{"id":882,"date":"2013-11-11T07:49:22","date_gmt":"2013-11-10T18:49:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=882"},"modified":"2013-11-11T07:49:22","modified_gmt":"2013-11-10T18:49:22","slug":"the-struggle-for-your-readers-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=882","title":{"rendered":"The struggle for your reader\u2019s mind"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"arm<\/a>Getting someone to change their mind is never easy.<\/p>\n

When I was growing up, we had a neighbour, a retired accountant, who held strong and often controversial views on pretty much any topic you cared to name.\u00a0 Give him an audience \u2013 and a cup of tea or a glass of beer \u2013 and he would tell you why many of the then well-known truths were simply not true.\u00a0 His data and his logic seemed sound.\u00a0 And yet few people ever believed him.<\/p>\n

Fifty or so years later, it turns out that, on several topics, he was definitely more right than wrong.\u00a0 Unfortunately, many of the people who refused to believe him all those years ago are no longer around to acknowledge his perspicacity.<\/p>\n

Max Planck, one of the founding fathers of quantum theory, once said that a new truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents.\u00a0 It triumphs because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up with the new truth.<\/p>\n

To a greater or lesser extent, we all have our confirmation biases.\u00a0 We are all more inclined to believe new information that confirms and supports our already-held mental models.\u00a0 Whereas we are likely to discount or ignore information that challenges our already-held beliefs.<\/p>\n

If you need proof of this, spend a few minutes scrolling through the comments appended to just about any online op-ed piece. \u00a0You will quickly see that the yea-sayers were already in the author\u2019s camp before they sat down at their keyboards.\u00a0 The naysayers, on the other hand, were almost certainly from the other side.\u00a0 The person who says: \u2018I think I\u2019m going to have to change my mind\u2019 is very rare indeed.<\/p>\n

This is a challenge for anyone presenting the \u2018surprising\u2019 results of a piece of research or trying to pitch a \u2018different\u2019 solution.\u00a0 Whether the new idea is of a scientific, commercial, or political nature, it is going to have to battle against readers looking for confirmation of their already-held beliefs.<\/p>\n

Sadly, authors are often their own worst enemies.\u00a0 First, many have a tendency to \u2018shout\u2019 at their non-believing readers.\u00a0 And no one likes being shouted at.\u00a0 Second, in an effort to present their view in the best possible light, many have a tendency to totally disregard any data that doesn\u2019t support their argument.\u00a0 They tell of \u2018an astonishing increase of 89 percent\u2019, but neglect to mention that this \u2018astonishing increase\u2019 was based on a three-year data set selected from an otherwise unremarkable 128-year series.<\/p>\n

And, if neither of these ploys works, they often resort to demonising any reader who fails to share their opinion.\u00a0 Labelling people who don\u2019t buy into the anthropogenic climate change argument as \u2018deniers\u2019 is a good example.\u00a0 Unfortunately, shouting \u2018You, sir, are an idiot!\u2019 is seldom a good way to get someone to change their mind.<\/p>\n

So what can you do?<\/p>\n

The best advice that I ever received on this subject was from a man who had been both a successful editor and a successful publisher.<\/p>\n

\u2018If you think your reader is likely to hold a different view to the one which you are about to express, keep this in the forefront of your mind.\u00a0 Then express your own view clearly and succinctly, using the simplest language that you can.\u00a0 Explain what you need to explain and refute what you need to refute.\u00a0 And always respect your reader.\u2019<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t guarantee success.\u00a0 But it does seem to produce better results than most of the alternatives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Getting someone to change their mind is never easy. When I was growing up, we had a neighbour, a retired accountant, who held strong and often controversial views on pretty much any topic you cared to name.\u00a0 Give him an … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=882"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":883,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882\/revisions\/883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}