions, you damage both your credibility and your persuasion attempts.
To persuade a skeptical or hostile audience, you must establish your credibility—your capability of being believed because you’re reliable and worthy of confidence.
Some of the best ways to gain credibility include
Supporting your message with facts
Naming your sources
Being an expert
Establishing common ground
Being enthusiastic
Being objective
Being sincere
Being trustworthy
Having good intentions
Because the concept of persuasion is often associated with dishonesty and unethical practices, you must strive for high ethical standards to overcome this stigma.
The best businesspeople make persuasion a positive activity, influencing the members of their audience by
Providing information and aiding understanding
Allowing them the freedom to choose
Informing them of the benefits of an idea, a product, a donation, or an action
To persuade without manipulating, you must
Choose words that won’t be misinterpreted
Be sure you don’t distort the truth
Adopt the “you” attitude by showing your honest concern for audience members’ needs and interests
In the writing stage, you need to
Define your main idea
Limit the scope of your message
Group your points in a meaningful way
Choose the direct or the indirect approach
Most persuasive messages use the indirect approach to explain reasons and build interest before revealing the purpose.
Use the direct approach if
Audience members are objective
You know your audience prefers the “bottom line” first
Your corporate culture encourages directness
Your message is long or complex
If you use the direct approach, you still need to include at least a brief justification or explanation of your reasons.
Your choice of the direct or the indirect approach also depends on the amount of your authority, expertise, or power in an organization.
When completing persuasive messages, you must make sure that you
Judge your argument objectively
Seriously appraise your credibility
Carefully match the purpose and organization to audience needs
Design your message to complement your argument
Choose a delivery method that fits your audience’s expectations
Proofread for any mechanical or spelling errors that would weaken your argument
Sending Persuasive Messages
In persuasive messages, you must communicate your main idea and reasons, but you must also motivate your audience to do something.Finding the right balance between emotional and logical appeals depends on four factors:
The actions you wish to motivate
Your reader’s expectations
The degree of resistance you must overcome
How far you feel empowered to go to sell your point of view
Lean toward logic and keep your emotional appeal subtle when you want someone to
Accept a complex idea
Take a serious step
Make an important decision
Rely a bit more heavily on emotion when you want someone to
Purchase a product
Join a cause
Make a donation
An emotional appeal calls on human feelings, basing the argument on audience needs or sympathies.
Make subtle emotional appeals by using the emotion surrounding certain words to help your audience accept your message.Remember that people need to find rational support for an attitude they’ve already embraced emotionally; therefore, to be truly effective, emotional appeals must be accompanied by logical appeals.A logical appeal calls on human reason, basing an argument on making a claim and then supporting that claim with reasons or evidence.
When using logical appeals, you might use three types of reasoning:
Analogy: Reasoning from specific evidence to specific evidence
Induction: Reasoning from specific evidence to a general conclusion
Deduction: Reasoning from a generalization to a specific conclusion
When framing a persuasive argument, effective businesspeople use the AIDA plan:
Attention: Your opening does more than simply serve as a buffer; it grabs audience attention.
Interest: Your explanation does more than present reasons; it incites the interest of your audience.
Desire: Your continued explanation does more than present benefits; it changes your audience’s attitude.
Action: Your close does more than end on a positive note; it emphasizes reader benefits and motivates readers to take specific action.
When using the AIDA plan, you can
Use either the indirect or the direct approach
Make subject lines interesting without revealing your proposal
Concentrate your efforts on achieving your primary goal
When preparing persuasive requests, be sure to
Keep your request within bounds
Highlight both the direct and the indirect benefits of fulfilling the request
When writing persuasive requests for action, you want to
Begin with an attention-getting device (showing readers you know something of their concerns)
Consider including a flattering comment (as long as it’s sincere)
Give facts, explain benefits, and enhance your appeal in the interest and desire sections.
Gain credibility for you and your request
Convince your readers that helping you will help solve a significant problem
Avoid asking readers to do all your work for you
Close with a request for some specific action
When requesting a favor, you
Use the direct approach for a routine favor
Use persuasive techniques for a special favor
The goal of a persuasive claim is to convince someone to make an adjustment in your favor, not just to get a complaint off your chest.
Key ingredients of a good persuasive claim are
A complete and specific review of the facts
A confident and positive tone
When writing persuasive claims and requests for adjustment, you want to Begin by stating the basic problem
Include a statement that both you and your audience can agree with
Be specific about what you want to happen
Give your reader a good reason for granting your claim
Show how your audience is responsible for the problem
Appeal to your readers’ sense of fair play, goodwill, or moral responsibility
Tell your audience how you feel about the problem without getting carried away
Make sure your request is calm and reasonable
State your request specifically and confidently
Make your request proceed logically from the problem and facts you’ve explained
Specify a deadline for action
Remind your audience of the main benefit of granting your claim
An example of a persuasive message?
1010 Firtree Lane
Corvallis, OR 97330
(541) 555-9309
January 14, 1995
Dr. Benjamin More
Department of History
Oregon State University
Bexell Hall
Corvallis, OR 97333
Dear Dr. More,
I am writing to request a letter of recommendation. I hope that you remember me. My name is Eliza Doolittle, and I was a student in four of your classes: HIST 314, Spring 1993; HIST 448, Fall 1994; HIST 432, Winter 1994; and HIST 449, Spring 1994.
My final class project for HIST 449, History of Medicine, was a 30 page paper entitled,
"Medical History: The Germ Theory Enlightens a Dark Medical Past." My paper received an A from you, and it was published in the college journal, Prism, that year. At the time, you suggested that I might consider a career in the writing or publishing fields.
Well, the time has come for me to follow your suggestions. I have applied for an editorial
position with the McGovern/Hill Publishing Company in Chicago. The company has asked me to supply them with three letters of recommendation. I would appreciate it if you could write one for me.
McGraw/Hill wishes to know the conditions under which you knew me, your understanding of my aptitude for writing, my qualifications to edit the work of others, my leadership abilities, and anything else you feel pertinent. I have enclosed a copy of my resume to help you write the letter.
McGraw/Hill would like the letter by the end of the month as I have an interview scheduled for the first week of February. If you would, please send it to the following person and address:
Betty Butler
Human Resources Department
McGraw/Hill Publishing Company
One Research Park West
Chicago, IL 55555
Thank you very much for your attention to this matter, and I sincerely appreciate your efforts on my behalf.
Sincerely,
Eliza Doolittle
Enc: Resume
Persuasion is the act of getting a sentient being other than yourself to adopt a particular belief or pursue a particular action. This tutorial will teach you how to excel at doing just that. Our examples will assume a variety of different specific circumstances, but the principles we present will be applicable in a myriad of situations. Whether you're trying to persuade a pseudo-intellectual that his political beliefs are, in fact, as savory as unwashed socks, or whether you're trying to persuade a vicious dog to please kindly release your coccyx, the techniques of persuasion you must employ are fundamentally the same.To be persuasive, you must make use of a number of different tactics. The more you can utilize in conjunction with each other, the more persuasive your argument will be. We will start by isolating and identifying each of the different techniques, and then we'll show how they can be used together in a single compelling argument. You persuade a man [or woman] only insofar as you can talk his language by speech, gesture, tonality, order, image, attitude, idea, identifying your ways with his or her.
Is Persuasion a Good Thing?
Persuasion is ethical when you are:
Influencing your reader by providing information and aiding understanding and trusting your reader to choose.
Being truthful and non-deceptive.
Backing your claims with evidence.
What is Message?
Any notice, word, or communication, written or verbal, sent from one person to another.
OR
In computer systems in general, a message is an information unit that the system sends back to the user or system operator with information about the status of an operation, an error, or other condition.
what is persuasive message?
A request for action when you believe the receiver may be-unaware, disinterested, or unwilling.
OR
A communication to try to change the opinion of a receiver.
A persuasive message is one that is designed to convince someone to do something. The purpose is to persuade or convince. An example would be the use of advertisements in magazines or on television. The advertiser wants consumers to buy their products. You can get things done by other people two ways, by telling them what to do, or getting them to do what needs to be done. Persuasive manner refers to the later part where you get people to do something without forcing them to do it, yet you gently tug them towards what needs to be done. It is more art than science.
Persuasive manner in some senses appeals to your human side than to the external aspect of the goal or work. You connect with the other human being and understand what they want and then tie this with what needs to be done and things get done without anybody feeling pressured.
Planning the Persuasive Message
•Analyze your receiver. Identify the receiver’s motivators his or her goals, values, and needs.
•Use the you-viewpoint. Stress the receiver’s interests and benefits.
Primary Purposes of Persuasive Messages
•To get the receiver to read or listen to the entire message.
•To have the receiver take the requested action.
How are they written?
In business the most important skill is communication. In an environment where ideas are the business, it is important to be able to communicate those ideas effectively. However, the most important piece of is the persuasive message. This is because most of the messages you send in the business world will be persuasive in some manner.
The Planning Process
There are certain steps you need to follow in order to plan an effective persuasive message. In fact, planning is the first step in creating effectively persuasive messages. If you don’t plan your persuasive message you can easily loose track of your audience and your goals. In planning an effective persuasive message you should first have an objective. This is the goal of the message and very important to keep you on track. Next, you need to target your audience. Who are you hoping to persuade? When you are finished coming up with your goals and your audience it is time to gather your information. What do you know about your target audience? Organize the information in a format that you can understand. Lists actually are simple forms of organization. Start listing age, gender, nationality, or any other traits that your target audience encompasses. This will help you write your effective persuasive message.
The Creative Process
An effective persuasive message will provide answers before the questions have even been asked. In addition, effective persuasive messages will attract attention, build interest, and encourage desire. The overall message will entice the reader to perform some action. This is the ultimate goal of your message.
Now, the beginning of your message should grab your audience’s attention. You can’t persuade anyone to action if you can’t persuade them to read the rest of the message. Some items that may grab attention include an open ended question, a statement that your audience agrees with, a compliment and a lot of others. This is where you will use the information you gathered about your audience earlier. Now, let me give you a couple examples of open ended questions that will help create an effective persuasive message. My goal here is to get individuals to donate to my charity. “What would you do if you had a million dollars?” Now, this statement does not ask mention anything about donating. In fact, it doesn’t even seem to be tied in yet. However, it does provoke thought and grabs attention. I would personally follow up with a statement such as, “Luckily, you don’t have to be a millionaire to help find a cure for cancer.” An agreeable statement can also grab attention without giving away your message. “Cancer is a horribly painful disease to suffer from.” This sentence grabs attention by stating something your reader is sure to agree with.
Another attention grabber that can create an effective persuasive message is the compliment. An example of this might be the following statement. “We would like to thank Hartford Real estate for being one of the most thoughtful and caring businesses in Oklahoma.” This attention grabber needs some follow up but is a great way to introduce the message. Now, it is time to explain the benefits. This process should be implemented with your audience in mind so that your end product will be an effective persuasive message. There are two ways to incorporate benefits. There are direct benefits and indirect benefits. Direct benefits for donating money for cancer research may include the fact that the patron receives a plaque saying they donated to your cancer research fund. An indirect or implied benefit may include a statement such as, “With your help we will be one step closer to a cure for cancer.” You should include at least one or two direct benefits. Now, it is time for your request. This is conveniently positioned after your statement of benefits to help you create an effective persuasive message. This will allow you to build up there interest so that, by this point, they should be asking for the request. “How can I help cure Cancer?” Right after the request you will want to recap the benefits again. This reminds them of why they are going to go through with it. To end the effective persuasive message you will want to use a friendly statement that gives a date that you would like to have some action occur. This might be contacting you by a certain date, or reserving a spot by a certain date, or letting you know they received your invitation by a certain date. Adding the date gives it urgency and ensures that the message does not end up in a procrastination pile with so many other messages. Now, a couple of ways to ensure the effectiveness of your message will be the language you use and the type of appeals you incorporate. You want to be specific and use concrete language. “We treat 3,000 people every year.” The 3,000 makes this statement more profound and concrete. In addition, you will want to use descriptive language like the sentence used earlier. “Cancer is a horribly painful disease to suffer from.” In addition, you will want to use emotional and rational appeals. That means you want to appeal to their emotional side with statements about helping to cure cancer. However, at the same time you want to give them cold, hard facts about treating 3,000 patients each year. It is also imperative for you to address the readers concerns. This is another place where your planning comes in handy since your audience can not ask you questions when you are writing. However, they will be asking these questions while they are reading and you should do your best to anticipate and address these questions. This advice along with the rest of the tips will ensure that your message is effective in its persuasion.
Using the Three-Step Writing Process for Persuasive Messages
Persuasion is the attempt to influence the attitudes, beliefs, or actions of members of your audience.
Following the three-step writing process helps you make your persuasive messages more effective.
Persuasive messages differ from routine positive messages in numerous ways:
They target audiences who are inclined to resist
They are generally longer
They are usually more detailed
They often depend heavily on strategic planning
When planning persuasive messages (Step 1), you
Analyze your purpose
Analyze your audience and gauge their needs
Establish your credibility
Make sure your ethics are above reproach
When analyzing your purpose, keep in mind that
People in your audience are busy and reluctant to do something different
Competing requests are plentiful
When analyzing your audience, you need to
Gauge audience needs
Consider cultural differences
To assess audience needs, take into account
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: Determine your audience’s level of needs (physiological, safety and security, social, esteem and status, self-actualization).
Demographics: Determine the age, gender, occupation, income, and education of your audience members.
Psychographics: Determine the personality, attitudes, and lifestyle of your audience members.
Because the process of persuasion is different in different cultures, understanding culture
Helps you satisfy your audience’s needs
Helps you earn your audience’s respect
Organizational culture also heavily influences your message’s effectiveness:
When you accept and use your organization’s traditions, you establish one type of common ground with your internal audience.When you reject (or never learn) these traditions, you damage both your credibility and your persuasion attempts.
To persuade a skeptical or hostile audience, you must establish your credibility—your capability of being believed because you’re reliable and worthy of confidence.
Some of the best ways to gain credibility include
Supporting your message with facts
Naming your sources
Being an expert
Establishing common ground
Being enthusiastic
Being objective
Being sincere
Being trustworthy
Having good intentions
Because the concept of persuasion is often associated with dishonesty and unethical practices, you must strive for high ethical standards to overcome this stigma.
The best businesspeople make persuasion a positive activity, influencing the members of their audience by
Providing information and aiding understanding
Allowing them the freedom to choose
Informing them of the benefits of an idea, a product, a donation, or an action
To persuade without manipulating, you must
Choose words that won’t be misinterpreted
Be sure you don’t distort the truth
Adopt the “you” attitude by showing your honest concern for audience members’ needs and interests
In the writing stage, you need to
Define your main idea
Limit the scope of your message
Group your points in a meaningful way
Choose the direct or the indirect approach
Most persuasive messages use the indirect approach to explain reasons and build interest before revealing the purpose.
Use the direct approach if
Audience members are objective
You know your audience prefers the “bottom line” first
Your corporate culture encourages directness
Your message is long or complex
If you use the direct approach, you still need to include at least a brief justification or explanation of your reasons.
Your choice of the direct or the indirect approach also depends on the amount of your authority, expertise, or power in an organization.
When completing persuasive messages, you must make sure that you
Judge your argument objectively
Seriously appraise your credibility
Carefully match the purpose and organization to audience needs
Design your message to complement your argument
Choose a delivery method that fits your audience’s expectations
Proofread for any mechanical or spelling errors that would weaken your argument
Sending Persuasive Messages
In persuasive messages, you must communicate your main idea and reasons, but you must also motivate your audience to do something.Finding the right balance between emotional and logical appeals depends on four factors:
The actions you wish to motivate
Your reader’s expectations
The degree of resistance you must overcome
How far you feel empowered to go to sell your point of view
Lean toward logic and keep your emotional appeal subtle when you want someone to
Accept a complex idea
Take a serious step
Make an important decision
Rely a bit more heavily on emotion when you want someone to
Purchase a product
Join a cause
Make a donation
An emotional appeal calls on human feelings, basing the argument on audience needs or sympathies.
Make subtle emotional appeals by using the emotion surrounding certain words to help your audience accept your message.Remember that people need to find rational support for an attitude they’ve already embraced emotionally; therefore, to be truly effective, emotional appeals must be accompanied by logical appeals.A logical appeal calls on human reason, basing an argument on making a claim and then supporting that claim with reasons or evidence.
When using logical appeals, you might use three types of reasoning:
Analogy: Reasoning from specific evidence to specific evidence
Induction: Reasoning from specific evidence to a general conclusion
Deduction: Reasoning from a generalization to a specific conclusion
When framing a persuasive argument, effective businesspeople use the AIDA plan:
Attention: Your opening does more than simply serve as a buffer; it grabs audience attention.
Interest: Your explanation does more than present reasons; it incites the interest of your audience.
Desire: Your continued explanation does more than present benefits; it changes your audience’s attitude.
Action: Your close does more than end on a positive note; it emphasizes reader benefits and motivates readers to take specific action.
When using the AIDA plan, you can
Use either the indirect or the direct approach
Make subject lines interesting without revealing your proposal
Concentrate your efforts on achieving your primary goal
When preparing persuasive requests, be sure to
Keep your request within bounds
Highlight both the direct and the indirect benefits of fulfilling the request
When writing persuasive requests for action, you want to
Begin with an attention-getting device (showing readers you know something of their concerns)
Consider including a flattering comment (as long as it’s sincere)
Give facts, explain benefits, and enhance your appeal in the interest and desire sections.
Gain credibility for you and your request
Convince your readers that helping you will help solve a significant problem
Avoid asking readers to do all your work for you
Close with a request for some specific action
When requesting a favor, you
Use the direct approach for a routine favor
Use persuasive techniques for a special favor
The goal of a persuasive claim is to convince someone to make an adjustment in your favor, not just to get a complaint off your chest.
Key ingredients of a good persuasive claim are
A complete and specific review of the facts
A confident and positive tone
When writing persuasive claims and requests for adjustment, you want to Begin by stating the basic problem
Include a statement that both you and your audience can agree with
Be specific about what you want to happen
Give your reader a good reason for granting your claim
Show how your audience is responsible for the problem
Appeal to your readers’ sense of fair play, goodwill, or moral responsibility
Tell your audience how you feel about the problem without getting carried away
Make sure your request is calm and reasonable
State your request specifically and confidently
Make your request proceed logically from the problem and facts you’ve explained
Specify a deadline for action
Remind your audience of the main benefit of granting your claim
An example of a persuasive message?
1010 Firtree Lane
Corvallis, OR 97330
(541) 555-9309
January 14, 1995
Dr. Benjamin More
Department of History
Oregon State University
Bexell Hall
Corvallis, OR 97333
Dear Dr. More,
I am writing to request a letter of recommendation. I hope that you remember me. My name is Eliza Doolittle, and I was a student in four of your classes: HIST 314, Spring 1993; HIST 448, Fall 1994; HIST 432, Winter 1994; and HIST 449, Spring 1994.
My final class project for HIST 449, History of Medicine, was a 30 page paper entitled,
"Medical History: The Germ Theory Enlightens a Dark Medical Past." My paper received an A from you, and it was published in the college journal, Prism, that year. At the time, you suggested that I might consider a career in the writing or publishing fields.
Well, the time has come for me to follow your suggestions. I have applied for an editorial
position with the McGovern/Hill Publishing Company in Chicago. The company has asked me to supply them with three letters of recommendation. I would appreciate it if you could write one for me.
McGraw/Hill wishes to know the conditions under which you knew me, your understanding of my aptitude for writing, my qualifications to edit the work of others, my leadership abilities, and anything else you feel pertinent. I have enclosed a copy of my resume to help you write the letter.
McGraw/Hill would like the letter by the end of the month as I have an interview scheduled for the first week of February. If you would, please send it to the following person and address:
Betty Butler
Human Resources Department
McGraw/Hill Publishing Company
One Research Park West
Chicago, IL 55555
Thank you very much for your attention to this matter, and I sincerely appreciate your efforts on my behalf.
Sincerely,
Eliza Doolittle
Enc: Resume
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