It's more engaging to a broader audience to start with anecdote, and personally, that's what I'd do, but if people are interested in ed-tech and student behavior, they're probably interested in the paper even without a flashy opening.
Replies
However, almost every Democratic strategy I see is the equivalent of "In recent years, technological changes have affected everyone." Boring, broad, and appealing only in averages, never specifics. No passion inspired or demonstrated.
aug 30, 2025, 6:49 pm • 29 2 • view
No one is excited about meeting in the middle, about getting a very little piece of what they want. People care about issues and care deeply. So, let's say recent polls say that talking about COVID vaccines tends to irritate people, but your candidate has fought for vaccine access.
aug 30, 2025, 6:50 pm • 27 3 • view
First, there's already a passionate audience you can grab with that. Second, there's an opportunity to educate. By being passionate and specific, you grab the audience who is already on board and you may interest people who don't yet know they agree with you.
aug 30, 2025, 6:51 pm • 26 3 • view
What doesn't work is something like "I support vaccine access so that everyone can make their own choice." You are undermining your candidate's beliefs and benefits when you undercut the benefits of vaccines by framing them solely as a personal choice.
aug 30, 2025, 6:52 pm • 33 3 • view
You are losing the passionate audience your candidate could have gotten through specific support of the cool thing they did. People who care a lot about vaccines like that you did that, but they hate the way you just framed vaccines as personal. People who hate vaccines also hate this message.
aug 30, 2025, 6:54 pm • 24 1 • view
People in the middle are probably fine with it, but they're not excited, because the middle is not an exciting place. You've just told excited vaccine supporters you don't really care about them and excited anti-vaxers (fuck the double x, it makes no sense) that you don't support their goals either.
aug 30, 2025, 6:56 pm • 24 1 • view
(I don't know if this thread is so elementary as to be useless, so boring as to be useless, or so abstract as to be useless; venting the spleen is cleansing, but not always interesting.)
aug 30, 2025, 6:57 pm • 20 1 • view
Writing seeks to find an audience, and strategy seeks to find an audience as well, but appealing broadly to averages is not the same thing at all. Averages are not people. People are strange and spiky and a person who fit all the averages would paradoxically be deeply weird.
aug 30, 2025, 7:01 pm • 23 2 • view
So get weird and passionate and find the other people who are weird and passionate and educate the people who can be educated.
aug 30, 2025, 7:03 pm • 19 2 • view
Stop trying to appeal to both by saying something like "Trans people should be included in most of life, but not all." That might be where the average is, but it's not where people are. There are transphobes, people who already believe in equality, and people who need educating.
aug 30, 2025, 7:04 pm • 28 1 • view