Persuasive communication is a valuable skill necessary in people’s personal lives to state their opinions successfully. The personal goals can be achieved by considering the audience, tailoring specific evidence, and using a confident, warm voice. An example of persuasive communication in personal life is my friend’s social media post on Facebook, persuading me to follow COVID-19 safety measures. She considered her audience of Facebook friends, mainly consisting of young people. They were not the primary risk group, so she persuaded them by referring to their older siblings and asking them to think about their well-being (Young, 2016). She established her credibility through ethos by referring to her nursing degree. Then she supported her claim by using personal stories of her sick relatives and statistics of the COVID-19 spread and mortality rates among the older generation. It is essential to keep in mind the post’s reader as the specific persuasive argument can affect various age groups differently. Persuasive communication in personal life also requires building trust through provided evidence and using a warm and polite voice.
Persuasive communication proves to be incredibly useful even after graduation. Addressing a manager or a director of the company requires providing concrete arguments and following a level of formality, especially in the field of social sciences. An example of professional persuasive communication is my uncle’s email to the manager suggesting a more convenient data storage method in cloud applications. He used the formal writing style and avoided colloquial words and contractions to follow the ethical guidelines (Khazaei, Lu, & Mercer, 2017). He also adapted the word choice of his scientific explanation for the audience to understand it and simplified the language to establish clear benefits of the suggested change. The evident necessity for changing the old system to a modern one was stated concisely to create a distinct picture of the issue. Professional context requires using the formal tone of the conversation and using a specific word choice to persuade the audience.
The academic sphere demands the use of persuasive communication regularly. The context implies using polite tone and formal language that is usually expressed through the academic word choice. An example of persuasive communication in an academic setting is a persuasive academic essay to the board of directors at college about the cafeteria’s unsatisfactory service. My friend was very discontent with the service and filed an official complaint. She collected the evidence and described it politely in an academic style to persuade the board of directors. The academic context demands persuasive communication to be formal, especially when addressing the director, and providing evidence in a polite manner.
References
Khazaei, T., Lu, X., & Mercer, R. (2017). Writing to persuade: Analysis and detection of persuasive discourse. iConference 2017 Proceedings (pp. 203–215). Web.
Young, R. O. (2016). Persuasive communication: How audiences decide. Routledge.