Persuasive Writing

Pete Frederick has spent the past 10 years as a professional persuasive writer. He is currently the senior bid writing expert for Pera Innovation, a leading research and development consultancy. He provides training, guidelines and internal evaluation to around 50 writers both within Pera and across other research organisations in Europe. Over the past 3 years, he has written and evaluated successful research bids worth €67m. His guidelines and training courses have contributed to writers securing projects worth over €200m over the same period.

• ContentsIntroductionSection 1: What is Persuasive Writing?       Why are you writing?    Who is your audience?  Reader Response = Result        Section 2: Tools for Persuasive Writing       Ethos, Logos, Pathos    Using emotive languageYou, We, I – getting personal   Storytelling       Persuasive writing example        Section 3: Persuasion – Beyond Logic         The science of decision-makingPrimacy – why coming first mattersAvailability        Consistency and why we hate changing our mindsJustification and evidenceSimplicityLoss and reward – a bird in the hand…Outside influences – following the herdRepetition, Repetition, RepetitionAnchoring – decision-making all at seaThe Halo EffectRecency – the here and nowThe reader is always rightCommercial Break: Advertisement SlogansSection 4: Conciseness Equals ClarityAson and the JargonautsSentence lengthThe writer’s diet – cutting paddingCulling lazy wordsExamples, similes and analogiesA 7-step concise writing processSection 5: Verbs Equal VigourGrammar refresherVerbs just wanna have funVerbs in disguise – noun suffixesSection 6: Mistakes   Commonly confused words       Using the wrong word   Scattershot punctuation and no punctuation       Poor spelling     ‘Mistakes’ that aren’t mistakes  Section 7: Planning and Structuring  Plan, Draft, Edit            Document structures     Section 8: Layout, Fonts and Formatting     Font choice      Layout  Headings          Bullets  Tables and diagrams     Section 9: Tips for Common Documents      More effective emails    Writing for the web       Persuasive CVs            Executive summaries and abstracts        Grant funding    Feedback, fear and a favour     Section 10: Persuasion – the Dark Arts       Assume causality          It’s common sense, stupid         It’s common knowledge            Abuse statisticsWiden or narrow definitionsFlattery will get you everywhere            And a few more…        The End          Appendix 1: Summary of rules  Appendix 2: Supersized words and their alternatives      Appendix 3: Recommended reading      Appendix 4: Persuasive writing flowchart

"With guidelines and rules set out in each chapter, would-be writers are provided with clear instructions on how to make the most out of words."eManager, August 2011