How to Convince People With Your Articles: Stop Preaching to the Choir
If You Preach to the Choir, You'll Only Convince People Who Already Agreed with You
Preaching to the choir occurs when a writer forgets about the audience. This usually happens when one writes an opinion piece on something that gets them very excited. They get too excited. You see it the most with political articles and religious articles.
Preaching to the choir articles are usually full of "I think" or "I believe" points. They have a tendency to attack the other point of view, and generally they are not strongly reasoned. They usually contain straw man fallacies. This means they take one of the opposition's weak arguments (the straw man), and then refute the straw man.
They stir up debate, which is nice, but they inflame people on both sides. The people who agree love the article because...well only because they already agree with the author's cause. A zealot following begins. The opponents become inflamed too. Usually, poor debate follows. Feelings are hurt and people become cling even stronger to their original belief.
How can a writer avoid preaching to the choir? First, remember the audience. Most likely, you're not writing the article for yourself. You're writing it for the readers.
Next, think about your goal in writing the article. Most of the time, you will want to convince others with your editorial pieces. But whatever you're trying to do, keep your goal in mind while writing the article.
Remember that there are essentially three types of readers you'll encounter.
Those who already agree with you
To people who preach to the choir, these are the best readers to have! They often write very nice supportive comments and give lots of praise. This tricks us into thinking we've written a good editorial when we really haven't. They are "the choir".
Those who already disagree with you
You may or may not be able to convince this people. It depends how fixed they are in their stance. These people will leave comments that also preach to the choir.
Those who haven't formed their opinion, or at least are open-minded and can be swayed
These are the people you should target your article to. Don't make your arguments too forceful or emotional. State your case like you're convincing a friendly, open-minded person, and you'll be writing better editorials in no time.
No more preaching to the choir, or preaching to anybody for that matter!
Published by Scott Schlimmer
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- Remember the audience
- Remember why you're writing the article
- Don't make your points too forceful or emotional
14 Comments
Post a CommentVery good article, good advice.
Welcome Jim Clayton to the list found guilty of preaching to the choir: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/215364/conservatism_is_not_a_disease.html
Nope, I support cloning. You might want to read that article a little more closely. Please don't just attack though. Sounds like you're just searching for anything to get me on.
Your final lines say no preaching to anybody, yet you have an article stating that cloning animals is wrong. That sounds like preaching to me.
Thank you Kristina. I hope this helps people write better editorials in the future.
Very interesting article! Excellent advice here.
Guilty of preaching to the choir: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/189150/house_democrats_pass_pork_bill_with.html
You're welcome, as usual! :-)
thanks for the interesting advice as usual!!!
Shannon: Good question. That is tricky and I'll have to think about that. Maybe a different spin on the subject is the way to go. One that isn't trying too hard to convince people. That's what I tried for in this article on abortion: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/123460/think_life_begins_at_conception_what.html --
And if that doesn't work, you can make cheesy titles like: Bottle Deposits Make "Cents". It must be hard to get heated against anybody who could use a geeky title like that!
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/160522/bottle_deposits_make_cents.html