Persuasive writing is a writing genre included in the Australian curriculum in different forms every year, and being able to persuade with integrity is a valuable skill for life. It’s therefore important that students learn meaningful ways to persuade rather than just relying on the classic hyperbole, repetition and high modality words. In real life, these things sometimes make us suspicious if they’re not used carefully. We have become savvy consumers alert to scams and if something sounds too good to be true… well, we all know the rest.
These days, it’s important to be able to present a persuasive argument with authenticity and integrity. Sometimes, we might have personal credibility to speak on an issue because it’s relevant to us, but lack the hard, irrefutable data ourselves. This is when it’s important to research and find appropriate statistics and expert opinions to give your argument authority.
Check out this video on the Lavender Learning YouTube channel, where Jane gives some tips on how to be persuasive and specifically, how to use appeal to authority to add credibility to your argument.