Very good post on persuasive writing from Bill Sledzik, an associate professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Kent State (oh and 16 years working in communications) on the inherent weakness of using the phrase, “I think,” in persuasive writing.

Much of the writing we do in our lives is persuasive, in my case in my professional life, but for others it might be in public service or in writing a personal note. No matter what, we all need to know how to persuade someone to do something.

One of the points that I really liked, is “a persuasive communicator isn’t tentative.”  I sometimes use “I think” when I write here.  When I searched for the phrase on this blog, it brought up about 40 posts, out of 800+ so far. Many of those instances are when I am quoting someone else, but far too many are mine.  “I think” I’ll look more closely at some of the wording here in the future. In the meantime, thanks Bill for giving me something to think about.