Improving Your Technical Writing Skills
Improving Your Technical Writing Skills
Sometimes you need to use your writing skill to be persuasive. Maybe you are writing marketing materials. You will find it easier to get the results you want if you use a few clever strategies in your persuasive writing. Persuasive writing is often unsolicited, your readers probably did not ask to see your ad. So you need to work quickly to get the reader's attention, and keep it.
You can use punctuation to help. Try building up thought in a sentence, and before you finish the thought, and end the sentence with an ellipsis, a dash, or a colon. Your reader has to keep reading to find the conclusion, which comes after the punctuation mark. You can also draw readers in by using language that evokes emotion. For example, if you are selling a fast internet connection, paint the picture of a frustrated user sitting with a very slow connection. Then contrast this with your product, which offers blazingly fast access.
You can also get attention by using words with impact. For instance, enduring is stronger than long-lasting, and bargain is better than cheap. Another good strategy is to ask questions. When you ask a question, your reader has to engage with your material, instead of just passively receiving the information. You might place a question at the beginning, as an attention grabbing headline. You can ask questions throughout your text. Or you might ask a question as your conclusion, to remind your readers of the original problem and suggest that you can solve it.
One mistake people make in persuasive writing is giving technical information in the form of a list, without telling the reader why it is important. Instead, if you want to use information to persuade, it is better to present technical information as a solution or benefit. Do not just write a list of specifications - use those specs to show why your product is the best. So, for example, you could describe your new tablet like this: "Our product's compact, high-resolution, 3.75 in display makes it ideal for browsing your favorite web sites."
By the time you have reached the end of your persuasive document, you have put a lot of effort into trying to convince your reader to9 do what you want them to do. Drive the point home in your conclusion by giving a call to action; recommend a solution or action that will help your reader, and you. So, you might end promotional material with: "Call us today for a quote," followed by your contact details.
Adopting these strategies should make your writing much more persuasive - so be prepared to do what you have promised to do!