16 Secrets to Persuasive Writing
These are the 15 techniques you need to master (the 16th is optional):
MAD FATHERS CROCH or MAD FAT HEIRS CROCH or MAD HEIRS FAT CROCH
Metaphor
Anecdote
Direct Address
Facts
Alliteration
Triplets (Pattern of Three)
Hyperbole
Emotive Language
Rhetorical Question
Statistics
Contrast
Repetition
Opinion
Creating an Enemy
Humour
(The I in HEIR is IRONY) Number 16
My students really do memorise this list. But they also keep practising the skills in their writing. Then it becomes second nature, and you can forget about the list.
How to Practise
Type 1 Learning - just write, imitating what you have read.
Type 2 Learning -
● Go through each of the exam answers.
● Answer the Type 2 Learning questions.
● Try your own exam answers at any point.
● Give them to your teacher to mark - they will be excited at how hard you are working.
● Only if you are really proud of yours, and want it in a video or a book, send it to me.
The 2022 AQA Exam Question
I had already answered this question, before the exam, when I published my guide in 2021. This is because the examiners will only ask predictable questions. Why? They can’t ask any questions about a topic not all students will know about. Abortion, hunting, genetic engineering, globalisation, democracy, scientific advances in medicine, artificial intelligence, politics, immigration – anything requiring understanding, won’t ever come up. Instead, you will only be asked about stuff every 16 year old has experienced.
So, my guide won’t just show you how to write, it will also predict many of the exam questions.
Type 2 Learning
We should reduce travel to protect the environment.
Oh, so you think travel broadens the mind, do you? 100,000 18-year-olds descending onto the coasts of Spain, the islands of Greece, and the mecca of hedonism and excess that is Ibiza and the Balearics, certainly travel to have their minds expanded. But not in the way we might hope. It's the chemical cocktails, the illegal and illicit drug-filled search for escape. And it’s the oh-so-legal alcohol of happy hour, after happy hour which begins just after lunch or, as the young know it, dawn.
● It starts with direct address and a rhetorical question. Highlight where else direct address occurs in the paragraph.
● How many triplets can you spot?
● ‘But not in the way we might hope’ is a contrast. What other technique is it?
● Highlight the examples of alliteration.
● Hyphenating words create a new adjective. It is a great trick newspaper writers love.
● Highlight the different examples of repetition.
● Where is the humour?
Cultural Capital
● Mecca is the main pilgrimage destination for those who believe in Islam. Without the capital letter - mecca - means the main place to go to for something.
● Hedonism is the pursuit of pleasure.
Do the puking, the refuelling of spirits like thirsty cars at a petrol station, the puking up again like debauched Roman nobility, the passing out, the morning after pills, the discarded condoms in the cobbled streets, really broaden the mind?
● Notice how long this show-off sentence is. How did I build it up?
● What is the simile?
● How many triplets can you spot?
● Is it a rhetorical question?
● Highlight the examples of alliteration.
● Did you spot the assonance of ‘puking’ and ‘refuelling’? There’s more if you look for it.
● Highlight the different examples of repetition.
Cultural Capital
● Roman nobility - it has been widely (though incorrectly) assumed that the rich Romans gorged themselves with food. Then, it is claimed, they would use a feather in the throat to force themselves to vomit in a room next to the dining room - the vomitorium. Untrue, but most people believe it, so use it as an allusion.
Perhaps you mean the educated middle classes, backpacking across Southeast Asia, with their Yeti sized carbon footprints. How can they resist the intercontinental flights, so convenient and quick; the bargain deals which let them circumnavigate the globe and land in Bali for parties under the full moon, or in Thailand for the meditation, magic mushrooms and your-mother-wouldn’t-like-that live shows?
● Spot the hyperbole at the start.
● Highlight the alliteration.
● Spot the triplets.
● There’s the newspaper writer’s favourite adjective trick.
Cultural Capital
● Yeti - a mythical creature, also known as the abominable snowman, which has been ‘sighted’ in the Himalayas.
● Bali is the party island for young backpackers in South Asia.
● Thailand is partly famous for its red-light districts.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Mr Salles Teaches English to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.