Class 6 notes

Michael McCarthy

persuasion The process of gradually influencing attitudes and behaviours and motivating the
audience to act

Know your purpose and what you want your reader to do: Make your request reasonable and
beneficial to the reader.
Understand what motivates your reader: Analyze your audience’s goals and needs and tap into
them. How does your pitch for a product, service, or action answer that need in benefitting the
reader by saving them money, solving a problem, or helping them achieve an objective?
Consider design and layout: Appearance often forms opinion before message is read. Proper
proportioning, typography, and use of white space—will make your message attractive and
professional.
Be positive and accurate: Use a sincere, confident tone and reader-centred language.
Anticipate objections and plan how to deal with them: Collect data that will help you
overcome resistance and allow readers to follow up easily.

Appeal: An attempt to persuade

Because not all audiences or persuasive tasks are alike, messages that must convince can rely on
single or combined appeals.
Appeal to reason: business decisions must be logical and well-justified. Effective reasoning
based on evidence in the form of non-numerical facts, expert opinions, statistics, examples, or
analogies allow you to show the merits of your claim. Clear, logical development in the way
these facts are presented encourages readers to agree with your conclusion and support the
action you propose.

Problem-solution strategy steps:

1. Summarize the problem
2. Explain how the problem can be solved
• Describe benefits
• Use evidence, facts and figures
3. Minimize resistance
• Acknowledge counter-arguments
4. Request specific action
• Set a deadline
Offer incentives
Internal corporate communication has four goals:
1. encouraging internal relations and commitment
2. promoting a positive sense of belonging
3. developing employees’ awareness of change
4. the need to evolve