Return to Convincing vs. Persuading

Persuading Essays

By contrast, your goal in a persuading essay is not only to convince your audience, but also to motivate your audience to take action. In addition to appealing to your readers' reason, in a persuading essay you must also appeal to their emotions. While appeals to reason influence the way readers think, appeals to emotion are more likely to influence the way readers behave. The distinction between convincing and persuading is a matter of degree in that you can not rely on appeals to emotion alone. You must use these appeals to reinforce already well-supported appeals to reason.

You can easily find models of persuasion associated with public issues involving public policy and law. In an election, for example, politicians will try to persuade you to vote in specific ways, and they will base their arguments on reason, emotion, and their character. Additionally, they will appeal to you through style by using rhetoric they hope you will remember.