What we read
As usual, Rogers and Wilkin introduce unit 10, which is titled "Persuasion," with a large image and some questions for us to think about and respond to.
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Rogers and Wilkin's questions
Think about them for a moment, perhaps one minute, and then write your ideas responding to these questions:
- Which of these things do you think is easiest to do?
- to persuade someone that your opinion is right
- to persuade someone to buy something
- to persuade someone to feel better when they feel sick
- How do people and companies persuade us to buy things? Have you been persuaded to buy anything recently?
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Reference
- Rogers, L. & Wilkin, J. (2013). Skillful Reading & Writing, Student's Book 2. London: Macmillan Education
Since Apple became the world's first trillion dollar company last month, it clearly knows how to persuade people to buy things, as does Amazon, which became the world's second trillion dollar company last week. On a more personal note, I've often been persuaded to buy things that I've never used, such as clothes that seemed a good idea at the time, only to end up cluttering up my wardrobe until I threw them out, so it appears that I can also be easily persuaded to buy things. Nor do I think I'm very different to most of my friends or people in general. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing: many of the things that I'm persuaded to buy are in fact useful, and add real value to my life; it's just some that prove a waste of money.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, I think it's harder to persuade people to change a deeply held opinion. They might admit that reason and the evidence clearly show, for example, that all drugs, including heroin and yaa baa are less harmful than alcohol, and that it is only morally right to ban behaviour that actually harms others, but they still insist that these drugs should be illegal, even though that imposes massive financial costs on society, encourages corruption, and strongly supports the growth of mafia groups, as we see in Thailand, where the drug laws have been a total failure for everyone except mafia groups and corrupt officials in the police and elsewhere. It seems that the evidence and reason are not enough to persuade people that an idea might be wrong and should be changed. Or perhaps this means that the techniques used by Apple and Amazon are also needed here.
Time's up.
I absolutely agree with you, Apple and Amazon is very good at persuade people to buy something.
DeleteI don't know if Amazon is really better than other sellers in how to persuade buyers, but one thing I know is Amazon has made shopping process a lot easier. You can buy a lot of stuffs from anywhere with just a few clicks and there are a lot more items in its store than any other stores. So, it is not surprising why more and more buyers are going to buy online which finally made Amazon become one of the biggest company today.
DeleteI can't tell which one is easiest to do because there are many factors other than reasoning that might involve in persuasion. For example, when you persuade someone that your opinion is right, it still depends if that person is capable to understand your reason even your reason is very strong. Or when you persuade someone to buy something, it is still depends on what you are trying to sell. If it is a useful and necessary stuff, it might be much easier to persuade someone to buy it. Or when you try to persuade someone to feel better, it depends on what personality he is. If he tends to be pessimistic, it is very hard to make him feel better. So, in all situations there might be some cases that easier to persuade than the other. and I can't tell which one is the easiest one.
ReplyDeleteYour comment about persuading sick people that they are better reminded me of my mother. No matter how good her health, which really is very good for an 88-year-old woman, she thinks she is terribly sick all the time. She complains about her problems as she gets around town and eats rich food with healthy amount of red wine as she has been doing for many decades now. I have to confess that I'm glad I'm not one of her doctors.
DeleteIn my opinion, I think persuade someone to buy something is easiest to do because you can just show the advantages of these. This persuade is that I always do and success to persuade my mother to buy something that I like. On the other hand, to persuade someone that your opinion is right and to persuade someone to feel better when they feel sick is harder because I don't know how to tell. I thinks these persuade use knowledge of phycological a lot but I have a little of this.
ReplyDeletei agree that persuade someone to buy something is the easiest and persuade someone that your opinion is right. i think persuade someone to buy something that they like is also very nice too.
DeleteI always persuade someone to buy things that I have already used it because it's easy to tell the true. or something I have read in the magazine If it useful I usually tell to others a lot.
ReplyDelete