Comments on: #InfographicInspiration: Persuasion and Storytelling

By: Yibo Xu

Yibo Xu — Mon, 05 Mar 2018 03:19:44 +0000

This infographic is very useful for me. I always know that the storytelling style is very helpful to lead the audiences in to your story and bring up your ideas. But what I didn’t know is that the different words can actually effect people in their brains. A strong word could be more effective than a weak adjective word. Although the storytelling style is very useful, still it has a lot of limitations. For example in the resume or in a professional bio that you are writing, the objective thinking and writing is very very important since the readers need to understand who you are in a right way. But the storytelling style is very useful to conviniece the others.

By: Benjamin A. Beheydt

Benjamin A. Beheydt — Sat, 03 Mar 2018 19:23:11 +0000

I love this infographic because of its relation to neurology and how it uses specific, scientific sources. I really engage with topics such as this because I thoroughly enjoy learning about how my brain is working. I like being able to identify how my brain is processing moments in my life. With that being said, this infographic really resonates with me. I was an Original Orator in high school (a speech and debate competitor in the Original Orator category) and, as an OO, I got to give many different persuasive speeches fraught with stories intended to capture the audience. But what I loved more than telling stories was listening to them given by other competitors. Their use of the right adjective or verb in the right place sculpted tangible worlds in my head that was able to transcend any fact or figure given about a particular topic. And because of this, I almost never go through a presentation or speech without including a well thought-out story. This infographic just reinforces my already stedfast belief in the power of words; cognitive dissonance maybe?

By: Rachel Cannon

Rachel Cannon — Sat, 03 Mar 2018 01:07:45 +0000

I found it very interesting to read through the infographic about storytelling and to see how our brains respond to different words and to think about the history of storytelling. While I think that storytelling is a very effective form of communication and a persuasive tool, it is not appropriate to include storytelling in written proposals for the civil engineering field because proposals include just technical information. However, I think that the use of storytelling in business meetings can be used with a technical proposal to influence future clients for business.

By: Zachary Cohen

Zachary Cohen — Fri, 02 Mar 2018 21:12:47 +0000

I totally agree with your thoughts on this infographic Aaron. I think that the types of language that people use when they speak has a big effect on how I feel about what they’re presenting. Being able to work good imagery and sensory words into a presentation makes it much more interesting and I think leads to more responsive audiences. This is a skill that I personal hope to become much better at.

By: Katie

Katie — Fri, 02 Mar 2018 19:25:57 +0000

While I agree that most of the information in the infographic has been taught to me since a young age, I do think that the addition of the “overused” words category was helpful. Especially with buzzwords such as “proactive”, I find that there are certain words people think are actively enhancing their writing when in reality, it’s just overused. That isn’t something I’d heard of before, though I don’t enjoy reading scripts that contain those buzzwords.

As for the use of sensory words in professional papers, I think it has a time and a place, but technical reports are not it. As much as I’d like to feel more comfortable with an author (and I agree those words do make me feel better about a person), a technical report uses very few descriptors at all save for the very technical ones. But then again, I could be wrong about this. Would you use sensory language in a technical report?

By: Aaron+Olinger

Aaron+Olinger — Thu, 01 Mar 2018 18:10:40 +0000

This infographics card was helpful and made me realize why I enjoyed certain presentations over others. The most important part of this reading for me was how different words activate different parts of the brain which influences how a story or presentation is perceived. Personally, the example about the singer and hands was the most intriguing and formed vastly different mental images. Another aspect about storytelling is noticing what kind of audience you are communicating with. If you are an engineer and presenting to business people or a doctor presenting to engineers, chances are if you use the words used for terms in your field of work, no one except those in the same field will understand what you as the speaker are explaining. So, be aware of what, how, and to whom you are speaking.

By: Carolina Martyn

Carolina Martyn — Thu, 01 Mar 2018 03:04:53 +0000

Hi Ashleigh, I agree that this inforgraphic holds information that should be general knowledge. I do like that it included the active areas of the brain that corresponded with each story telling tip, however. Although most of this is common sense, I thought it was interesting to see why each of the tips invoked the response it does.

By: Kristina Super

Kristina Super — Thu, 01 Mar 2018 01:47:53 +0000

Danielle, I was also astounded by the percentage of our daily conversations that are solely devoted to stories and/or gossip. However, after much reflection, I can see why the percentage is so high. Humans feed off of gossip and any type of information that relates to the social aspects of life. I mean after all that is what makes us human. We love to be persuaded by certain things that peak our interest. I found that the experimental infographic was a way to communicate the effect metaphors have on the compulsion of storytelling and persuasion. In the business world, the work of the trade is mainly based around persuasion, so I can see the use of this information being advantageous for our future careers.

By: Ashleigh Griffin

Ashleigh Griffin — Tue, 27 Feb 2018 18:56:24 +0000

I think this infographic is helpful but I personally feel like this is general information that people should already know. It may be because I have a background in writing and I tend to write in my personal time that I already knew about using sensory words as descriptors, or avoiding overly used words and phrases. I’ve been taught since elementary school to avoid cliches and words like “a lot” or “great”, because they were not words that you would want to see in a paper from a professional. The experiment was interesting as it confirmed an observation I had already made. I noticed that my perceptions of people generally correspond to the situation in which I meet them, and how comfortable or uncomfortable I am. Usually the more comfortable or relaxed I feel, the better I feel about that person.

By: Danielle Lehman

Danielle Lehman — Tue, 27 Feb 2018 00:49:35 +0000

Like the post mentioned and the infographic as well, storytelling is known to be persuasive and this can be helpful when writing a proposal. One thing from the infographic that stood out is that 65% of our daily conversations involve stories or gossip. I never realized that when I talk to different people every day, usually we will tell each other about our day or weekend, so that would actually be considered storytelling. Usually when I think of stories I think of them as being more informative, however, I guess they can be persuasive when your friend tells you about something fun that they did, and then you have an interest in doing the same thing. I found the part about the experiment from the infographic interesting because the people who had a hot cup of coffee, when they read about someone, they thought of that person having a warmer personality. Metaphors help when telling stories because they activate a different part of your brain and that is the sensory cortex. The main thing I got out of this infographic is that stories can be persuasive, and depending how they are told they can activate different things in the brain such as sense and movement.