Four Characteristics of Persuasive Writing

Four Characteristics of Persuasive Writing

🔥 Almost all of us had to write at a point in time a persuasive paper, such as a dissertation, white paper, or sales proposition.

Generally, a persuasive paper 1. Should achieve a goal 2. By covering a topic 3. That persuades a target audience.

To be successful, a persuasive paper should satisfy the following four characteristics:

• UNDERSTANDABILITY: the information presented in the paper can be consumed logically by the targeted audience.
• RELEVANCY: the document should cover only the information that supports the topic, conveys the message of the author, and which can be consumed by the targeted audience.
• RELIABILITY: the information should be commonly recognized by the target audience, or if new, it should be introduced with proper references; the knowledge that is being acquired through any form of experimentation (e.g., surveys) should be explained by respecting the understandability and relevancy characteristics.
• LOGICAL CONSISTENCY: the information used in any form of logical reasoning should be progressively introduced before inferring it.

To help prospective writers, I have developed and published a how-to guide to help prospective authors to write a persuasive white paper.
This guide is also useful to:

• University students that need to write a dissertation.
• Salespeople that need to persuade a buyer that a given product is a solution to their problem.
• Marketing professionals that must position a product or technology to a market segment.