English
What are persuasive techniques, and how do you spot them?
Quick answer
Persuasive techniques are tools writers, speakers and advertisers use to convince an audience, such as rhetorical questions, emotive language, facts, the rule of three and ethos, pathos and logos.
In one sentence
Persuasive techniques are the tricks of the trade that writers, speakers and advertisers use to make an audience agree with them or do something.
Explained
Every advert, campaign leaflet, political speech and letter to the editor is trying to change your mind. Writers do this with reasons, but also with techniques: ways of choosing and arranging words so they hit harder. Learning them helps you twice. You can use them in your own persuasive writing, and you can spot when someone is using them on you.
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More than 2,300 years ago, the Greek thinker Aristotle described three basic ways to persuade, and they are still taught today:
- Ethos (trust): make the audience believe you. Show you are an expert, honest or fair. As a vet with fifteen years' experience, I can tell you…
- Pathos (feeling): make the audience feel something: pity, fear, pride, anger, hope. Every night, a frightened puppy shivers alone in the cold.
- Logos (logic): convince the audience with reasons and evidence: facts, figures, cause and effect. If each of us recycles ten bottles a week, our class of 30 recycles 300.
Most other techniques are ways of doing one of those three. Many schools in the UK teach them with the mnemonic AFOREST:
- Alliteration: words starting with the same sound, so a slogan sticks (Simply super savings). See alliteration.
- Facts: true, checkable statements that make the argument look solid.
- Opinions: strong views, often from experts, stated with confidence.
- Rhetorical questions: questions asked for effect, not for an answer.
- Emotive language: words chosen to stir feelings (cruel, heartbreaking, thrilling).
- Statistics: numbers and percentages that make a point sound proven.
- Triples (the rule of three): lists of three (quick, cheap and easy).
Other common techniques: direct address (talking to the reader as you), inclusive language (we, us, our), repetition, hyperbole (deliberate exaggeration), anecdotes (a short personal story), imperatives and a call to action (Sign the petition today!), and counterargument and rebuttal (mentioning the other side, then answering it).
Advertising adds its own favourites: the bandwagon (Join millions of happy customers), celebrity endorsement (a famous face using the product), scarcity and urgency (Only 3 left! Offer ends Friday!), catchy slogans and jingles, before-and-after pictures, and vague glittering words such as natural, new and improved that sound good but promise little.
Persuasion is not the same as manipulation. Honest persuasion gives real reasons and lets you decide. Manipulation hides the truth, invents numbers or uses fear and pressure so you don't stop to think. That is why it matters to tell fact from opinion: an opinion dressed up as a fact (This is the best phone in the world) is still an opinion.
Examples
| Technique | Example | Effect on the audience |
|---|---|---|
| Rhetorical question | Isn't it time we acted? | makes the reader feel the answer is obvious |
| Direct address | You deserve a break. | feels personal, as if written for you |
| Emotive language | These innocent animals are suffering. | stirs pity or anger |
| Rule of three | Healthy, cheap and fun. | sounds complete and memorable |
| Statistic | Four out of five pupils in our class voted yes. | makes the claim seem proven |
| Expert opinion | Doctors recommend eight hours' sleep. | borrows authority (ethos) |
| Repetition | We will not give up. We will not give in. | drives the idea home |
| Hyperbole | The longest wait in human history! | exaggerates for drama or humour |
| Bandwagon | Everyone's talking about it. | uses the wish to fit in |
| Urgency | Today only! | pushes people to act before thinking |
Worked example: analyse "Why should our children suffer in freezing classrooms? Every parent knows a cold child cannot learn. Act now: fix the heating!" It opens with a rhetorical question that makes the problem seem obviously unfair. Suffer and freezing are emotive language (pathos). "Every parent knows" is a claim of shared common sense (and a little bandwagon). It ends with an imperative and a call to action, so the reader feels they must do something.
Common mistakes
- Naming a technique without explaining its effect. "The writer uses a rhetorical question" earns little on its own. Fix: say what it does to the reader: "…which makes the reader feel that only one answer is sensible."
- Using invented statistics. Made-up numbers are dishonest, and a reader who spots one stops trusting everything else. Fix: use real, checkable facts, or none.
- Overloading every sentence. Ten exclamation marks and a rhetorical question in every line sound desperate. Fix: choose a few techniques and place them well, especially at the start and the end.
- Confusing opinion with fact. Homework is pointless is an opinion, however confidently it is said. Fix: ask "Could this be checked?"
Step by step
Step by step
- Find the purpose and audienceWhat does the text want, and who is it talking to? Parents, teenagers, voters?
- Hunt for cluesLook for question marks, you and we, numbers, strong adjectives, lists of three, repeated words and commands.
- Quote itPick out the exact words.
- Name the techniqueRhetorical question, emotive language, statistic, ethos, bandwagon…
- Explain the effectSay how it is meant to make the audience think, feel or act, and why that helps the writer's purpose.
Practice questions
Spot the persuasive technique
Try each one, then check your answer.
- "Do you want your children to grow up without parks?"
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Rhetorical question - "Sunny, silly, simply super!"
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Alliteration (it is also a list of three) - "Join the thousands of families who already shop with us."
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Bandwagon - "As a doctor with twenty years' experience, I can tell you that sleep matters."
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Expert opinion (an appeal to ethos) - "Every night, a frightened puppy shivers alone in the cold."
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Emotive language (an appeal to pathos) - "It's quick, cheap and easy."
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Rule of three - "You deserve a break."
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Direct address - "Hurry! Offer ends Friday."
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Urgency (scarcity), with an imperative - "This is the best idea in the history of the world!"
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Hyperbole - "We all want a cleaner town."
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Inclusive language - "Some say the trip costs too much. However, the school has offered to pay half."
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Counterargument and rebuttal - "Last summer my little brother got lost in a crowd, and I have never been so scared."
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Anecdote - "Never give up. Never give in. Never stop believing."
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Repetition (also a triple) - "If we each recycle 10 bottles a week, our class of 30 recycles 300 bottles a week." Ethos, pathos or logos?
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Logos: it persuades with numbers and logic (10 × 30 = 300). - "Pizza is the tastiest food on Earth." Fact or opinion?
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Opinion stated as if it were a fact.
Questions people ask
What are persuasive techniques?
They are methods of using language to convince an audience: rhetorical questions, emotive language, facts and statistics, the rule of three, repetition, direct address and appeals to ethos, pathos and logos.
How many persuasive techniques are there?
There is no fixed number. Aristotle described three appeals (ethos, pathos, logos), the AFOREST mnemonic lists seven, and classroom lists often have 15 to 20. The psychologist Robert Cialdini described six principles of influence (reciprocity, commitment and consistency, social proof, authority, liking and scarcity) and later added a seventh, unity.
What are ethos, pathos and logos?
They are Aristotle's three appeals. Ethos persuades through the speaker's credibility, pathos through the audience's emotions and logos through logic and evidence. Strong arguments usually use all three.
What persuasive techniques are used in advertising?
Slogans, jingles, celebrity endorsement, the bandwagon effect, scarcity and urgency (limited edition, today only), before-and-after images, free gifts, emotive images and vague positive words like natural or new and improved.
How do you identify persuasive techniques?
Read once for the purpose, then look for clues: questions, you and we, numbers, strong adjectives, lists of three, repetition and commands. Quote the words, name the technique and explain its effect on the reader.
How do you use persuasive techniques in a speech?
Speeches rely on sound: repetition, the rule of three, rhetorical questions and direct address work especially well out loud. Martin Luther King's 1963 speech repeats "I have a dream", and Winston Churchill's 1940 speech repeats "we shall fight".
What is the difference between persuasion and manipulation?
Persuasion gives honest reasons and leaves the choice to you. Manipulation hides information, invents facts or uses fear and pressure to stop you thinking clearly.
Quick quiz
Persuasive techniques
Check what you know with 4 quick questions.
Question 1 of 4
Which technique is used in “Do you really want to breathe dirty air every day?”
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Related topics
Persuasive writing
Persuasive writing tries to convince the reader to agree with a view or take an action, using clear reasons, evidence and carefully chosen language.
Fact and opinion
A fact is something that can be checked and proved true or false. An opinion is what someone thinks or feels, and other people may disagree.
Figurative language
Figurative language uses words in a non-literal way to create a picture or feeling, as in similes, metaphors, personification, hyperbole and idioms. It's raining cats and dogs is one example.
Alliteration
Alliteration is when several words close together start with the same sound, like six silly snakes or big brown bear. It makes writing catchy and memorable.
Active and passive voice
In the active voice the subject does the action (The dog chased the ball). In the passive voice the subject receives it (The ball was chased by the dog), using be + past participle.
Parallel structure (parallelism)
Parallel structure means putting matching ideas in the same grammatical form, as in I like hiking, swimming and reading, not hiking, swimming and to read.