When you try to persuade someone, often you'll be trying to do one of these three things:

* confirm an existing belief;

* challenge an existing belief; or

* change an existing belief.

In order to be as persuasive as possible, it's important to decide before you begin writing which of these three you're trying to accomplish as they each need different strategies.

Clearly this is a topic that can have a great deal written about it, but here are a few starting points.

CONFIRMING

If you're trying to confirm a person's beliefs through your writing, don't simply provide them with information; rather, try to validate their beliefs and compliment them on them.

Try to make them feel comfortable, and remove any reason for them to doubt their existing choice. For example, you might say:

I recommend that we continue these environmentally sound procedures.

Words like "sound", "tried and true", "trusted", "fiscally responsible" and "proven" reassure and subtly flatter reader that their current choices are good ones.

CHALLENGING

If you're trying to challenge a person's beliefs, you'll try to persuade them to question them. You'll deliberately try to upset status quo and shake things up a bit. For example:

George Bernard Shaw

It may seem trivial to tell you to choose a good title for your next written work, but importance of this task should not be underestimated. A good title may be difference between a reader choosing to look at your work or passing over it.

Many readers will learn of your work while surrounded by other documents that are competing for their attention. For example, they may see it while:

* scanning printed documents on a bookshelf;

* looking through titles in a printed index;

* looking at a bound collection of documents; or

* searching Internet.

A good title can help your work to stand out from crowd. Here then are some guidelines for choosing a good title.

TITLE GUIDELINE ONE

USE THE FEWEST NUMBER OF WORDS THAT EXPRESS WHAT YOU WISH TO SAY

When choosing a title, avoid generic phrases like 'An investigation of...', 'A study into...' and 'Observations on...'. These are implied anyway and add little value.

Compare these two titles:

A study of effects of chaos as a source of complexity and diversity in evolutionary processes

Chaos as a source of complexity and diversity in evolution

The first title takes seventeen words, second one ten. The first one contains extra words that convey slightly more information (study, effects and processes) but at cost of making title notably longer and less memorable.

Here is another example:

A description of a variety of different tools for creating an interactive virtual-cinema environment

Tools for interactive virtual cinema

The first title clearly employs more words than are needed (fourteen versus five). It does contain more information, but at cost of being wordier, harder to remember and burying key words at end of sentence.