Emotions Speak

It is well known that writing a persuasive paper is not the easiest thing.  It is something that many struggle with.  But persuasive papers can also be hard to read.  There are times when the author clearly struggled with putting their points in a good light and making them feel realistic and credible.  Without feeling like we relate somehow or at least find the author's words logical, a persuasive paper is not, well, persuasive.

I find that I empathize most when emotion is involved.  For example, it is a lot easier to take someone's side on being against legalizing marijuana when some kind of family disaster or mishap was due to someone being under the influence of marijuana.  On the other hand, being for legalizing marijuana is easier to be okay with when someone has a sick grandfather receiving treatment.  Being in the mindset that it would help alleviate some pain for the grandfather would help convince of the importance of legalizing it.  So, I think emotion is needed.  It is not enough just to back with facts and credibility.  An emotional connection can makes people dedicated to something, so, introducing emotion is critical in convincing an audience.

Furthermore, there is also a downside to emotion.  Everybody has different emotions.  Everybody connects with different things.  Everybody that has a heart string strummed has a counterpart that completely disagrees.  So, emotion can be tricky.  That is where facts and data are needed.  While someone may not agree with a point emotionally, there is that rational side of them that has to agree with facts.  So, logic is needed to truly convince someone of something.

Credibility may not be as big of a deal, to me, at least.  There are people that look for that, but I am not one of them, for the most part.  I don't know exactly who is a credible source for what.  I know that Mozart would be a credible source for music.  That is about where my knowledge of credible sources stop.  But, others may have many subjects that they know good sources for.  So, writing a persuasive paper should include credible sources, since it is others we are trying to convince and not ourselves. 

In conclusion, emotion, logic, and credibility must all be contributed to have a strong, convincing paper.  While there are people like me that would probably believe someone if they put Tony Hawk down as a credible source for chemical engineering (Okay, so that is a bit of an exaggeration), there are those that are a lot smarter than me and have a lot more knowledge on various subjects.  Emotion connects people.  It connects opinions.  And logic should be used in all situations.  Those techniques are all needed to be really, truly convincing.