I have been looking for a clear distinction between persuade and convince, but dictionaries tend to use definitions which suggest that they are interchangeable – e.g. persuade: "to win over by urging or arguing"; convince: "to overcome a person's objections or disbelief by proof or arguments appealing to his reason."

My instinct is that persuade suggests changing a person's point of view, while convince reinforces a point of view that a person already holds.

Comments welcome.

Vincent Quinn

Some writers and editors urge us to preserve the following distinction between these two words:

We convince people of something

We persuade people to act

Convince, according to this logic, focuses on beliefs only, and is never followed by to. ("I convinced her that the symphony needed financial help.") Persuade, on the other hand, refers to action and may be followed by an infinitive. ("I persuaded her to donate $100 to the symphony.")

Since the 1950s, however, convince has been commonly used as a synonym for persuade in North America. The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) suggests there is nothing wrong with the trend:

Some traditionalists deplore the blurring of distinction between convince and persuade, maintaining that convince should be reserved for situations in which someone's belief is changed but no action is taken as a result ("he convinced me that he was right"), while persuade should be used for situations in which action results ("he persuaded me, rather than he convinced me, to seek more advice.) In practice, the newer use is well established and used by well-respected writers.

The Oxford Guide to Canadian English Usage (1997) gives an even stronger endorsement: "Usage commentators sometimes object to the use of convince followed by an infinitive, but this structure is now firmly established and unobjectionable."

May, 2002

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