Some Important Do’s and Don’ts of Persuasive Writing

Rhetorical Situation

REMEMBER: Your paper NEED to clearly demonstrate

Exigence/Significance/Audience.

● The words you choose, the amount of detail you provide, and how you

assemble paragraphs and use evidence will serve to SHOW why your

paper matters, why you are writing, and for whom

Rhetorical Appeals

Kairos: Is now the best time to make this argument? Why is this issue you are

raising a pressing concern within the cultural context you are writing?

● Timeliness.

○ No one wants yesterday’s news today. If a recent studycame out about cosmetic surgery procedures, you candraw oncurrent events as a way of articulating yourexigence.

Ethos: Why should my audience believe me?

● Credibility/Character.

○ Making a point to do research shows that you are trying toincrease your credibility as a writer. Although researchmay seem tedious and time consuming, it will show yourreader that you are not thinking in a vacuum and you aretrying to connect yourself and them to communit(ies)

Pathos: Why should my audience care?

● MAKE RELATABLE, MEMORABLE, and PLEASING TO READ.

○ Personal Experience, Narrative Voice, Anecdotes,Testimony, Vivid details: facts, statistics, or drawing on

external sources can create an emotional reaction from thereader, while demonstrating your credibility and appealsto logic at the same time!

○ Remember, certain words and phrases will make thereader concerned, angry, sympathetic, calm, inspired,proud, and so on. Read Aristotle's Book II of the Rhetoricfor more information.

Logos: Will my audience believe my argument makes sense? What assumptions

do I make that need to be explained to them?

● A strong claim, sound reasons, and use of compelling evidence to

support both reasons and your claim will appeal to the reader’s logic.

○ Facts, statistics, surveys, personal testimony, and CLAIMTYPES evoke a particular response in readers that getsthem thinking about whether or not your argument isplausible/valid/likely to be true

Avoid logical fallacies

● Don’t make sweeping generalities or non-sequiter claims.

○ Don’t say “our culture” when you mean Americanmainstream culture. Don’t say “every girl” is pressured totan when you mean that Caucasian/fair-skinned girls arepressured to tan. Don’t say all women want a guy to sweepthem off their feet, when in fact, you mean someheterosexual or bisexual women.

Work on Your Style: Do’s and Don’ts

● Do: use qualifiers and transitions (see qualifiers and transitions sheet)

● Do: be considerate and respectful. Coming across as polite isn’t being

passive or weak, it’s rhetorically saavy. Attempting to persuade a

reader does not conflict with being polite or mean that you need to be

rude about it.

● Do: Use active verbs and concrete details to convey your expertise

instead of brow beating your audience with preachy general messages

about “the truth” or “seeing the light”

● Do: Write your paper in a way that you would want to be written to

(follow the golden rule)

● Do: Defy your reader’s expectations of the typical. Make the familiar

unfamiliar and vice versa. Engaging a reader usually depends on the

fact that you are doing something a bit different or getting them to see

things in a more complex way. It also increases your ethos because it

shows that you are familiar with typical ways in which arguments

about your subject are being framed

● Don’t assume that your audience knows less about reality than

you—you both bring knowledge to the table, activate theirs don’t push

ideas down their throat by overly appealing to morality or ignorance

● Don’t assume that your audience comes from the exact same cultural

background as you do.