Words, Phrases, and Arguments to Use in Persuasive Writing
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Persuasive writing is tough for kids to get used to, especially if they’re not argumentative by nature. A few tools and shortcuts can help your child learn how to write well enough to convince someone (even you!) to change his mind about an issue that really matters to him or her.
Persuasive Strategies and Devices
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There are common persuasion techniques sometimes referred to as persuasive devices that can be used to back up an argument in writing. Knowing the names of the strategies and how they work can make it easier to remember them when it’s time to write. The five common persuasive strategies are:
- Pathos: Pathos involves using emotional language that is designed to draw the reader in and make them feel for you. For example: «If my allowance isn’t increased, I won’t be able to go out with my friends and do everything they do.»
- Big Names: The big names strategy involves using the names of experts or well-known people who support your position. For example: «Dad agrees that increasing my allowance will…»
- Research and Logos: These strategies involve using studies, data, charts, illustrations, and logic to back up her position and points. For example: «As you can see in the pie chart, at my age the average child’s allowance is…»
- Ethos: The ethos strategy of persuasion involves using language that shows that the writer is trustworthy and believable. For example: «As you may recall, I’ve always been willing to put ten percent of my allowance in my bank account, thus…»
- Kairos: This type of argument creates a sense of urgency about how this is the right moment to act. For example: «If I don’t get an increase in my allowance today, I will miss out on the chance to…»
Phrases and Words to Use in Persuasive Writing
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Once your child has figured out the techniques she can use in her persuasive writing, she will need to find some words and phrases that help her to be convincing. Using phrases like «I think» or «It seems that» don’t convey a sense of confidence in her position. Instead, she needs to use word combinations that show how much she believes in what she is writing.
- Phrases to Illustrate a Point: For instance, for example, specifically, in particular, namely, such as, like
- Phrases to Introduce an Example: For example, thus, as an example, in the instance of, in other words, to illustrate
- Phrases to Make Suggestions: To this end, keeping this in mind, for this purpose, therefore
- Phrases to Transition Between Information: Also, furthermore, additionally, besides that, equally as important, similarly, likewise, as a result, otherwise, however
- Phrases to Contrast Points: On the other hand, nevertheless, despite, in spite of, yet, conversely, instead, by the same token
- Phrases for Conclusions and Summarizing: With this in mind, as a result of, because of this, for this reason, so, due to, since, finally, in short, in conclusion
Other Handy Phrases for Persuasive Writing
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Some phrases don’t easily fit into a category and are just good for general use in persuasive writing. Here are a few to remember:
- I am certain. . .
- I’m sure that you can see that . . .
- What needs to be done/what we need to do. . .
- I ask you to think about . . .
- I am writing in order to . . .
- Nevertheless . . .
- On the other hand . . .
- It has come to my attention that . . .
- If you move forward with . . .
- Obviously. . .
- Surely . . .
- Regardless . . .
- If [ ] were to happen, then . . .
- This can be fixed by . . .
- Although it may seem…
Persuasion is an art form, and don’t let anyone tell you differently. While anyone could rattle off a list of words for you to throw into your debates, your sales pitches, or your essays, if you don’t understand why you are using them, you will not be persuasive. When you boil it down, persuasion is all about power. You are making someone change their mind about something, and that is no easy task. It will require you to present yourself confidently – not only as being absolutely right, but as believing that you are absolutely right.
Since persuasion is mainly all about how you present your arguments, there are some valuable, key phrases and words you can use to help bring people over to your side. We’ll go over some of them below, but we will also talk about why they are effective.
Phrases to Make You Sound Sure of Yourself
When trying to persuade someone, you have to know what you are talking about, but more to the point, you have to convey that concept to your audience. For this reason, it is especially important to avoid saying things like “I think that…”, or “I guess…”. These sound flimsy, and in a debate setting, these phrases might as well be blood in the water. You can fully expect your opponent to respond with “You guess? Well, let me tell you what I know…” Better go with something more solid.
Good Examples:
“Personally, I have found [this concept] to be true.”
“I can tell you from experience that [this product] is of excellent quality.”
“I have dealt with many people over the years, and never once have I heard them say that [your opponent’s position] is best for them.”
The phrases above are all self-referential, and give your listeners and readers the impression that you are personally experienced with the issue at hand. They also convey the concept that you have gathered information from others over time, and have come to your conclusions after giving it considerable thought. What you are doing here is essentially telling them “I know you want to research this for yourself, but you are not going to find a better source than me. I am experienced in this matter, and you should trust my judgement.”
Better Examples:
“This is not a matter of opinion. I am saying this because it is a fact.”
“[The opponent’s plan] will not work, because it has not worked in the past.”
“The figures tell the story. [This product] is the highest rated option available.”
Sometimes, people are wary of your personal opinions, and in those cases, it is better to state your position without referring to yourself. The above examples cite only facts and data, and leave emotion out of it. If you are dealing with someone who seems to bristle when you use terms like “I know that…” try one of these instead.
Phrases to Deconstruct Your Opponent’s Position
Sometimes, it’s not a matter of getting someone to see things your way. While they might concede that you have a good point, they happen to feel that your opposition has a better point. This is when you need to come at them from an entirely different angle. They already feel that you have some merit, so run with that. What you need to do now is dissect the opposing view, and show them exactly why your way is better.
Good Examples:
“Believe what you want, but [my view] is the better option.”
“I’m sure [my opponent] has convinced some of you that their plan is best, but they have not been honest with you.”
“[The competitor’s product] might have had higher sales figures, but that’s only because consumers didn’t do their research.”
Each of the above statements takes a pretty powerful swing at your opposition. These phrases play on the fact that some listeners and readers are not secure in their decision, and fear they may have made the wrong choice. You are implying that only people who didn’t think things through are siding with your opponent, and that can sometimes work. You just have to be careful that you are not antagonizing, or “othering” your audience.
Better Examples:
“We can do without [the opposing concept] because [my concept] already addresses that.”
“[This competitive product] definitely seems like a good idea when taken at face value, but our product offers more versatility and lower cost.”
“[The opposition] will lead to undesirable consequences for everyone. We can solve this by simply going with [my viewpoint] in the first place.”
Each of those phrases manages to pull the rug out from under your competitor without having to bring your audience’s actions or feelings into it. You are simply stating facts in a confident way. You know your position is superior, because your opponent’s position is inferior – it’s just a matter of pointing that out.
Persuasive Words to Use When Addressing Your Audience
While it’s true that persuasion is a matter of presenting organized thoughts and arguments, there are still a few key, individual words you can make use of to keep your audience engaged.
“You” – First and foremost, this is a powerful word, because it makes the audience accountable for what you are saying. “You don’t want this situation, because your quality of life is important.” By addressing them in that way, you have made them personally involved.
Accurate, Certain, Confident, Definitely, Absolutely, Surely, One-Hundred Percent, Yes, Clearly, Lead, Strongly: – All of these words convey positivity and confidence to back up what you are saying.
Atrocious, Confusing, Cruel, Harmful, Inferior Dreadful, Outrageous, Shocking, Shameful, Offensive, Horrible, Unstable, Severe, No: – These negative words can be used to great effect when pulling apart the opposition.
Persuasion is a useful tool in the business world, the educational sector, and in everyday life. Learning how to make it work for you can lead to more opportunities and greater success. Check out “Six Shortcuts to Powerful Persuasion” taught by sales training coach Gerry Hurley at Udemy.com.
Last Updated Apr 22, 2019
There are 8 intoxicatingly persuasive words in the English language that are more effective than any other words for convincing a person to take action.
These are words the most effective copywriters in the world have been using for decades to convince you to buy their product.
Wait — am I talking about power words?
Nope.
Power words: Words that strengthen your copy to pique interest and get people to click. The hook.
Persuasive words: Words that convince people to buy. The sell.
There are 8 persuasive words:
- Persuasive Word #1: The Novel Word that Sells
- Persuasive Word #2: This Word That Makes People Act Like Fools
- Persuasive Word #3: The Surprising Word That Quietly and Senselessly Persuades
- Persuasive Word #4: The Word That Uncovers How Selfish We Really Are
- Persuasive Word #5: The Word That Screams Urgency
- Persuasive Word #6: The Word That Makes You Daydream
- Persuasive Word #7: The Word That Triggers Prestige
- Persuasive Word #8: The Instant Conversion Booster
- Instantly Increase Your Sales (For Free) With Persuasive Words
Let’s get into it.
Click here for your free placement checklist!
Persuasive Word #1: The Novel Word that Sells
This word is one of the easiest ways to increase your traffic and conversions significantly.
It’s “new”.
Humans love novelty. We love being on the cutting edge of things. We love new things and love hearing about things first.
That’s why this word works.
Research has shown that perceived newness increases sales for a product, but brands do better if they’re more established.
We tested using the word “New” on Twitter, and it was our most drastic experiment yet:
Just by including the one word before the headline of the article we were promoting, the post with the word “new” performed 422% better in terms of clicks than the control.
New #ftw.
Takeaway: When something is new (for example, a product, webinar, or piece of content), say so, unless the new thing is your brand, in which case don’t mention it.
Persuasive Word #2: This Word That Makes People Act Like Fools
There’s one word you can use in your sales copy that’s almost guaranteed to convert. It’s been proven to work time and time again…
And it’s free.
No, seriously, the word is “free” (pardon the pun), and it’s one of the most intoxicatingly convincing words in the human language.
In one experiment, Dan Ariely, researcher at Duke University surveyed 76 people in a lineup to get a free tattoo.
It turns out that 68% of the people in that lineup wouldn’t have even gotten a tattoo if it weren’t free.
In another study by the same dude, students were offered two types of chocolate:
- A Lindt Truffle for $0.26 or
- A Hershey’s Kiss for $0.01.
Initially, 60% of buyers chose the Truffle for $.26 and 40% chose the Kiss. Ariely then reduced the prices of each by $0.01:
- The Truffle was $0.25
- The Kiss was free
Suddenly 90% of students chose the Kiss, even though the relative prices remained the same.
We tested the word “Free” on our opt-in for our marketing psychology article and we increased the conversion rate by 15.02%.
Keep in mind that this was on an article about marketing psychology, where the readers were educated about the power of free.
#micdrop.
Takeaway: Use the word free. It’s a “free” way of increasing your sales.
Persuasive Word #3: The Surprising Word That Quietly and Senselessly Persuades
This next word is one that you must be using, because it’s so powerful.
The word?
“Because”.
In a study done at Harvard University, a researcher tested different wording to ask students standing in a line for a copy machine whether she could cut the line.
Ask #1: “Excuse me, I have 5 pages. May I use the xerox machine?”
Ask #2: “Excuse me, I have 5 pages. May I use the xerox machine, because I have to make copies?”
Ask #3: “Excuse me, I have 5 pages. May I use the xerox machine, because I’m in a rush?”
60% of the people allowed the researcher to cut the line with Ask #1. Ask #3 elicited a 94% compliance rate (the researcher’s reasoning was “because I’m in a rush”).
The interesting part? When the researcher used the word “because” but with no valid reasoning behind it (“because I have to make copies” — keep in mind, everyone else in line also had to make copies!) she still had a 93% compliance rate.
Takeaway: People like to think they’ve been given a reason for something, even if the “reason” is akin to your mom saying “because I said so”. Use the word “because” in your copy when you’re showing why something works.
Persuasive Word #4: The Word That Uncovers How Selfish We Really Are
Which of these sentences is more likely to persuade you?
a) “You need Sumo to make more money in your business”
b) “Entrepreneurs need Sumo to make more money in their businesses”?
Trick question.
The answer is A.
Why?
Because A uses the word “you”, and B uses the formal third person. We tested “you” against the third person on a social media post:
The post that addressed you rather than bloggers got 37% more clicks.
In a nutshell, you’re obsessed with yourself and so am I. Research proves it.[*]
Hearing your own name makes your brain activity light up like a Christmas tree. In short, it makes you pay attention. To persuade anyone to do anything (like buy your product), they have to pay attention.
But you can’t always use your target customer’s names in your marketing, unless you’re a wizard. So this persuasive word is “you”.
“You” acts as a placeholder for your name.
Check out how Shopify uses “You” five times in just one CTA on their homepage:
Shopify grew their revenue by $184.1 million in 365 days, making them the perfect model of good copywriting.
Takeaway: The formal third person shouldn’t have a place in your copy. Address the customer directly by using “you”. Where possible, use the person’s name (like in email).
Persuasive Word #5: The Word That Screams Urgency
Urgency sells.
In 2016, we sent a sales email without any urgency or scarcity in it. It converted at a sad 0.41%.
But when we sent out a recap email for that sales email, that was time bound and stoked urgency, we increased sales to 3.38%:
We’re not the only ones who have discovered the power of urgency.
One ecommerce store A/B tested a limited offer on shipping vs. a control (no shipping offer). They included a countdown timer to elicit urgency on the limited offer:
That limited offer on shipping increased sales on the product by 226%.
So urgency works. Check. But how can you use persuasive words to elicit urgency in your copy where countdown timers won’t work?
Use the word “now”.
Marcus Taylor on ConversionXL added the word “now” and increased the clickthrough rate from 1.71% to 3.76%:[*]
And it’s persuasive on your product pages, too.
Check out how BestSelf Co. uses the word “Now” on their call to action button to elicit urgency:
Even their product pages use the word “now” on button copy:
Takeaway: Urgency sells. Command your visitors do something “now” to get a higher conversion rate.
Persuasive Word #6: The Word That Makes You Daydream
Ever been told a story about an accident or injury that made your toes curl? You almost feel pain on behalf of the victims.
That’s not just empathy. Those feelings there are “mirror neurons”.
“A mirror neuron is a neuron that fires both when an animal acts and when the animal observes the same action performed by another”[*]
Therein lies the power of this next persuasive word:
“Imagine”.
Mirror neurons mean that feelings can be transferred without having to experience them first hand. And if you can make people feel things, you can make people act.
For example, let’s say you were a life coach helping your customer get more work/life balance in their lives. You knew the psychographics of your customer so you knew they struggle with feelings of guilt about not spending enough time with their kids.
You could use mirror neurons to paint a picture in their minds about what their life would be like after using you as their coach (solving their problem).
“Imagine leaving work at work.
Imagine being fully present with your children.
Imagine being able to eat a quiet meal with your family, together, enjoying each other’s presence.
Imagine rocking your baby to sleep without worrying about the deadline your boss just set for you that day.”
You don’t have to be over-the-top with this persuasive word, either. Check out how Amy Porterfield uses “imagine” subtly in her sales page for her course:
Simple and effective.
Takeaway: Use persuasive words in your copy like “imagine” to make your customers picture their lives with the solution you sell (or, picture what will happen if they don’t buy!)
Persuasive Word #7: The Word That Triggers Prestige
The Tesla Model S starts at around $72,000.
Yet it’s the best selling luxury sedan in North America.
Why would anybody buy a Tesla for nearly 1.5x the median national annual income when a $20,000 Toyota Rav-4 would do the trick?
Because of prestige.
And you can communicate prestige by using this one persuasive word:
Limited.
Limiting inventory or accessibility to product is why:
- Nike can release limited edition sneakers for hundreds of dollars and sell out almost instantly
- Apple has lineups that span several city blocks starting 24 hours before they release a new product
- An Hermès Birkin bag sold for over $300,000 at an auction in 2016.
This persuasive word works for high-priced products or services.
Check out how Tony Robbins uses “limited” to trigger exclusivity and prestige for his platinum partnership product:
We tested using the word “limited” on Twitter:
The Tweet with the word “Limited” in it outperformed the control in number of clicks by 100%.
Persuasive Word #8: The Instant Conversion Booster
If this page took longer than a few seconds to load, you wouldn’t have made it this far down the page.
In fact, you would have left almost right away.[*]
That’s because you (and everyone around you) are used to instant gratification.
Over 80% of people will abandon a video if they have to wait for more than 30 seconds for it to load…[*]
So it’s no surprise that instant gratification sells.
Which is why this next word is so persuasive:
Instantly.
When we tested the word on social media, the Tweet with the word “instantly” got 3x more clicks than the one without:
Proving that “instant” isn’t just the type of ramen you ate in college. It’s also an incredibly persuasive word that can help you convert.
Takeaway: Don’t lie and say something happens instantly if it doesn’t (for example, you can’t get a physical product instantly like you can a digital product), but use this word to increase your conversions on your freebies, opt-ins, and digital goods.
Instantly Increase Your Sales (For Free) With Persuasive Words
Persuasive words work.
Research proves it.
If you’re not using persuasive words you could be leaving 400% more conversions on the table.
A/B test them NOW and watch your conversions soar.
Click here for your free placement checklist!
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persuasion, persuasive, persuadable, persuader, persuasively, persuading
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