Written Communication Jul 1996

Do Adults Change their Minds after Reading Persuasive Text?

MARILYN J. CHAMBLISS ; RUTH GARNER

Abstract

To change the mind of a reader, authors compose written persuasion according to a set of rhetorical features. This article describes the features of persuasive texts and reviews research results to explore whether adults indeed change their minds after reading persuasion. Toulmin's (1958) model of argument and Aristotle's model of persuasive content characterize the structure and content of well-written persuasion. Research in social psychology and text comprehension shows that adults typically build a case for their own prereading belief rather than process a persuasive text mindfully, weigh evidence, and change their beliefs. An important contract between author and reader is typically broken. Research on designing text to disabuse students of scientific misconceptions points to text features that authors could use to encourage readers to read persuasion mindfully.

Journal
Written Communication
Published
1996-07-01
DOI
10.1177/0741088396013003001
Open Access
Closed
Topics
rhetorical theory multimodality multilingual writers argument

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (0)

No articles in this index cite this work.

Cites in this index (4)

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    Written Communication
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    Written Communication
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    Appealing Texts
    Written Communication
  4. SPIVEY (1990)
    Transforming Texts
    Written Communication
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CrossRef global citation count: 46 View in citation network →

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