Which Should You Appeal to, Head or Heart?
Part One: Pros & Cons

Will data do more to forward your work, or will details of lived experience do more? If you want to persuade people to make a donation or grant, or to choose your method and hire you to provide it, should your writing speak more to readers’ heads or to their hearts? Here are some pros and cons to consider to help you decide which method will work best for each audience and situation.

Appealing to the head uses data like statistics, statements backed by research, and descriptions of studies, and links all of the data together with logical arguments to form a sound thesis that makes the case for your work.

Pros

If used well, this method provides hard evidence of the need for your work and the effectiveness of your methods. It impresses readers with how important and well-done your work is, and makes them feel safe trusting you with their money or placing themselves in your hands.

Cons

This kind of writing can feel dry, cold, and lifeless, as though it is about numbers instead of people. Many numbers in a row can overwhelm readers so the statistics lose their power, and can be easy to forget. This kind of writing does not incite compassion for the people you talk about or connection to you. It can leave readers feeling uncomfortable bringing their problems to what they may perceive as a cold, inhuman organization, or it may leave them feeling unmoved by the work such an organization does for others.

Appealing to the heart uses true or composite stories, quotes, and emotionally-charged descriptions of situations to bring the experiences of real people to life as they face the issues you address and experience the solutions you use.

Pros

If done well, this method draws readers to relate and feel connected to the people you describe, and to compassionately imagine how their experiences might feel. Readers then feel compelled to help the people you describe, or they feel excited to go to you and experience the solution you have provided to those people. Your organization comes across as warm and human, so people feel comfortable trusting you to solve their problems and those of other people.

Cons

This kind of writing is subjective and lacking in hard facts. Your impact can seem like only a matter of opinion or even chance. Your solution can seem viable only for some people and not necessarily others. No one or few stories can represent the full scope of experiences with the issues you address or with your solution. Individual readers may not come to you because they don’t see themselves or people they relate to reflected in your descriptions, and do not realize that you assist people like them. They can also be misled into expecting to experience what you describe, when their experiences with you might actually be very different. Those with an analytical bent might think you are only describing a best-case scenario that does not necessarily represent your work as a whole.

 

Example: Two paragraphs of about the same length for the same fictional organization, one for the head and one for the heart

Head

There are about 1.7 million unaccompanied homeless youth in the U.S; 46% ran away from physical abuse and 17% from rape. Homeless youth suffer from high rates of depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem, and face major obstacles to finding adequate employment or staying in school (1). For example, they are often highly transitory and struggle to maintain cleanliness. Every staff person at Suzie’s House is an expert with at least eight years’ experience helping youth through these challenges.

Heart

Luis left home at 16. “I was tired of being my dad’s punching bag,” he says, “and thought anywhere else would be better. I slept in doorways, panhandled, worked at a burger joint, but got fired because I couldn’t shower enough. Embarrassing! It was all a dead end; everyone looked through me. I thought about suicide a lot. My friend Suzie, who was also homeless, slit her wrists. That’s why I founded Suzie’s House as the haven that I wish Suzie and I had had.”

Stay tuned for Part Two!

Coming in my next Flight Log in September, it will explore how to make this decision based on assessing who your reader is and how to blend appeals to both head and heart.

¹ “Homeless Youth.” National Coalition for the Homeless. The National Coalition for the Homeless, June, 2008. Web. Retrieved Dec. 24, 2013.