Unfortunately laying out the evidence is pretty powerful too. You have so many choices, from omission/overplaying of evidence to mislead the availability heuristic, to picking and choosing what sources are good and bad.
this is also why critical thinking is more important than specific technical skills. The former allows you to generalize the latter, making them more powerful.
I started out as a chemist (undergrad), became a statistician (grad), and finally realized that I had to design, run, analyze and fund my own experiments if I wanted something resembling "the truth", 9 times out of 10.
But my undergrad English teacher made me realize that it's more powerful to plant the seed of an idea and water it with evidence (selectively presented or not) than to try and outright convince people, when you have the luxury of time. I hope that my students are smarter for it; I let them sink or swim by their own wits and I expect them to ask for help if they find they're out of their depth. It's how the real world tends to work anyways.
