Perloff (2017). Image: From Adobe Stock by foxfotoco / Education License – Standard Image

One prevalent misconception about persuasion is that persuaders influence us into doing things against our will. The notion is that they overwhelm us with numerous verbal tactics until we comply. However, the reality is that people persuade themselves to change their attitudes or behaviour. Perloff (2017) highlights that communicators provide the arguments, but ultimately, individuals make the decision to change.

Certain types of technical writing, such as proposals and recommendation reports, are designed to persuade readers to take a particular action. However, regardless of the genre, it is essential to always strive to persuade readers that your work is accurate, logical, and valuable (Balzotti, 2018).

You can consider persuasive writing as using three key strategies.

1. Present compelling reasons why the audience should consider, act upon, or adopt the ideas or actions are supporting.
2. Provide essential information that helps the audience comprehend your reasons effectively.
3. Conclude by highlighting the benefits that will result from the audience considering, acting, or adopting the course of action you are proposing.

Employing this persuasive strategy can guide you in structuring various sections of your writing, both at the paragraph and document level.

Effective Persuasion Techniques

• Establishing credibility: To persuade you must engender trust. People must believe that you are telling the truth, are experienced, and know what you are talking about. Demonstrate your expertise in the subject matter by providing accurate and well-researched information. Acknowledge any limitations or uncertainties in your information and provide context for your audience to understand the full picture.
• Tying facts to benefits: Persuasion is most effective if your request is realistic, doable, and attainable. Line up solid information to support your view. Use statistics, printed resources, examples, and analogies to help people to understand. It is important to convert those facts into benefits for the audience.
• Expecting and overcoming resistance: Be prepared for resistance. Recognize any weakness in your proposal and be prepared to counter with well-reasoned arguments and facts. Anticipate potential objections and address them proactively in your communication. Acknowledge your readers’ concerns and provide reasoned responses.
• Recognizing the power of loss aversion: Loss aversion is a powerful psychological concept that can be leveraged in technical communication to persuade and motivate readers. Loss aversion suggests that people are more motivated by the fear of losing something than by the prospect of gaining something of equal value. In technical communication, this principle can be applied by highlighting the potential losses that readers might incur if they do not take the recommended action or follow the advice provided. For example, in a technical document discussing the benefits of a new software system, you could emphasize the potential drawbacks of not adopting the system, such as decreased efficiency, higher costs, or missed opportunities for growth. By framing the information in terms of potential losses, you can make the benefits of your recommendation more compelling and motivate readers to take action. Overall, understanding and leveraging the power of loss aversion can help make your technical communication more persuasive and effective in motivating readers to act.

• Understanding the role of culture in persuasion

What is considered persuasive? In Western cultures (low-context cultures) statistics and experimental data are considered fundamental types of evidence. However, in Eastern cultures (high-context cultures), testimony from respected authority figures can be more persuasive.

How to structure an argument? In Western cultures, the claim or argument is usually presented upfront, whereas, in Eastern cultures, it tends to be deferred or implied without an explicit statement. When you write for an audience from another culture, use two techniques:

1. 1. Study that culture, and adjust the content, structure, and style of your argument to fit it.
   2. Consider having your technical documents reviewed and edited by a person from the target culture, as few individuals are well-informed in cultures beyond their own.

[Refer to the section on the Importance of Intercultural Communication in Chapter 2.3],

Three Persuasive Appeals

Persuasion involves putting forth a compelling argument to reinforce or otherwise influence behaviour, action, and motivation. Sometimes, you may want to persuade your reader to take a particular action or position on an issue. To be effective, you should consider how to make effective use of the following elements of persuasion, often referred to as Rhetorical Appeals. The ancient Greek words are ethos, pathos, logos, and kairos (see Figure 2.3.1). View the following video, the Three Persuasive Appeals,  for an overview of each approach.

(Three Persuasive Appeals, 2017)

A fuller explanation of each appeal follows.

• Ethos – Appeal to Credibility/Authority: This element of persuasion involves establishing your credibility, expertise, or authority to be making the argument. What experience or expertise do you have? What knowledge or skills do you possess? What’s your role within the organization, and/or in relation to the reader? Why should the reader trust you as a reliable, knowledgeable, authoritative, and ethical source of information?
• Pathos – Appeal to Emotion/Interest/Values: This element involves appealing to the emotions, values, and/or interests of the reader. How does your proposal benefit them? Why should they care about it? How does it relate to the goals of the organization? How can you build “common ground” with your reader? What will make your reader feel “good” about your project? How can you evoke emotions such as pride or outrage?
• Logos – Appeal to Reason/Logic: This element involves grounding your argument in logic, reason, and evidence. What evidence supports your claims? On what facts and data is your reasoning based? Arguments grounded in reason and evidence are often considered the strongest. Government organizations and companies alike generally like to make “evidence-based decisions.”
• Kairos – Appeal to Timeliness/Appropriateness:  Using this appeal means being aware of what is appropriate and timely in a given rhetorical situation. Sometimes, a well-crafted argument can fail because it comes at the wrong time. Kairos involves knowing what is “in” or “hot” right now, what is an important topic or issue, and how best to discuss it; knowing when it is the “right time” to broach a topic or propose an idea; knowing how to use the appropriate tone, level of formality and decorum for the specific situation.

Emotional appeal is used sparingly in technical communication. Regardless, finding the appropriate blend of appeals is critical to making a successful argument. Consider that when making your case, you often have to “win both hearts and minds”—so you’ll need to appeal to both emotions and logic. Assess the context and audience to plan your approach. Do whatever you can to show the reader that you are a trustworthy source of information, and present your argument at the most opportune time. Also be mindful of the word choice and tone so that you are presenting a persuasive argument that is constructive and conveys the appropriate tone for your intended audience, message, and purpose.

Avoiding Ad-Speak

“Ad-speak” refers to the kind of language often used in advertisements.  Its aim is to convince consumers to buy something, whether they need it or not, hopefully without thinking too much about it. Because we hear this kind of rhetoric all the time, it easily becomes a habit to use it ourselves. We must break this habit when communicating in professional contexts.

Ad-Speak tends to use strategies such as

• emotional manipulation
• logical fallacies
• exaggeration or dishonesty
• vague claims
• incomplete or cherry-picked data
• biased viewpoints
• hired actors rather than professionals or experts as spokespeople

As a student in a professionalizing program learning the specialized skills and developing the sense of social obligation needed to become a trusted professional, you should avoid using “sensational” words characteristic of marketing language. Instead, when trying to persuade your reader, make sure you use quantifiable, measurable descriptors and objective language in your writing. You cannot determine how many units of “excellence” something has, or its quantifiable amount of “awesomeness,” “fantastic-ness,” or “extraordinariness.” Describing something as “incredible” literally means it’s unbelievable.  So avoid using these kinds of words shown in Figure 2.5.2.

Rather, find measurable terms like “efficiency” (in time or energy use), “effectiveness” at fulfilling a specific task, measurable benefits and/or costs, or even “popularity” as measured by a survey.

Communicating Ethically

In professional writing, communicating ethically is critically important. Ethical communication involves communicating from a place of accountability, responsibility, integrity, and values. If you are communicating ethically, you are demonstrating respect for your reader, the organizations you work for and with, and the culture and context within which you work. You also foster fairness and trust through honesty. Failure to maintain integrity and ethics can result in consequences ranging from damage to reputation, loss of work, lawsuits, criminal charges, and even tragic loss of life.

This is precisely why many professional associations have guidelines that govern the ethical behavior of their membership. Two such documents that may be relevant to you are the Canadian Information Processing Society’s (CIPS) Code of Ethics and Standards of Conduct and the Ontario Association of Engineering Technicians and Technologists’ (OACETT) Code of Ethics and Rules of Professional Conduct (pdf). For example, take note of the portions of the OACETT Code of Ethics that relate specifically to ethical communication.

It is important to become familiar with these standards of practice, and to consider how they impact communication practices. Remember that you are communicating in a professional context, and that comes with responsibility.  Consider the different rhetorical situations diagrammed in Figure 2.5.3, one for a marketer and one for an engineer.

Clearly, there may be some overlap, but there will also be significant differences based on the needs and expectations of the audience and the kind of message being delivered. We hear marketing language so often that it is easy to fall into the habit of using it, even when it’s not appropriate. Make sure you are not using “ad-speak” when trying to persuade in a professional context.

References

Balzotti, J. (2018). Technical Writing Essentials (2nd ed.). BYU Academic Publishing.

Cabin waste and single use plastics (SUP) fact sheet. (n.d.). IATA.  https://www.iata.org/en/iata-repository/pressroom/fact-sheets/fact-sheet—cabin-waste/

CIPS. (2018, June). CIPS code of ethics. Official Website of CIPS.  https://cipsresources.ca/ethics/

Markel, M. (2016). Technical Communication. Bedford.

OACETT. (n.d.). Code of ethics and rules of professional conduct. Ontario Association of Certified Engineering Technicians and Technologists. PDF. https://documentcloud.adobe.com/link/track?uri=urn:aaid:scds:US:6ed24f48-2a81-482d-9015-3728dba3ab42#pageNum=1 

Perloff, R. M. (2017). The dynamics of persuasion: communication and attitudes in the 21st century. New York: Routledge

Ulmer, K. (2017). The three persuasive appeals: Logos, ethos, and pathos [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oUfOh_CgHQ

Image descriptions

Figure 2.5.1 image description:

Use rhetorical appeals to convince your audience of a claim or recommendation you’ve made or a position you’ve taken. From there, you can support your claim using different types of appeals or address and refute opposing ideas.

To support the claim, position, or recommendation, you can use different types of appeals:

• Logical appeals: Use logical reasoning, supporting facts and statistics.
• Emotional appeals: Appeal to sympathy, humour, shared values, evoke pride, anger, guilt, or outrage, etc.
• Credibility appeals: Demonstrate that you are qualified, experienced, reliable, and an unbiased source of information.
• Timing and Decorum.
• Use a combination of appeals to win both “hearts and minds” as well as trust, and deliver your message at the time in the most effective way.

When addressing and/or refuting opposing ideas, it’s okay to concede where appropriate. Conceding strengthens credibility appeal by making you seem fair-minded and unbiased. You may need to draw on credibility appeals to show that you are qualified, experienced, and a reliable, unbiased source of information.

Supporting your position using different types of appeals and addressing opposing ideas will allow you to convince your audience.

[Return to Figure 2.5.1]

Figure 2.4.3 image description:

When the marketer is the author, their audience is the consumer and their message is information about the product. When the engineer is the author, their audience could be a client or colleague, and their message is information about the design. There may be some overlap between the messages of the marketer and the engineer.

[Return to Figure 2.5.3]