You are building a case and you need to persuade your audience. Maybe it’s a sales pitch for your company. Or an email to your boss about why you deserve a promotion. Or a presentation to your coworkers on a new policy or procedure. You need a strong argument and winning content. But you are stuck staring at a blinking cursor. So where do you start?
With Richard M. Weaver. Um, excuse me, who? Weaver was a former University of Chicago professor who taught rhetoric and composition. He had a lot to say about how we use words. In fact, his definition of rhetoric, a word that these days tends to have a negative, political connotation, is one of my favorites. He says it is “truth plus its artful presentation.” In other words, whenever we stand up to speak or sit down to write, we should aim to tell the truth in an artful way.
So what can Weaver teach us about getting a promotion or giving a great presentation? Five things, actually. Weaver give 5 ways to build a persuasive case. The first is classification & definition. The second is relationship. Third is cause & effect. Fourth is authority & testimony. And finally we can look to rhetorical-historical sources to build our case content. Weaver says they are ways of thinking about reality and interpreting experience. Really, they are just ways to get past that blinking cursor. They provide frameworks from which to build. I describe each of them below, along with giving examples of how they might be used in the three real-life scenarios I gave above: giving a sales pitch, trying to get a promotion, or presenting on a new policy or procedure. Let’s get started.
1. Classification & Definition
This method of persuading your audience is pretty straightforward. And it’s a traditional method of approach. In fact, Aristotle was famous for categorizing everything—types of emotions, types of friendships, and so on. This method assumes that most everything falls into a certain category. And if we can determine the category it fits into, we can know more about its characteristics.
For example, if we label a certain animal a “cat” we can assume things about it because of the category it fits in. We know it will most likely have 4 legs, whiskers, and fur. In the text Contemporary Perspectives on Rhetoric, the authors said Weaver saw this method of argument as highly effective because it interprets “a subject by defining the fundamental and unchanging properties of its nature or being.” It looks at what has largely been accepted as fact and moves forth from there. Not a bad strategy.
Here’s how you might use this method of argument with the three examples we mentioned above:
Sales Pitch: Show how the product/company you are pitching can be classified as cost-effective. Define the main terms and provide statistics that prove how much money could be saved.
Promotion: Explore the definition and qualifications of the job to which you are hoping to be promoted. Show how you meet and match that definition.
Policy Presentation: Show how the policy/procedure you are presenting can be categorized as “necessary for growth.” Define that category clearly.
2. Relationship
You can also build a strong case by pointing to how your topic relates to similar things. It uses things like analogy and comparison and contrast to create content. I’ve seen lots of these types of arguments on social media recently as people grapple with whether mask wearing should be mandated. To say that someone should not have a problem wearing a mask if they don’t have trouble following other safety-based, government-enforced mandates (like seatbelt wearing or putting technology up during takeoff/landing on an airplane) is arguing from relationship.
Sales Pitch : Create content by comparing your product/company to your competitors and showing how you provide superior product/performance.
Promotion: Compare and contrast your skills with that of other candidates who are up for promotion.
Policy Presentation: Show how the new policy/procedure relates to other practices already in place. Compare/contrast daily office flow with/without the new policy.
3. Cause & Effect
Another way to build your case and to persuade your audience is to show cause and effect relationships. It’s important to orient yourself and your message when using this type of argument. Are you standing with the cause, trying to highlight possible effects such as making guesses or predictions about the future? Or are you standing at the effect, looking back and trying to determine what causes in the past led to your current state?
Also, be careful not to jump to conclusions when using cause & effect. For more information on how cause & effect is often misconstrued or misused, check out this great article from Martyn Shuttleworth of Explorable.com.
Sales Pitch: Show how current trends (like increased online shopping) make it necessary for companies to adapt their strategies to remain competitive in the future.
Promotion: Most requests for promotion are naturally based on cause & effect. Point to the success you’ve had in your current role as a predictor of the same effect in the new role you want.
Policy Presentation: Show how shifts in the company (causes) made the new policy/procedure (the effect) necessary.
4. Authority & Testimony
Weaver says that this type of persuasion is different from the previous three because it relies on external support to persuade your audience. Instead of calling up your own examples or authority, you use the expertise or experience of someone else. In the case of authority, you have to make sure your audience accepts your source as a true authority. James H. Seckinger of Notre Dame Law School offers some tips from the legal field. He says before sharing what the expert says, you should first identify the expert, explain his or her relationship to the case you are building, and to spend some time sharing his or her qualifications.
Content built on authority & testimony is the most powerful in situations where others are willing to vouch for you, your company, your product, or your ideas. If you doubt the power this can have in a persuasion, think about the credence you give to online customer reviews before purchasing a product.
Sales Pitch: Share customer reviews that put your company in a good light.
Promotion: Bolster your promotion request with strong referrals and references.
Policy Presentation: Sometimes your audience might need to be reminded that a new policy or procedure needs to be accepted because there is no other choice. Like if an administrator has handed down a policy change. Remind the audience that the change comes from someone who has the best interest of the whole company in mind. Create content that displays a team mentality rather than an “us” versus “them” mentality.
5. Rhetorical-Historical
Don’t worry. This isn’t as confusing as it sounds. The last way to persuade your audience is kind of like an “all of the above” approach. Weaver calls it the rhetorical-historical method because you take elements of classification & definition, relationship, cause & effect, and authority & testimony and use them alongside past examples. When building a case using this method, you choose any of the above categories that help your argument and then point to real-life, past examples as evidence.
You might have been hesitant to pull up historical examples in your messages because, well, many people immediately think of history as boring or irrelevant. But MIT Professor Malick Ghachem says that diving into history can “contribute to problem-solving” efforts of today. He says, “When we can understand and articulate the roots and sources of a problem, we have a much better chance of solving it.”
Sales Pitch: Define your product. Then, share statistics and stories of how your product has changed the lives of other people.
Promotion: Offer your references from past employers or coworkers. Then, show how you rose to meet and exceed expectations in the past. Also, examine the history of your company or department and point to examples which illustrate periods of growth as a result of new management or leadership.
Policy Presentation: Show how this new policy is a good move for the company. Then, back it up with examples of when the company made changes in the past that led to positive outcomes.
Wrapping It Up
Weaver’s 5 ways to build a case should help you the next time you find yourself needing to persuade your audience. The good thing about persuasive messages is that you can rely on proven methods like these to help you construct a winning argument. Whether it’s definition, relationship, cause & effect, testimony, or a combination of all of them, you now know how to move beyond that blinking cursor.
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