By Sergey Smith
People try to persuade each other in all spheres of life: in business and advertisements, in political debates, and interpersonal communication. For this reason, students frequently get assigned with the persuasive essays on various disciplines. Fortunately, there are not so many methods of convincing writing, and when you learn them all, persuasive essays will become your favorite type of homework.
1. Research the subject from all perspectives
To come up with a valuable piece of writing, you have to research your subject. Only when you get to know more about the topic, you can convince your opponents that your point of view is correct and persuade them to change their perspective. Understand the counterarguments to your position and how you can neutralize them.
Try the “Yes, but” approach to call the counterarguments of your opponents into question. For example:
“There is a popular belief that the viruses are spread by the 5G, however, there are no valid scientific facts that can confirm this theory.”
In this sentence, we demonstrated that we are familiar with the counterargument, we agree that it exists and is shared by many people, and immediately after that, we give a “but” argument.
2. Know your readers
People are more likely to believe you if you speak with them the same language. For this reason, the corporate jargon won’t work if you’re appealing to the elementary school kids, and the overly-simplified language won’t work if you’re giving a speech on a scientific summit.
This is great when you know what your audience thinks of the topic in question. If you’re writing for the opponents of your point of view, break the most popular arguments they might have against your opinion. If the majority of your readers share your perspective, emphasize the major arguments that prove your belief. The main rule here is to show that you have much in common with your reader, whoever this reader is, and that you understand him or her perfectly. Demonstrate that with the persuasive essay you want to enlarge the horizon of your audience and not to convert them into something they find false.
3. Use hedging language
The use of “some,” “most,” “the high percentage,” “in many cases,” instead of specific data and numbers is a common practice in academic writing. Even though it is unwanted in postgraduate papers and unacceptable in articles written by the acknowledged scholars, you can apply them now and then if you’re a high-school student or a freshman in college.
If you don’t understand how to apply this technique the correct way, ask for help from a professional essay writing service like AdvancedWriters.com. Professional academic writers from this company will complete your assignment according to your wishes and will demonstrate to you how you can improve the structure and the flow of your paper by using “hence,” “therefore,” “thus,” etc, and how to diminish the time you might need for research by opting for “various,” “several,” “many,” and “little” instead of the precise numbers. Choose custom assistance instead of free online essay mills if your ultimate goal is to become a better student and improve your understanding of the academic writing techniques.
4. Don’t be manipulative
For sure, you can say that any kind of persuasive writing is an attempt to manipulate the beliefs of other people, but there are high-quality and low-quality methods of convincing others. According to the academic integrity principles, the good methods to prove yourself right is by providing scientifically researched facts, statistics, numbers, or examples from history. We should admit that sometimes they don’t work and the manipulative populist can win the discussion, but this should not be an excuse for using poor techniques in your persuasive essays.
Try to eliminate “it is common knowledge that,” “everybody knows that,” “every intelligent person understands that,” “only stupid people believe that,” etc. from your vocabulary. What is more, we recommend you to avoid politics and journalists who use these manipulative generalizations in their writing. We can’t state that without these “arguments” your persuasive essay will get you a higher grade, but eliminating them will surely improve your reputation as a diligent author.
5. Combine logic with emotions
As a rule, the emotionally charged language is not recommended in academic writing like research papers or surveys, but it is acceptable in creative writing and persuasive essays. Use more adjectives to describe notions in your papers, and replace passive voice with the active voice to make your writing stronger.
When working on persuasive or creative writing, you can use the piece of advice, frequently given to the fiction authors: “Describe, don’t tell!” For example, you can replace the neutral and bland verbs like “said” with the emotionally-charged “exclaimed,” “stated,” “insisted,” or “denied.” Also, don’t forget the exclamation marks!
6. Let your readers think for themselves
Remember the movies or the novels that had the greatest impact on you. The chances are high that you came up with pieces that had some secret uncovered in them. We like to feel smart and discover “who the killer is” by ourselves. Give this feeling to your readers too! Ask them rhetorical questions, show them the list of facts, and allow them to make the conclusion by themselves. For example:
“There were traces of his DNA over five crime scenes, and Mr. X had no alibi for the time when the last four victims were killed. However, the judge still had doubts about whether the Senator’s son could be claimed the suspect.”
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The language is the strongest tool that can help you to convert armies and nations, sell goods and services, make the world a better place, or increase your incomes. Learn how to use it, and you will receive the mind-blowing advantage over those writers and speakers, who simply know stuff, but can’t put it into the correct words. Start from practicing persuasive essay writing following a step-by-step guide provided by expert writers.
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