Persuasive Writing: How to Harness the Power of Words

✍ Scribed by Frederick, Peter

• Publisher: Pearson Business
• Year: 2011;2012
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 209
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

A combination of effective writing, decision-making and persuasion. Designed for everyday use, this book offers practical advice to help readers write concise, convincing and effective documents.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover......Page 1
Persuasive Writing......Page 2
Contents......Page 6
About the author......Page 10
Introduction......Page 11
Acknowledgements......Page 13
What is Persuasive Writing?......Page 14
Why are you writing?......Page 17
Who is your audience?......Page 20
Reader Response = Result......Page 25
Tools for Persuasive Writing......Page 30
Ethos, Logos, Pathos......Page 32
Using emotive language......Page 34
You, We, I – getting personal......Page 37
FABU......Page 38
Storytelling......Page 40
Persuasive writing example......Page 44
Persuasion – Beyond Logic......Page 48
The science of decision-making......Page 50
Primacy – why coming first matters......Page 52
Availability......Page 53
Consistency and why we hate changing our minds......Page 56
Justification and evidence......Page 59
Simplicity......Page 61
Loss and reward – a bird in the hand . . .......Page 63
Outside influences – following the herd......Page 66
Repetition, repetition, repetition......Page 69
Anchoring – decision-making all at sea......Page 70
The halo effect......Page 71
Recency – the here and now......Page 73
The reader is always right......Page 75
Commercial Break: Advertisement Slogans......Page 78
Conciseness Equals Clarity......Page 84
Ason and the jargonauts......Page 87
Sentences that are too......Page 89
The writer’s diet – cutting padding......Page 91
Culling lazy words......Page 93
Examples, similes and analogies......Page 95
A seven-step concise writing process......Page 96
Verbs Equal Vigour......Page 100
Grammar refresher......Page 102
Verbs just wanna have fun......Page 103
Verbs in disguise – noun suffixes......Page 105
Mistakes......Page 108
Commonly confused words......Page 110
Using the wrong word......Page 113
Scattershot punctuation and no punctuation......Page 114
Poor spelling......Page 117
‘Mistakes’ that aren’t mistakes......Page 119
Planning and Structuring......Page 120
Plan, draft, edit......Page 122
Document structures......Page 127
Layout, Fonts and Formatting......Page 130
Font choice......Page 132
Layout......Page 134
Headings......Page 137
Bullets......Page 139
Tables and diagrams......Page 140
Tips for Common Documents......Page 144
More effective emails......Page 146
Writing for the web......Page 150
Persuasive CVs......Page 151
Executive summaries and abstracts......Page 155
Grant funding......Page 157
Feedback, fear and a favour......Page 165
Persuasion – the Dark Arts......Page 168
Assume causality......Page 171
It’s common sense, stupid......Page 172
It’s common knowledge......Page 173
Abuse statistics......Page 174
Widen or narrow definitions......Page 177
Flattery will get you everywhere......Page 178
And a few more . . .......Page 179
The end......Page 182
Appendix 1 Summary of rules......Page 184
Appendix 2 Supersized words and their alternatives......Page 186
Appendix 3 Recommended reading......Page 187
Appendix 4 Persuasive writing flowchart......Page 188
Appendix 5 Persuasive writing checklist......Page 189
Appendix 6 Exploiting and countering human decision-making......Page 190
Appendix 7 The seven-step concise writing process – worked example......Page 194
Index......Page 202

✦ Subjects

Business;Psychology;Nonfiction