3 Tips for Persuasive Legal Nurse Consulting Writing Part 4

If you are a legal nurse consultants, you’ll benefit from being able to write persuasive and analytical reports. Attorneys count on you to be able to clear express your opinion. Follow these tips for persuasive legal nurse consulting writing.

Part 3 of this blog post series described ways to break up content. This concluding blog post covers the last 3 tips for persuasive writing.

Use Positive Language

One way to help your writing be well received is to think, “Smile,” rather than “Frown” while you’re writing. Don’t focus on negatives, such as “Tired of Being a Dweeb?” or “Don’t You Wish You Could Stop Losing Cases?” (I can see you cringing, protesting that you would never market like that. Some do. Tell your prospects what they can achieve using YOUR service.

Emphasize the value of your legal nurse consulting services. Do you do these things for an attorney?

• Save money and time
• Save frustration
• Make money
• Feel good

Avoid using negative terms, because they can bring your readers down, cause them to focus on those negatives, and more importantly, make them less likely to use your service.

Don’t Show Off Your Erudite Vocabulary

Don’t use big, fancy, archaic, or “highfalutin” words just because they sound impressive, especially if you don’t know what they mean.

WRONG: The attorney’s closing argument was extremely obtuse.
BETTER: I couldn’t understand a thing he said.

Leave the incomprehensible prose and jargon on your competitor’s copy. If you do need to use jargon, acronyms, or technical or unfamiliar words, be sure to define them within the sentence in which they are used.

The EGD (esophagogastroduodenoscopy) took place on 5/6/13.

Remember, your goal is to be the “King/Queen of Clarity” instead of the “Evil Author of Confusion and Ambiguity.”

Pitch Your Persuasive Legal Nurse Consulting work Product to Your Reader’s Level

Finally, you always want to write in a language your reader can easily understand.

First of all, nobody likes a show-off, and you definitely don’t want to make your audience feel stupid.

One way to avoid this is to always consider your audience’s age, reading ability, and previous knowledge of the subject matter.

For general sales copy, it’s a good rule of thumb to write at Grade 8 or lower. You might be asking, “How the heck do I know what an 8th grade reading level is?” Good thing you asked. One way to determine your writing’s reading level is to use something called the Flesch Readability Scale, which is determined by a formula developed by educational researcher Rudolph Flesch, and published in his 1949 book, The Art of Readable Writing.

If you’re not good with numbers, you might want to skip this part and go straight to the website listed at the end, where you can simply paste a sample of your writing into a text box and receive your score. For those of you who are interested, though, here is how it works:

Flesch Readability Formula
RE = 206.835 – (1.015 x ASL) – (84.6 x ASW)

RE = Readability Ease

ASL = Average Sentence Length (i.e., the number of words divided by the number of sentences)

ASW = Average number of syllables per word (i.e., the number of syllables divided by the number of words)

RE is a number ranging from 0 to 100. The higher the number, the easier the text is to read.

• Scores between 90.0 and 100.0 are considered easily understandable by an average 5th grader.

• Scores between 60.0 and 70.0 are considered easily understood by 8th and 9th graders.

• Scores between 0.0 and 30.0 are considered easily understood by college graduates.

How to Calculate Your Flesch Score

Step 1. Pick a sample (Every 3rd paragraph, every other page)
Step 2. Count the number of words
Step 3. Figure average sentence length
Step 4. Count the syllables
Step 5. Count the “personal” words like pronouns, proper names, “people,” “folks”
Step 6. Count the personal sentences
Step 7. Find the “reading ease” score
Multiply avg. sent. length by 1.015 =
Multiply # of syllables/100 words =
Add two scores together =
Subtract from 206.835
Your Score =

Or, as I mentioned, here’s the easier way at this website.

If your eyes have glazed over at the idea of doing this manually, there is an even easier way. You can activate the readability statistics in MS Word. This feature will automatically calculate the score for you. Search Help for readability statistics and follow the instructions.

Another readability formula was developed for use by the United States Air Force, and is called the Linsear Write Formula, which goes like this:

Linsear Write Formula

Choose a 100-word sample
Count the number of easy words (i.e., words containing two syllables or less).
Count the number of hard words (i.e., words containing three syllables or more).
Multiply the number of hard words by 3.
Add these numbers together.
Divide this sum by the number of sentences from the sample.

If the result is larger than 20, divide by 2.
Or if the result is less than or equal to 20, subtract 2 and divide by 2.

Again, if you’d rather not do all that number crunching, here’s a website that will do it for you:

I hope you have enjoyed learning these 10 tips for persuasive legal nurse consulting writing.

If you start using them today, I guarantee you will see an immediate improvement in your copywriting. Remember, though, to continue honing your skills, as there are many other factors that go into writing persuasive copy.

And since as a legal nurse consultant your main audience is attorneys who have been trained in many of these same strategies, you’ve got your work cut out for you. Keep at it, though, and you’ll become one of the “best of the best” copywriters in your field, and you will be sure to see improved results as you market your consulting business.
To Your Success!
Lawrence J. Clark, Ph.D.
TheCommunicationLeader.com

Lawrence J. Clark, Ph.D. is an expert in persuasion. Learn how to persuade the attorneys you want to work with by purchasing the replay of Dr. Clark’s dynamic 90 minute webinar. Whether you are a consultant or an expert witness, you’ll learn how to effectively persuade others to listen to your analysis or opinions. Get details about the webinar at this link. Order the replay to watch at your convenience.