• What are persuasive texts?
• Characteristics of persuasive texts
• Persuasive text types
• Examples of persuasive texts

We explain what a persuasive text is, its strategies to achieve its objective and its characteristics. Also, their types and various examples.

A persuasive piece can be anything from an entire book to a catch phrase.

What are persuasive texts?

A text Persuasive is one that is composed in such a way that it exerts an influence of a certain type on its readers, inviting them or even convincing them to assume some position, take some action or simply think in a certain way.

You can achieve your objective thanks to different strategies, which can range from argumentation, that is, to state reasons and motives clearly directed towards the logical defense of a point of view or a statement; to seduction, which consists of appealing to emotions and sensations, that is, the less rational and logical part of the receiver.

In persuasive texts, the appellate function or inchoative language, that is, they are made with a strategy to convince the receiver of something. However, its effectiveness (its ability to influence third parties) will depend on many factors, both its own (what are the persuasive resources that the text has) and circumstantial (to which audience it is addressed and in what specific circumstances).

Characteristics of persuasive texts

In general, persuasive texts are characterized by the following:

• They are very variable in length, from several pages like an essay to a few pages like an advertisement.
• They use different persuasive strategies: seduce, invite, convince, demonstrate, verify, promise, etc., depending on the text. These can be classified as rational (rational persuasion) or emotional (emotional persuasion).
• They tend to focus on the receiver, to the point of addressing him explicitly, as in the advertising.
• In many cases they are designed to be as attractive as possible to their target audience, using a language chord and extralinguistic elements (drawings, icons, colors, etc.).

Persuasive text types

There are many forms of persuasive text, since it is not an academic or formal category, but a characteristic present in many texts of a very diverse nature. Thus, in this group we will find elements such as:

• Academic texts or scientists. In which a hypothesis and you hold it through arguments logical, demonstrable and evident, without practically allowing the emotionality or the subjectivities of the author or the reader. His persuasion is completely rational and logical, that is, argumentative.
• Editorial texts or opinion. These are common texts in the press or periodicals, or in critical and opinion spaces both inside and outside the academy. They aim to persuade the reader through solid argumentation, but not for that reason totally objective, since it makes use of subjectivity and opinions.
• Advertising texts and propaganda.At this level are the promotional texts, advertising, spots and notices that promote consumption or that invite to act in a certain way, generally appealing to promises, relative truths or even seduction, that is, to purely emotional arguments. .

Examples of persuasive texts

Some hypothetical examples of persuasive texts would be the following:

• A government campaign to promote the use of a mask during an atypical pneumonia epidemic:

“Wear the mask in closed spaces and keep a distance of five feet from others. Remember that taking care of you today is taking care of all of us. Avoid contagion ”.

• An advertising spot to promote a new car brand:

“Do you really know what it's like to drive, if you've never driven a Lexus?

You are on time. Join a world of connoisseurs and discover why driving is so much more than just being behind the wheel. With its central computerized system and its combination of a light but elegant body and a powerful fuel-efficient engine, Lexus is much more than a vehicle: it is an experience. "

• A fragment of a critical text on a recently published literary work:

"After reading Today is not the day to order lobster, the new novel by the star author of the chickweed publishing house, Mario Salinas-Salmuera, one is left with the question of whether it is really a novel, or if it is rather an attempt to spread the author's political ideas. Not only because different politicians from the Spanish left intervene in the plot - with their own names and as antagonists - but because the plot seems to be an effort to victimize certain wealthy social classes and demonize, instead, any progressive idea. This does not mean that it is badly written, far from it, but its intentions to create controversy will be evident to any informed reader ”.

• A promotional campaign for an aid fund for Syrian refugees:

“This is Amin, he is seven years old. What he misses most about his home is his mother's food, who died during the last bombardment that they lived in Syria. He likes soccer and when he grows up he would like to be a doctor, to help people not lose their loved ones. With your help, Amin will be closer to fulfilling that dream, and we will be closer to fulfilling ours: to reach out to those who have lost everything and are in our country. Help us to achieve it! ”.