Persuasive Business Proposals: Writing to Win More Customers, Clients, and Contracts

Evaluation

Sometimes people aren’t trying to communicate facts alone. Instead, they’re offering an opinion about the significance of a certain group of facts, what those facts imply.

For example, consider what happens in a court case when one side calls in an expert witness. Such a witness isn’t asked to establish facts about the case—“Where was the defendant on the night of July 15?” Instead, the expert witness is asked to offer an opinion about what a certain body of facts indicates. “On the basis of these facts, do you think the defendant is mentally competent?” “Given this sequence of events, did the defendant act in accordance with the profession’s current standard of conduct?”

In the business world, each time you write a performance appraisal ...