Imagine that you work for the municipal ombudsman, and I come to you, to voice my agenda on a very important issue - you must build more parking lots and assign a 1000 parking spaces to the residents of our city. How will I do that? I have options.
I could begin with statistics - x% of the “outsider” vehicles entering the city occupy the majority of available parking spots in the city. Y% of families living in the city own at least one vehicle, spending N minutes searching for parking every night. I will use all the data in my possession (all fact-checked in advance) and only then I will reach the conclusion - I call upon you to create at least 1000 new parking spaces for the city’s residents and to commit to it immediately.
I could also begin with the main idea - I come to you to request that you immediately approve 1000 new parking spots for the residents of our city. I would like to tell you how I have reached this number and why I believe that this would be the best solution for the serious problem we have here, moving on to the above statistics.
If I don’t have much time on my hands to establish my message, I will place it right in my opening phrase. When our audience is impatient or when I wish to shock my audience, this would be my method of choice. In other situations I prefer to take the time and prepare my audience for the main idea, to make its reception by them more efficient.
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