Persuasive speech

• Persuasion is the process of creating, reinforcing, or changing people’s beliefs or actions
• Benefits of speaking and writing persuasively

  • Benefit in personal relations, community activities, career aspirations
• Understanding the principles of persuasion is vital to being an informed citizen and consumer
• When you speak to persuade

  You act as an advocate
• Your goal when speaking to persuade

  Get the listeners to agree with you and, perhaps, to act on that belief
• Possible goals when speaking to persuade

  • Defend an idea
  • Refute an opponent
  • Sell a program
  • Inspire people to action
• It is important to ensure that your goals are ethically sound and that you use ethical methods to communicate your ideas
• Study your topic thoroughly

  So you won’t mislead your audience through shoddy research or muddled thinking
• Learn about all sides of an issue


  Seek out competing viewpoints and get your facts right
• Be honest in what you say


  Present statistics, testimony, and other kinds of evidence fairly and accurately
• Use language responsibly

  Show respect for the rights of free speech and expression, and stay away from name-calling and other forms of abusive language
• Persuasion occurs in a situation where two or more points of view exist
• In every persuasive speech, you will face listeners who are strongly in favor, neutral, or adamantly opposed to your position
• If listeners are strongly opposed to your viewpoint, consider your speech a success if it leads even a few to reexamine their views
• Listeners process persuasive messages by assessing the speaker’s credibility, delivery, supporting materials, language, reasoning, and emotional appeals
• A persuasive speech is a kind of ‘mental dialogue’ with the audience
• A persuasive speech will be more effective if the speaker has a clear goal, delivers the message sincerely, and adapts it to the target audience
• Target audience is the portion of the whole audience that the speaker most wants to persuade
• Persuasion involves any movement by a listener from left to right
• A persuasive speech on a question of fact is similar to an informative speech but takes place in different situations and for different purposes
• In a persuasive speech on a question of fact, the speaker takes sides and aims to present one view of the facts as persuasively as possible
• Biographical and textual evidence suggest that William Shakespeare did not write the plays attributed to him
• Historical evidence indicates that Shakespeare’s plays were probably written by either Sir Francis Bacon or Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford
• The speaker’s purpose in this type of speech is to persuade the audience to accept a particular view of facts
• Questions of Value

  
  

  Involve matters of fact and value judgments based on beliefs about what is right or wrong, good or bad, moral or immoral, proper or improper, fair or unfair
• Questions of Value are not simply matters of personal opinion or whim
• Organizing speeches on questions of value is usually done topically
• When speaking on questions of value, established standards can be used in the speech
• There is no action involved in value speeches, the goal is to make the audience think and possibly change their mindset
• Questions of Policy involve whether a specific course of action should or should not be taken, including questions of fact and value
• When speaking on a question of policy, the goal may be to gain passive agreement or to motivate immediate action from the listeners
• Deciding the goal of the speech on policy will affect almost every aspect of the speech
• Although 16- and 17-year-olds should have limited driving privileges, they should not receive an unrestricted license until age 18
• This will allow younger drivers time to gain maturity and experience before receiving unlimited driving privileges
• Comparative Advantages Order


  A method of organizing persuasive speeches in which each main point explains why a speaker’s solution to a problem is preferable to other proposed solutions
• Monroe’s Motivated Sequence


  A method of organizing persuasive speeches that seek immediate action. The five steps of the motivated sequence are attention, need, satisfaction, visualization, and action
• Degrees of Persuasion


  1. Strongly opposed
  2. Moderately Opposed
  3. Slightly Opposed
  4. Neutral
  5. Slightly in Favor
  6. Moderately in Favor
  7. Strongly in Favor
• There is a mental give and take between the speaker and audience
• Put yourself in the place of your audience and imagine how they will respond.
• Question of fact


  Question about the truth or falsity of an assertion