Engineering Study Material

1. GROUP-3 DAY-2
MAULANA AZAD NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF INDIA
HUM113 ORAL COMMUNICATION 1

2. MEMBERS  Bhanu Sethia
 Devang Periwal
 Akshat Gupta
 Himanshu Jain
 Saksham Dwivedi
2

3. WRITING
PERSUASIVE
PROPOSALS
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4. WHAT ARE PROPOSALS?
A proposal is a written document that is prepared in an attempt
to persuade the prospect to adopt the proposal's solution to a
problem or need. In simple words, a proposal is a way to pitch
an idea and state your requirements. A proposal can also be
prepared for an internal prospect where the proposal seeks to fill
an organizational need or solve a problem.
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5. WHAT IS
PERSUASIVE
WRITING ?
❖ If you write something for someone else to read,
the chances are you are doing it to get a result. In
other words, you want to persuade the reader to
do what you want. This applies equally to a range
of documents, such as emails, CVs, reports,
advertising and recruitment ads.
❖ Persuasive writing is the art of understanding what
you want, why someone else would give it to you
and then asking them in the most efficient and
effective way. Understand why you are writing,
who you are writing for and what response you
need from them to get what you want.
❖ Persuasive writing is any writing that aims to get a
result. In business, this is everything you write. If
you are not trying to get a result, why are you
writing?
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6. Some examples that require persuasive writing include:
• a cover letter for a job application
• an email letting staff know about a new policy;
• a competitive tender
• a letter seeking to recover a bad debt
All of these require some sort of response from the reader; hence
they need to be persuasive. Even fiction writing needs to be
persuasive. The author must convince an audience that the fiction
is real. If there is no suspension of disbelief, the author has failed.
In short, persuasive writing is everything you will ever write to be
read by another person.'
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8. PERSUASIVE PROPOSALS
 When it comes to proposals, it’s not always
the most qualified company who wins, but
the most convincing company.
 Being persuasive is the key to successful
sales. It’s about inspiring people to buy, to
care, to spread the word.
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9. THE 4 W’s
The key questions that you should ask yourself before you start
writing are:
I. Why are you writing?
II. Who will be reading?
III.What's your intended result?
IV.What response do you need from your audience to get that
result?
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10. IS WRITING
THE BEST
MEDIUM?
❖ It has been said, face-to-face communication does have
many advantages. When writing, you do not have access
to the persuasive tools of face-to-face contact. You
can't roll your eyes, express sarcasm, gesture or look
trustworthy. If you have charm and charisma,
persuading in person can be easier and more effective.
❖ However, writing has many advantages face-to-face
contact doesn't: you have time to craft your words; you
can edit and seek opinion; you can write in your
pyjamas and eat as much garlic as you like.
❖ Writing is slow, considered and precise, where personal
contact is fast, dynamic and free-form. Think carefully
and, where you have a choice, choose the medium most
likely to persuade.
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11. You have taken a sales job in a BMW car showroom. You
have fallen in love with a jet black Z4 coupé, an
expensive two-seater sports car. Whilst this may indeed
be the best car in the showroom, you would quickly be
out of a job if this were the only car you ever tried to
sell. Customers come in with different requirements
and, as a salesman, you change what you offer
accordingly. Exactly the same thing applies to writing:
make sure the text you offer to the reader is tailored to
their needs and is not simply what you consider to be
exceptional writing.
PERSUADE YOUR AUDIENCE,
NOT YOURSELF
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12. READER RESPONSE =
RESULT
❖ Before we start writing, we know our audience and our objective. Now
for the tricky part: how do we persuade our audience to help us achieve
our objective? This all comes down to reader response.
❖ Reader response is made up of two parts:
➢ Emotional response: This is the feeling created inside the reader
(pity, elation etc).
➢ Intent response: This is what the reader intends to do as a result of
these feelings (buy something, stop doing something, etc).
❖ Take the example of a competitive tender. A good bid will have all the
required content. A great bid will also elicit an emotional response from
the assessor that increases the odds of the assessor favouring that bid.
❖ The ultimate aim for a persuasive writer is to elicit responses such as:
➢ "That's terrible, I must do something to help."
➢ "This is clearly urgent, I'll get it done straight away."
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13. Before we learn about some tools and tips about writing
persuasive proposals, let’s see what we have learned until now.
Before you start writing, ask yourself the following:
Why are you writing?
• Is there a better option?
• Does your document actually do what you are setting out to
do?
Who are you writing for?
• Do I really know them?
• Am I trying to persuade them or myself?
When planning what to write, know what you want (Result), who
you want it from (Reader) and the Response most likely to lead
to that result
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14. TOOLS AND TIPS
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15. ARISTOTLE’S 3 MODES OF
PERSUASION
❖ Ethos: This refers to moral competence, expertise and knowledge. In order
to be persuasive, an audience must believe that the speaker is someone to
whom they want to listen. It is the appeal to credibility. It convinces the
audience of the credibility of the writer. This can also be termed 'respect'.
In writing, you should use your reputation to earn respect. If you have no
reputation with your audience, build it through the quality of your writing.
If you are succinct, accurate and persuasive, your audience is more likely
to respect you and thus respond to your writing.
❖ Logos: Logos is the root of the word logic'. It is the appeal to logic and
reason. Readers will always respond best to an argument that has a logical
element to it. The word of power here is because'. If readers are given a
reason, they are more likely to respond in the way you want them to.
❖ Pathos: The last of the three, pathos, refers to emotions. This aims to
convince the audience by appealing to human emotions. Emotions such as
sympathy, anger, and sadness motivate humans. If you play with the
readers' emotions, you can get some very powerful results.
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16. USING EMOTIVE
LANGUAGE
❖ Emotive Language is the term used
when certain word choices are made to
evoke an emotional response.
❖ The reader response depends on how
well you can manipulate their emotions.
This doesn't mean being theatrical:
❖ "Please, I'm begging you, my children
will starve to death if you don't sign the
order!"
❖ But understanding the reader's
emotional levers will allow you to
manipulate them for your benefit.
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"It took a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get to where
we are today, but we have just begun. Today we begin
in earnest the work of making sure that the world we
leave our children is just a little bit better than the one
we inhabit today." - Barack Obama

18. WHICH EMOTIONS CAN YOU
TARGET?
Here's a list of common emotions you could look to tap into and the
emotional/intent responses created:
 Greed - "I'll do it because I get something in return."
 Envy - "Everyone else is doing it, I must too."
 Fear - "If I don't do it, I'll suffer."
 Pride - "I'm the only one who can do it."
 Pity - "Those poor people, I must do something."
 Guilt - "I'm the cause of all this, I should do something."
 Anger - "How dare they! I'm going to do something about it."
 Happiness - "I'm so happy, I'll do anything."
 I Hope - "If I do this, there's a chance of a positive result."
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19. Positively - words to inspire a reader to
action
Negatively - words to scare a reader to
action
Novelty (newer is generally seen as
better) - new, discover, breakthrough
Result - catastrophe, disaster
Reliability - proven, guaranteed safe Impact - loss, suffer, pain, struggle
Greed - best, free, results, save, offer Lifestyle - negative effects on: health,
freedom, business
Exclusivity - limited, exclusive Timeliness (when to act) - now, soon,
action, change
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20. A
DEFINITION
OF
CONCISE
WRITING
 Reading sprawling sentences can feel overwhelming, confusing,
or boring. It can confuse readers by making it harder for them
to quickly identify the main point of what you're trying to
communicate.
 Concise Writing means using the fewest words possible to
convey an idea clearly. Concise writing achieves the correct
reader response in the most efficient manner.
 Note: This does not mean that you remove every non-critical
word; you are unlikely to persuade a vendor to lower their price
by simply writing "give me a 10% discount".
 Having said this, there are many cases where brevity is better.
 Cutting down on long words
 Reducing sentence length
 Cutting padding
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21. SUPERSIZED WORDS
❖ Just from being fed a diet of supersized burgers, you will get sick. Similarly
your reader will become sick if fed on a diet of overly long words.
❖ I'm proud of my vocabulary and want to show it off whenever possible.
However, not everyone shares my passion for words. If I say 'belligerent'
instead of aggressive’ and if your audience does not understand you, you
can't persuade them.
❖ Don't just think it is long words that confuse. Words like ‘concur', 'viable'
and 'deem' are all great words but may not be suitable for your audience.
Say 'agree', 'possible' or 'think" instead.
❖ Remember- if a rule makes your writing less persuasive then break the
rule
❖ Some long words impart specific meaning and cannot be replaced without
losing meaning, so you have to break the rule.
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22. Supersized words Alternative words
Acquiesce Agree
Constitute Form
Envisage Picture, Imagine
Predominant Main
Transpire Turn out
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23. REDUCING
SENTENCE
LENGTH
 SENTENCES THAT ARE TOO LONG
WITH LITTLE PUNCTUATION CAN
CAUSE THE READER TO LOSE
INTEREST IN YOUR WORK OR
STRUGGLE TO EXTRACT THE
MEANING RESULTING IN YOUR WORK
BEING LESS PERSUASIVE.
 Punctuation gives the reader a
chance to breathe, pause and
reflect. Very short sentences can be
used to create high impact by forcing
the reader to stop and absorb the
meaning of those few words.
Remember: conciseness brings
clarity.
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24. THE WRITER'S DIET –
CUTTING PADDING
❖ When writing as you talk, a lot of text will end up
being redundant. This is fine in speech but can
become tedious on paper. The same problem
occurs if you try to sound too official the meaning
can get lost in a blubbery mass of padding.
Consider the following text:
❖ "The committee for future funding carefully and
deliberately assessed the latest new
information that was sent by head office. The
committee felt that the suggestion for the team
to revert back to the original set of guidelines
on funding did not represent forward progress
as the key recommendations by the board were
no longer fully covered."
❖ Not very elegant I'm sure you will agree. So how do
you spot padding? We are going to use some of
these tips. 24

25. THE WRITER'S DIET –
CUTTING PADDING
❖ Adjectives and adverbs
➢ Cut down on your adjectives and adverbs.
Adjectives and adverbs describe nouns and
verbs respectively. Both are vital parts of
language but overuse can make your
writing abrupt. For example:
➢ "I slowly, painfully analysed the long,
thick, heavy document sent by the young,
keen writer in the marketing department."
➢ Tedious, isn't it? By selecting better verbs
and nouns, you can get across the same
meaning but in a more engaging way.
➢ Try a single adjective such as 'huge' in front
of 'document’ and ‘young’ in front of
‘writer’.
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26. ❖ 'The' and 'that'
➢ Keep 'the' and 'that' to a minimum
➢ Often these words are redundant in a
sentence. For example:
➢ "The director of AceCorp said that the new
accounting system would eliminate the
errors and the delays that have occurred
recently."
➢ Eliminate a few excess words, a swift bit of
re-jigging and you end up with:
➢ "Acecorp's director said the new accounting
system would eliminate the recent delays
and errors."
THE WRITER'S DIET –
CUTTING PADDING
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27. THE WRITER'S DIET –
CUTTING PADDING
❖ Adjective before noun
➢ No one talks about the 'machine for
milling' if they can say the 'milling
machine'. By placing the adjective in
front of the noun, you cut your word
count and increase clarity. So
remember, don't use the rules for
concise writing, use the concise
writing rules.
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28. CREDIBILITY  Presenting strong evidence, such as facts
and statistics, statements of expert
authorities and research findings,
establishes credibility and authenticity.
 Readers will more likely be convinced to
side with the writer's position or agree with
their opinion if it is backed up by verifiable
evidence.
 Concrete, relevant, and reasonable
examples or anecdotes can enhance the
writer's idea or opinion. They can be based
on observations or from the writer's
personal experience.
 Accurate, current and balanced information
adds to the credibility of persuasive writing
and leads the readers to believe your claim.
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29. SOME POINTS TO REMEMBER
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30. QUALIFY
YOUR LEAD
❖ If your potential client isn’t a good fit
for your company to start with, they’re
not actually serious about doing
business, or they don’t have an
appropriate budget, you’re not going to
be able to convince them of anything,
and you’ll just be wasting your time.
❖ Validating your leads before you spend
hours preparing a proposal is probably
the most crucial step in sales. Figuring
out if this potential client actually has
potential should be your first step in the
sales process—before you even type one
little word of your proposal.
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31. UNDERSTANDING
THE CLIENT
❖ To convince anyone of anything you first
need to establish that you know something
about the situation. Make sure your
proposal demonstrates that you understand
the client, their business, their customers,
their industry, and the challenges they’re
facing.
❖ This involves listening to the client, doing
research, and directing the proposal to
focus on the client.
❖ Proving you understand them establishes
credibility so the client’s more likely to be
open to what you have to say and more
easily convinced that you know what
you’re talking about. 31

32. DESIGN IS
PERSUASIVE,TOO
❖ Your products and services may be superior
compared to your competition but if they don’t
LOOK superior, it’s going to be hard to convince
your client otherwise.
❖ Making your proposal legible, aesthetically
pleasing, and professional-looking will go a long
way in persuading a client that you are the best
choice, regardless of the actual words you use.
❖ Here are four basic rules to follow when
designing your proposal:
a. Don’t cram every page with text.
b. Use whitespace and beautiful images to let
the design breathe.
c. Make appropriate use of colour.
d. Use legible and elegant typography.
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33. USE PLAIN
LANGUAGE
❖ Plain language writing is about
just writing in a clear, concise
manner so that readers easily and
quickly understand what you’re
trying to convince them of.
❖ Simplicity is the key to clarity and
the clearer the proposal, the
more likely it is to be accepted.
❖ Making sure your proposals are as
straightforward as possible will
make it easier for clients to be
persuaded. They’ll understand
what you’re offering, what the
process will be, and what results
they should expect.
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34. USE THE ‘PROBLEM,
AGITATE, SOLUTION’
TECHNIQUE
❖ Also known as PAS, this is a classic
copywriting(act or occupation of writing text
for the purpose of advertising or other forms
of marketing.) formula and persuasion
technique, perfect for writing a convincing
proposal.
❖ As discussed earlier, it’s important that you
show the client you understand the problem or
challenge they’re struggling with.
❖ The next step is to agitate the problem,
making it a little more painful, demonstrating
how dangerous the risks are if the problem
persists, and how crucial it is to find a
solution.
❖ This isn’t about fear-mongering but again,
showing that you understand the pain, you
have experience with it, and you want to
shelter the client from it getting much worse.
❖ Then you swoop in with your brilliant solution
that will make everything better, alleviate the
pain, and save the future from certain demise.
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35. USE THE
‘PROBLEM, AGITATE,
SOLUTION’ TECHNIQUE
Life before Wraptastic is grey, frustrating,
wasteful, and time-consuming. Then along comes
Wraptastic and life is in full color, everything is
easy, and not only will I be able to wrap three hero
sandwiches in five seconds, but my hands will also
be safe from the shark-like aggression of the teeth
on the average food wrap box. 35

36. A SEVEN-STEP CONCISE WRITING
PROCESS
Step 1 - Bullets: Plan your document using your favoured technique. Get to the
point where you have a list of section headings. Complete each section in bullet-
point form, with each bullet expressing only the most important points.
Step 2 – Story: Check your bullet points to make sure they tell an effective
story. Is there a better order to make the points in? Have you missed a logical
step?
Step 3 - Expand: Draft out the document, adding as few words as possible to the
bullet points to make complete sentences. The vast majority of added text
should be supporting facts, not new parts to the story.
Step 4 - Read each sentence in isolation:
 What does it actually say? Could this be misinterpreted?
 Do I need to say this? Does it add value?
 Are there other points made in the sentence that are not the main
point? If so, can I remove them or move them into a separate sentence?
36

37. Step 5 - Read the section as a whole. Do the sentences flow together Has
adding words modified the story?
Step 6 - Close edit
❖ Use some or all of the following techniques:
➢ Summarise - can one word or phrase replace a list of similar items?
Look out for the word 'and', as this is sometimes an indication of
unnecessary additions.
➢ Eliminate unnecessary jargon - would an ignorant genius understand it?
➢ Edit for sentence length - try to keep the average sentence length
under 20 words and provide lots of variation.
❖ If you have time:
➢ eliminate unnecessary adjectives/adverbs;
➢ remove 'the' and 'that' where possible;
➢ remove repetition - especially in multiple uses of the same
description.
Step 7 – Re-read and proofread
Go away for a bit, come back and read straight through, out loud. Read in
reverse and look for spelling/grammar errors.
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38. 38
A Jargon

39. CREATING WIN-WIN
SITUATION
❖ Being persuasive comes down to gaining the trust, and respect
of your potential client so that they are easily convinced by
the solution you offer them.
❖ You want to address all their concerns so they feel there little
risk in their decision to choose your business, and leave them
feeling confident about themselves and the future of their
company.
❖ Learning to sell and write more persuasively can be the
tipping point for converting more proposals into closed deals.
And more closed deals help convince more clients.
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40. REFERENCES
 https://www.proposify.com/blog/how-to-
write-a-persuasive-proposal
 Persuasive Writing – How to Harness the
Power of Words by PETER FREDERICK
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