Persuasive Techniques

Persuasive Techniques

1. Alliteration

   • Repeating and playing upon the same letter.
     • Adds emphasis and reinforces meaning, often used to create highly emotive language.

2. Anecdote

   • A short account or story of an entertaining incident.
     • Usually makes the reader sympathetic and receptive to the point.

3. Association

   • Words that create meaning beyond the litteral word.
     • Suggests or influences the reader to respond in a certain way.

4. Cliches

   • Worn-out, over used expressions
     • Are farmiliar to the reader therefore can offer a shortcut to the meaning.

5. Emotive language

   • The deliberate use of strong emotive words to play on readers' feelings.
     • This evokes a strong emotional response in order to force agreement from the reader. Such strong language is used to manipulate the readers point of view.

6. Exaggeration

   • Overstatment, magnifying the importance. Exaggeration makes a point dramatic to reinforce it
     • It gains attention and can arouse strong or extream emotional response.

7. Generalisation

   • A general statement that states that the case being discussed is true for a majority of people
     • This can appeal to our general sense of what is true and so sound authorative may pick up on prejudices in the reader and seem convincing.

8. Inclusive language

   • Includes the reader by assuming that we all agree or disagree.
     • Engages the reader and may gain sympathy or persuade the reader to reject an idea or individual.

9. Repetition

   • Repeated words, phrases, sentence patterns, ideas.
     • Gives emphasis and prominence to a point, makes the reader remember this point.

10. Rhetorical questions

    • Questions that have the answer embedded in them, often using irony
      • Powerful device to manipulate the reader to agree because assumes the answer is obvious.

11. Simile

    • One thing is likened to another using 'like' 'as... as'
      • This clarifies and enhances an idea or situation.