Chapter 2 – Information and Persuasion 1 Presenting Information Effectively Directness  Get to the point  Create an efficient document Conciseness  Use as many words as you need to achieve your purpose  Conciseness does not mean brevity

Chapter 2 – Information and Persuasion 2 Presenting Information Effectively Organization  Direct Plan  Main point  Support for, or explanation of, main point  Restatement of the main point (optional)  Indirect Plan  Buffer (delayed opening)  Reasons for negative message  Negative message  Positive ending

Chapter 2 – Information and Persuasion 3 Presenting Information Effectively Organization  Order of importance  State most important reason first  Present additional reasons in order of importance  Chronology  Organizing criterion is time  Used for resumes, accident reports and instructions  Problem-Solution  First part of message describes problem  Second part of message proposes a solution

Chapter 2 – Information and Persuasion 4 Presenting Information Effectively Organization  Causal  Move from cause to effect  Identify a present cause  Describe a probable effect  Reason forward in time  Move from effect to cause  Describe an observed effect  Propose to explain the probable causes  Reason backward in time Cause Effect Cause

Chapter 2 – Information and Persuasion 5 Presenting Information Effectively Organization  Spatial or geographic pattern  Basis for pattern is spatial relationship or geography  Appropriate where physical objects or locations are described  Structure/Function  First part describes the structure of something  Second part describes the functions of the structural parts

Chapter 2 – Information and Persuasion 6 Presenting Information Effectively Organization  Topical  Categorical pattern of organization  Used to organize messages  Topics or subjects are broken down into subtopics or categories Sales Marketing Customer Service

Chapter 2 – Information and Persuasion 7 Presenting Information Effectively Clarity  Define or eliminate unclear words  Compare or contrast the unfamiliar with the familiar  Exemplify  Clarify information with an example  Example can be real or hypothetical, brief or extended  Quantify meaningfully  Numbers or statistics require a context to be meaningful  Compare to other statistics or figures

Chapter 2 – Information and Persuasion 8 Presenting Information Effectively Redundancy  Enhances the understanding and retention of information  Repetition  Repeating the same words  Restatement  Expressing the same message in different words  Internal Summaries  Remind reader or listener of main points before moving on State Main Point Repeat Summarize

Chapter 2 – Information and Persuasion 9 Presenting Information Effectively Multisensory messages  Combination of oral, visual, written and graphic messages  Oral and visual messages together increase recall

Chapter 2 – Information and Persuasion 10 The Persuasive Process Persuasion is a process by which we motivate readers and listeners to:  Change existing behavior  Adopt new attitudes and behavior  Change and adopt new attitudes and behavior