Hi Syl, that really depends on your subject matter. For something like a more investigative journalism piece, you could always inject some emotion by opening and closing the article with a personal story — either yours or someone else’s who was affected by the event/trend/etc. you’re describing in the body of the article.

You can also always fall back on describing what something means to you personally, which I think would help avoid that emotional manipulation. At the end of the day, getting your reader to feel emotionally invested in something is all about telling a good story. Even for a more research-focused piece, do you have clear characters? A plot/story arc? A climax? A resolution?

I hope this helps! Thanks for reading!