It's easy to succeed when everything is going right for you. But, when the going gets tough you need to become more persuasive. That's when you should turn to the experts for help!
This state-of-the-art book summarizes what the experts know to date about what works. The author, Dr. William (Will) Rogers, has taught people for more than thirty years about how to start using the power of persuasion!help you speak, think, and write more persuasively. You can reach him at wroger@tiac.net. You can visit his website to see his persuasion book’s table of contents or to get free curriculum materials on persuasion.
This book explains how persuasion works, why it works when it does, and why it sometimes fails. It will help you become more persuasive! It will also help you become a more skeptical consumer of the propaganda that often saturates the media. The book explains basic vocabulary of persuasion and propaganda, underlying theories, and reports on recent research in the field. It uses diagrams to help make ideas easier to understand. And, it uses relevant news stories of the day to illustrate points in interesting ways. The book develops in good detail how to provide proof of your claims through evidence and reasoning. it also shows how you can persuade audiences through logic, emotional appeals, and credibility-enhancing information about you the persuader. The author gives readers insights gained over the last thirty years as a professor of communication, operator of a small business, and an advocate on public issues of the day. Democracy depends on having lots of well-informed and reasonable citizens speak up—if self government is to survive! Without skeptical, outspoken citizens schooled in persuasion, propaganda instead will prevail to pave the way for authoritarian government or for chaos!
Excerpt
The Brooklyn Heights Persuasive Restoration Campaign:
Brooklyn Heights, New York, looks across the East River to the lower Manhattan skyline, out across the harbor to the Statue of Liberty and Staten Island, and still farther out to the shores of metropolitan New Jersey. The primary development of the Heights took place after 1814 when the Fulton Ferry began shuttling passengers from Manhattan across the East River to Brooklyn. For the next fifty years or more, grand townhouses were built, first in the Federal style, then in Greek Revival, next in Gothic Revival, and finally in several other styles including Renaissance Revival.
Nonetheless, this neighborhood fell into disrepair in the first half of the 1900s, with some of the grand structures becoming rooming houses, or worse. Ominously, developers began eyeing some of these historic houses for replacement with apartment and other commercial buildings, and even began considering an extension of the Brooklyn Queens Expressway. Although the neighborhood had been the first suburb of Manhattan, it was now in danger of becoming a lost American treasure.
Otis and Nancy Pearsall lived in the Heights in a basement apartment on Willow Street. One late summer evening in the early 1960s, Jack Blum, another resident, was visiting the Pearsalls. The three talked about the problems of the Heights and wondered whether some type of zoning could protect its charm and history from the Slum Clearance Committee that was preparing to swallow up the entire northeast section of the Heights. They began to meet over the next weeks, and gradually attracted enough other concerned residents to create a historical-landmark campaign called the Community Conservation and Improvement Council (CCIC). The campaign eventually held open meetings in the undercroft of the First Unitarian Church at Pierrepont Street and Monroe Place, elected officers, and formed committees. One of the group’s first campaign tactics was to print up a leaflet to define a proposed historic district geographically and announce their aims to limit any development that would ravage the neighborhood of its historical significance and nineteenth-century charm.
Next, the Brooklyn Heights Press joined the campaign with a news story that outlined plans by a well-known developer and regional planner to demolish some of the historic streets and houses in Brooklyn Heights. A local community association then joined forces with the CCIC. The campaign drew up a plan “for the preparation of an appropriate ordinance, the compilation of a survey of antebellum [pre–Civil War] structures on the Heights, supplying proof of worthiness of the cause, and the establishment of relations with allied parties.” In this case, timing was important for the campaign. As it happened, the New York City Planning Commission was already studying citywide zoning rules to handle problems such as the one in Brooklyn Heights—so it seemed an opportune time to act by presenting such a plan. Sensing momentum, the Brooklyn Heights Press published a supportive editorial, “How to Make History,” about the preservation aims of the campaign.
A key player now joined the campaign, Clay Lancaster—a former teacher of fine arts at Columbia University and Cooper Union, a lecturer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and a specialist in American architecture; he agreed to survey the properties in need of historic landmark status. Lancaster also wrote six serialized articles for the Brooklyn Heights Press that tutored readers on the major styles of period architecture that existed in the Heights, and then delivered these articles in a speech with slides to an overflow community meeting.
Now the focus of the campaign switched to a golden jubilee celebration that was to include a special exhibition called the “Brooklyn Heights Story,” followed by a photograph contest about the Heights as well as a restoration-theme exhibition of paintings, sculpture, graphics, and even three one-act plays. All of this activity culminated at the St. George Hotel of Brooklyn Heights where a winner was declared for the contest and the exhibits were shown to audiences. Another milestone was reached here when Richard Howland, president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Washington, D.C., spoke in support of the proposal. Building on the momentum of the speech, Leonard Moore, a U.S. Court of Appeals judge and a Heights resident, added a substantive announcement about the proposed ordinance. Over seven hundred persons attended this meeting.
The culmination of the Heights campaign involved acting quickly to recruit block captains to explain the exact wording of the proposed ordinance to home owners in the Heights—whose support for the Heights’s historic status would understandably be crucial. The final actions occurred when the mayor of New York City, the Landmarks Preservation Committee, and the City Planning Commission began considering the proposal. In the end, Brooklyn Heights got its protection and saved much of what deserved preserving, although some properties were lost before the ordinance was passed. What is fascinating about this campaign is that it all started in the basement of one house when three residents wondered if something could be done. And fortunately for the neighborhood, these three and their later allies not only conjured up a dream for the historically significant houses of Brooklyn Heights, they drafted a plan, and persistently pursued that plan. Over its several years of existence, the campaign chugged inevitably toward its conclusion. Having a good cause did not hurt.
Professional Reviews
Review of Persuasion: Messages, Receivers, and Contexts
"Rogers's text is quite comprehensive; it is well organized and well focused, reflecting the time and energy spent on compiling the various sources. The text takes readers through a step-by-step process that they will find helpful."—Joe Wilferth, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Review of Persuasion: Messages, Receivers, and Contexts
"This text has a number of strengths that will make it attractive and useful. The book's wide variety of well-chosen examples will resonate with many readers, and by combining traditional theories and perspectives with up-to-date research, it provides a very progressive outlook. Rogers's conversational tone is also extremely accessible."—James J. Kimble, Seton Hall University; author, Mobilizing the Home Front: War Bonds and Domestic Propaganda
This book is for all first responders (law enforcement, fire, or other emergency personnel) who are or want to be supervisors in their agencies. It goes through all facets of good leadership.
At last, a middle school version of Simple Steps to Sentence with all new practice exercises, tests, writing connection pages, and answers. Everything you need to teach your students the easy way to analyze sentences. Just print a page at a time, or
