Name: _____________________________________________________

PERSUASION

Persuasion is not coercion. Persuasion is the art of steering others to your point of view.

Effective persuasion first hooks the audience. Grab their attention right away, and never let go.

Effective persuasion uses rhetorical strategies, which appeal to three different parts of us: an appeal to our reasonable or logical side; an appeal to our emotional side; and an appeal to our desire to trust the speaker / writer. Rhetorical strategies also include rhetorical devices.

Effective persuasion leaves the audience with a clincher. Leave them thinking “Yeah!”

	The Hook	
Quotation	Use a strong,  appropriate quotation from a person who appeals to the audience		
Statistic or Fact	Use an appropriate fact that “wows” the audience		
Strong or Exaggerated Statement	Get your audience thinking right off the bat using no-holds barred phrasing or even exaggerated phrasing		
Provocative Question	Ask a question whose answer is your point of view 		
Anecdote	Tell a short story that applies		
Metaphor / Analogy	Start a metaphor or analogy in the first sentence, and revisit it throughout		
Unusual Detail	Use a little-known, appropriate detail		
Ingratiate Yourself	Thank the audience for listening, let them know you appreciate them		

	Thesis	
State your position very clearly. The audience should have absolutely no question about what you are trying to persuade them to do.		

	Logos: Appeal to Reason	
Sound Reasoning	Use facts that are well-known and easily proven true		
Card Stacking	Use only the facts that support your argument and leave out those that contradict it		
Questionable Cause	Make one thing appear to cause another, but just because two events happen simultaneously does not mean causality		
Either-Or	Present an argument with only two contrasting sides that ignores other possibilities		
Slippery Slope	Push a real cause-effect relationship to extremes (“We better stop X because if Y has happened, then Z is sure to follow!”		

	Pathos: Appeal to Emotion	
Appeal to Needs and Desires	Tell the audience what they want to hear to get them on your side		
Appeal to Love	Make the audience think that if they love someone (like their children), they will do what you want		
Appeal to Ego	Flatter the audience, pump them up and make them feel important		
Snob Appeal	Make the audience feel as if they are part of an elite group		
Appeal to Tradition	Make audience feel that what you want is good because it’s an old idea, it’s always been done		
Fear Appeal	Make the audience think that if they don’t do what you want, something horrible will happen (war, crime, poor health, embarrassment, social isolation, etc.)		
Appeal to Anger	Make the audience angry at the same thing you’re angry about (“You can’t let X happen!”)		
Guilt Appeal (Appeal to loyalty or duty)	Make the audience feel as if they don’t do what you want, they will be letting someone down (their family, their country, etc.)		

	Ethos: Appeal to Ethics	
Glory by Association	Associate yourself or your POV with someone the audience likes		
Guilt by Association	Associate the opposite POV with someone the audience dislikes		
Testimonial / Endorsement	Use quotations by a favorable person (authority, celebrity, etc.) speaking positively about your subject		
Plain Folks	Make the audience feel as if you and they are all in this problem together		
Bandwagon	Make the audience think that everyone else agrees with you, so they should too		
Poisoning the Well	Speak unfavorably about the opposite POV before anyone else (like a debate opponent) has a chance to support it		
Poor Me	Make an appeal for sympathy for yourself or your cause		
You Too	If someone attacks you on a specific point of your argument, counter-attack with “You are in no position to talk!”		

	The Language of Persuasion	
Tropes / Figurative Language	
Metaphor / Simile	Use comparisons to paint a mental picture that is powerful		
Glittering Generalities	Use broad, pleasing statements without saying anything specific.		
Hyperboles	Use overstatements and exaggerations		
Litotes	Use understatements to diminish something		
Loaded Words	Use words charged with emotion		
Soft Language	Use euphemisms to downplay things the audience won’t like		
Rhetorical Question	Ask a question not to get an answer but to make a point		
Onomatopoeia	Use of words whose sounds echo their meanings.		
Pun	Use a play on words 		
Allusion	Make a reference to another book, show, work of art, etc.		
Humor	Use appropriately to seem like plain folk, and also to draw away from holes in your ideas		
Schemes / Arrangement of words and sentences	
Repetition	Repeat words or phrases in a deliberate way to drive your point home.		
Alliteration	Repetition of initial consonants in two or more adjacent words.		
Juxtaposition	Put ideas close together to highlight their relationship		
Listing	Create lists of ideas to emphasize the importance or enormity of ideas		

	Refutation	
Somewhere in the body of your argument, you might want to explain away all those pesky reasons people disagree with you.		

	The Clincher	
Restate Thesis	Clearly restate what you are trying to convince others of		
Prediction	State what good things you think will happen if your audience believes you and acts on it, or state what bad things will happen if they go against you		
Question that will encourage the audience make their own predictions	Ask a question that will provoke the audience to make a prediction in your favor		
Recommendation to solve problem	Offer a solution 		
Quotation	Use a strong, appropriate quotation from a person who appeals to the audience. 		
Tag Line	Magnify your strong points; leave the audience with a favorable impression of you; put the audience in the proper mood		

The Organization of the Persuasive Essay / Speech:	
I.		Introduction: The Hook	
II.		Thesis Stated Clearly	
III.		Body: Logos, Pathos, Ethos, Language	
IV.		Refutation	
V.		Conclusion: The Clincher