Persuasive Communication - How Audiences Decide. 2nd Edition

Aids to Audience Decision Making 161

Original Paragraph Written in an Abstract, Passive-Nominal Style

The Protocol Familiarization Period may be employed to run additional preliminary tests

of the performance of the device. These tests may evaluate linearity, recovery, or any other

feature not addressed in this document. The purpose of such preliminary acceptability tests

should be the early discovery of any serious problems with the device. If such problems are

encountered, the manufacturer should be contacted to determine the cause of error. No

final judgment as to the acceptability of the device should be made from such limited tests.

Revised Paragraph Written in a Concrete, Active-Verbal Style

While practicing the experiment, you can also test other features of the equipment, such as

linearity or recovery. Use these tests to see if there are any serious problems with the equip-

ment. If you fi nd any problems, contact the manufacturer to fi nd out what is causing the

problem. Don’t decide if the equipment is acceptable solely on the basis of these limited,

preliminary tests.

Passive Voice in Some Cases

When the object of the action is the intended focus of a sentence or paragraph, audiences fi nd passive

sentences easier to comprehend and recall than active sentences.^173 As illustrated in the following two

pairs of sentences, passive sentences are more accurately comprehended than active ones when the

preceding sentence contains the antecedent for the subject of the passive sentence.^174 In the fi rst pair,

both sentences are written in the active voice. In the second pair, an active voice sentence is followed

by a sentence in the passive voice, yet sentence pairs like this are more quickly comprehended.

The batter hit the ball over the short stop. The left fielder caught it.

The batter hit the ball over the short stop. It was caught by the left fielder.

Sentences in the Affi rmative

Avoiding the use of negative words in sentences (e.g., not, none ) simplifi es semantic processing and

aids sentence comprehension. The use of negative words, on the other hand, makes sentence com-

prehension more diffi cult.^175 Negative words slow down reading speed^176 because a sentence must

fi rst be understood in the affi rmative before negations can be integrated into the sentence mean-

ing.^177 In a study of the effects of negative sentences on sentence comprehension, readers received

cards with symbols on them and were asked to verify true and false affi rmative and negative sen-

tences about each card. Readers took longer to verify negative sentences than affi rmative ones and

longer to identify false sentences than sentences that were true.^178

Easy-to-Identify Referents

The third subprocess in sentence comprehension is referential representation. This process identi-

fi es the references that words in a sentence make to the external world (e.g., understanding that the

words majority whip refer to a member of Congress and not to an instrument for fl ogging the rest

of us). The process also identifi es the antecedents or referents of pronouns.