Writing to persuade

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来自 The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology 的课程

English for Effective Business Writing

104 个评分

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

English for Effective Business Writing

104 个评分

课程 2（共 5 门，Specialization 面向非母语人士的商务英语）

This course aims to improve your Business English writing skills by developing your use of vocabulary, grammar, understanding of different business writing genres, and your ability to write professional business documents. Skills learned in this course will be used in the cross-cultural communications course and help prepare you to produce the professional business documents in the Capstone project. After completing this course, you will be able to: - write business emails - write an executive summary - write persuasively in English - adapt content to purpose, context and audience - use appropriate style and tone of writing for business purposes

从本节课中

Writing emails

Welcome to Week 3! This week we will cover Module 3 where we introduce you to emailing and the language skills you will use in business emails. You will also be introduced to vocabulary and language skills common to business communications.

Effective emailing5:18

Context and directness8:11

Writing to persuade6:20

Rhetorical devices5:42

The writing process, part 22:39

与讲师见面

Sean McMinn
Senior Instructor
Center for Language Education
Kin Tang
Instructor
Center for Language Education
Delian Gaskell
Instructor
Center for Language Education

Hi and welcome to this video on writing to persuade in emails.

Let's think about this question.

Is it easier to persuade in face to face communication

compared with written communication, perhaps in emails?

I think you'll find in most situations, it is easier to persuade in person.

because with face to face communication you can connect, interact and

convince the person to your idea or suggestion or

proposal more easily than, perhaps, with written communication, as in, emails.

So, how can you write more persuasively?

Well, by the end of this video, you should be able to

use a variety of simple strategies to write persuasive emails, and

learn how to use content, structure, and language to be a persuasive email writer.

Remember, with emails people really don't have too much time to read through them.

Mainly because we can receive up to hundreds of emails a day or

if you work away from the office you often look at your emails on a smart phone and

there really is limited time and space for how much content and

language you can write to persuade somebody to your suggestions.

So, how can we write to persuade?

Well, it boils down to three key factors.

is content, structure, and language.

When we look at content, we have to revisit some of the things that we

covered in course one, namely Audience Analysis.

If you remember, there are three key points for

the Audience Analysis after you've decided on what your purpose is this.

And that's identifying who they are?

What are their needs and concerns?

And what actions do you want your audience to take?

For the purposes of this video we want to persuade our audience to do something.

So points two and three are really important here.

Here, so.

The needs and concerns after you've identified these,

you'll be able to identify them, the benefits for your reader.

And that could be anything from suggesting a software program that helps

your client to understand the customers better and to retain business or

perhaps even a proposal that can help an organization to motivate their staff.

So they're able to provide better customer service quality.

Secondly, your actions have to be very clear.

More often than not, it's very hard to close a deal with email writing.

With your emails, you have to suggest some actions that

might lead your reader to just consider your idea, suggestion or proposal.

Even something that is easy for them to do,

such as click on a link, or even just reply or acknowledge your email.

Second structure is very important.

So, as we mentioned in a previous video.

In email writing, usually the direct approach is used.

I starts off with a personalized opening, such as referring to a previous

email correspondent or face-to-face meeting or even phone conversation.

There has to be something which gets the attention of the audience,

especially perhaps, if you're contacting them for the first time.

You really have to show your understanding of the reader.

So, for example, in this opening you can see that it's

referring to a previous face to face meeting and

there's a clear purpose for the email.

In this example the writer is probably contacting or

communicating with the reader for the first time.

So it targets perhaps a need or a concern of the audience and

shows understanding and just like first example it shows a clear purpose.

Thirdly, in the main body of the email you have to really provide a potential

benefit for whatever you're suggesting or whatever you're communicating.

Remember the question what's in it for me and what's in it for the audience.

You have to give some benefit to motivate the reader to just read on or

even take action.

Finally, you have to finish with a positive closing and

that's using positive language, positive tone and

style, but also a suggested action at the ending as well.

Thirdly, language is also very important.

As we mentioned before, time and space for

your email writing is very limited usually nowadays.

So, it has to be concise and use plain English, personal pronouns to

connect more personally with the reader, perhaps using adjectives or

adverbs to put your product or service in a more positive light.

But remember, don't overuse these.

And always, always use positive tone.

Finally, always remember to proofread and edit your emails.

You want to avoid any redundant statements and you want to make every word count.

So, let us do a quick recap of today's video again.

After this video, we hope that you're more aware of using

a variety of simple strategies to write persuasive emails.

Also, we hope you've learned how to use content structure and

language to be a more persuasive email writer.

Thank you for watching.

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