As you are undoubtedly aware, facts are facts. In fact, facts are facts are facts.

Add however many “are facts”es as you like. Surprisingly, the meaning doesn’t change.

But despite all that, there’s an interesting point to be made about facts. You see, depending on how you present them, you can lead people to believe they’re more or less important, relevant, or exclusive than they otherwise might have been thought to be.

The following is a guide to the presentation of information, and how, by using certain methods of presentation, you can push the conclusions you want people to draw from what you tell them.

The first and most important thing to consider when telling a story is deciding which facts to tell, and which facts to leave out.

Imagine, for example, you are telling the story of the encounter between Jimmy and his sister Suzanne. You’re telling this story in an effort to convince your audience that Suzanne is a bad kid.

When telling how Suzanne viciously kicked her brother, does neglecting to mention how Jimmy pinched her first make your statement any less true? Of course not!

By censoring which facts make it through to your audience, you not only educate them in a way that’s suitable to your position, but you also prime them to be more accepting of what you want them to believe. This makes controlling the flow of information your most powerful tool.

The second thing you’ll need to consider is your style.

If you really want to convince someone of something, it is crucial to have a style that makes your information sound appealing. Your words must sound natural. Rhythmic. Pleasing to the ears.

For, as your audience knows, if something doesn’t sound right, it probably isn’t true.

Take, for example, the Rhyme Over Reason Effect.

The Rhyme Over Reason Effect is a cognitive phenomenon which says that if a statement rhymes, it is more likely to be believed than its non rhyming- but equivalent in meaning- counterpart.

The same thing goes for alliteration, consonance, and assonance.

So, needless to say, include these things as much as you can.

In addition to these things, it is important to realize that the most impactful way to speak is to say things in threes. It is, after all, the magic number, and it emphasizes the veracity and importance of the information you’re providing. As long as you’re already planning on reiterating, expanding, or elaborating on your idea, a third word or sentence is the perfect thing to satisfy a sequence of two.

Another stylistic matter to consider is the length of your words and sentences. Personally, I recommend going small.

Many people naturally distrust complexity. And even if they don’t, they probably feel they have better things to be doing than reading an unnecessarily large bit of writing. As such, a good strategy  to get people to read and believe what you have to say is to speak in short, snappy sentences. Be quick. Concise. It may not even be necessary to use full sentences at all.

Make sure you use just enough words to get your message across. As a general rule, for any given concept, you should never spend more than a convenient few hundred words talking about it. If something can’t be said within a few hundred words, it probably isn’t worth hearing anyway.

Next, remember to make the style of what you say matches the content. If the reader notices you doing it, it will give him or her the impression that you’re smart; only very smart people can pull off such cleverly relevant literary tricks. And if the reader regards you as smart, it will make your facts seem even more true.

Another thing to think about when trying to put people in the perspective you want them to be in, is something called trigger words.

Try to use the word freedom if you can. The word adds a dash of both pride and morality to otherwise cold and impartial sentences.

To conclude, if you follow these easy guidelines, you’ll have the ultimate edge in priming people for certain conclusions.