A Companion to Composition by Hugh Rank http://webserve.govst.edu/pa | HOME |

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The more you know about the attention-getting techniques used in advertising, the better prepared you are to select appropriate attention-getters for your own compositions.

Attention-getters are most obvious and perhaps most needed in persuasion. Yet, informational or expository writing also competes for an audience, and often uses attention-getters to attract an audience. In some cases (such as instructions and warnings) simply getting the attention of the intended audience can be very crucial.

Not all the attention-getters used in persuasion would be appropriate in exposition, but many principles can be usefully transferred.

Advertisers are very aware of placing their messages in the right context to be noticed by the right audience, at the right time and place, and in the right mood. The expository writer is also concerned with seeking the context most conducive to lead an audience into the message.

Ads use a variety of ways (such as news, questions, stories, and dramatizations) as a hook, a grabber, or a lure. Composition texts, using different terms, suggest many of the same strategies for writing the "Introduction" of expository writing.

Physical attention-getters in ads are easy to recognize. Basic sensory signals, sights and sounds, are used by ads to attract attention. Less obvious is the care of expository writers to attract attention by visual strategies of attractive design, such as book and magazine covers, and page layouts. Most relevant to student writers is the needed care for clean copy so as not to repel readers or distract attention away from the ideas by visual unattractiveness.

Emotional appeals make up the content (not the form) of most ads and most persuasion, yet they are seldom used in expository writing. However, anytime a writer deals with any controversial topic, emotional associations (biased language, stacked arguments, logical fallacies) can creep in accidentally if the writer isn't careful.

As a composer, you should recognize both the need to gain attention of the audience, and the difficulties of decorum, of being appropriate to the purpose of expository writing.