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Chapter 17
Persuasive Speaking
CHAPTER OUTCOMES
In this chapter, students will learn:
• The different types of persuasive propositions
• The importance of credibility in persuasive speaking
CHAPTER OUTLINE
WHAT IS PERSUASIVE SPEAKING?
Persuasive speeches are unique because their goal is to change the audience’s beliefs or behavior. When
preparing such a presentation, consider the type of persuasive speech you’ll give, what your specific
purpose will be, and—most importantly—how to get your audience to believe what you have to say.
• Persuasive speeches reinforce or change listeners’ attitudes and beliefs, and that may motivate them
to take action.
• When you speak to persuade others, you provide your audience with accurate and honest information,
giving them the freedom to choose whether to accept your message.
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TYPES OF PERSUASIVE PROPOSITIONS
• When thinking about the topic of your presentation, you will want to consider what type of
proposition you want your listeners to accept. There are three types:
1. A proposition of fact establishes whether something is true or not or whether an event will or
won’t happen.
AUDIENCE ANALYSIS FOR PERSUASIVE SPEECHES
• After determining your topic and persuasive proposition, the next part of the thinking step includes
analyzing the attitudes your audience may have about your message. Although you always want to
• To help you create persuasive main points and present your message ethically, consider these
questions while researching your topic and composing your speech:
o
Will the audience have favorable views on your topic?
o
Will they strongly oppose your position?
UNDERSTANDING THE ELABORATION LIKELIHOOD MODEL
• The elaboration likelihood model proposes that listeners who are intensely interested in your topic
and can easily understand your presentation will put more effort into thinking about your persuasive
message than will listeners who don’t care about or don’t understand your speech topic.
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o
Central route: Audience members who are highly motivated to listen and who have the
o Peripheral route: Audiences who are less motivated about the topic or who don’t have the time
or knowledge needed to understand the information might take this route to processing your
message, which means they are not fully engaged with the speech.
USING THE ELABORATION LIKELIHOOD MODEL
• If your audience analysis indicates that listeners may take a peripheral route to processing your
message, consider the following ways to encourage them to use a central route:
o
Connect the topic to the needs and interests of your audience by making it personally relevant to
them in your speech introduction.
o Tell the audience what highly credible experts have said about the issue, so that they understand
why it is important or something they should care about.
o
Present personally relevant, logical, and well-supported messages to make your listeners more
likely to thoughtfully process your message.
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SPECIFIC PURPOSES FOR PERSUASIVE SPEECHES
• When it comes time to write the specific purpose statement for your persuasive speech, keep in mind
that most persuasive presentations focus on one of three desired outcomes:
1. Reinforce your audience’s existing attitudes and beliefs. This focus is most effective when your
2. Change your audience’s attitudes and beliefs. If your listeners are uncommitted about your
speech topic or if their attitudes and beliefs about the topic differ from yours, this might be your
3. Motivate your audience to take action. This could include taking up a charitable cause, making
different choices, or participating in political action.
CREDIBILITY IN PERSUASIVE SPEECHES
• Credibility is an audience’s perception of a speaker’s trustworthiness and the validity of the
• The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle pointed out three elements that are necessary for constructing
an ethical and competent persuasive speech. These elements are known as rhetorical proofs, and
they include the following:
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• To determine whether you are credible, consider the “three Cs”:
1. Character is demonstrated by showing your audience members that you understand their needs,
have their best interests in mind, and genuinely believe in your topic, which communicates that
you are trustworthy. You can also show character by doing the following:
2. Competence is the degree of expertise your audience thinks you have regarding your speech topic.
Even if you’re not an expert on the subject, you can still convey competence by thoroughly
researching it. Improve your competence by doing the following:
o
Making sure your research sources are highly credible, reliable, and current.
3. Charisma stems from how much warmth, personality, and dynamism your audience sees in you.
Charismatic speakers engage their audience, even when presenting on topics that don’t initially
appeal to listeners. Work on strengthening your charisma by practicing the following behaviors
that will help you engage with your audience and come across as charismatic:
o Try varying the volume and pitch of your voice.
o
Establish eye contact with audience members.
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ORGANIZING AND SUPPORTING PERSUASIVE SPEECHES
Taking steps to establish credibility with your audience is important. But you can’t rely only on your
credibility to achieve your specific purpose. You also need to organize your points in a way that makes
sense and give listeners evidence to support your claims.
• You will need to organize your points in a way that makes sense and gives listeners evidence to
support your claims. This development of logical reasons for your position is what Aristotle referred
to as logos.
ORGANIZING PERSUASIVE SPEECHES
• Recall our discussion of the five most common organizational patterns for composing a speech:
topical, chronological, spatial, cause-effect, and problem-solution.
o
A topical pattern is commonly used for organizing speeches based on propositions of fact or
value.
STEPS OF THE MOTIVATED SEQUENCE
1. Attention. Introduce the topic to your audience, and give them a reason to listen. Compose an
effective speech introduction that engages your listeners, discloses your speech thesis, establishes
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2. Need. Clearly state the problem you want the audience to be concerned about as a main point. Then
3. Satisfaction. Show the audience that the plan you are recommending is reasonable and
that, by supporting it, they can help solve or prevent the problem. If you’re taking on a large-scale
4. Visualization. Get your listeners to imagine the good things that could happen if the problem is fixed
or the negative consequences if nothing is done. How you approach this step depends on what you’ve
learned about your listeners through audience analysis. If you believe the audience will generally
favor your position, focus on the positive results of taking action, but if you think your audience is
5. Action. Summarize your main points, and challenge the audience to make a specific commitment.
End your speech with a concise, powerful thought that leaves listeners reflecting about your overall
message. You could close with a story, a rhetorical question,
or a quotation.
REASONING FOR PERSUASIVE SPEECHES
• You also need to develop a logical basis for each of your main points by ensuring that during the
investigation stage of your speech preparation, you collect facts, expert testimony, and specific
examples.
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o
Summarizing those patterns into arguments, which become the main points of your speech.
• There are many ways to use reasoning to support your ideas, but let’s focus on the four most common
ones:
1. Deductive reasoning is when you start with a generally held principle and then show how a
specific instance relates to that principle. Deductive reasoning typically has three elements:
a. A major premise or general statement you believe your audience will accept as true.
b. A minor premise or specific instance of the general claim.
2. Inductive reasoning is when you connect a set of specific, related facts to arrive at a more
general conclusion. You can use facts based on your personal observations or from the research
you’ve compiled to arrive at a general conclusion. When you’re using inductive reasoning:
o Avoid outdated or limited examples.
o
Ensure you have enough adequate evidence to support your claim.
3. Analogical reasoning is when you support a claim by drawing a comparison between two ideas
or situations to show that what’s true for one could be true for the other. Particularly useful for a
speech of policy, this form of reasoning can demonstrate how your proposed solution has been
successfully implemented elsewhere. Do the following to use analogical reasoning:
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4. Cause-effect reasoning is when you draw a connection between two events or things and claim
that one produced the other. You can claim that effect Y was caused by X. To reason from an
o
Your claims are based on causal relationships supported by the evidence found during the
investigation step.
AVOIDING FALLACIES
• Fallacies are false claims, or those that aren’t true or are based on inadequate or inaccurate evidence
that will undermine your speech’s organization and reasoning. Listeners will question your
credibility, and you will violate the ethical principle that says you’re responsible for providing your
audience with solid reasons to consider your position.
• Common fallacies you should avoid include the following:
o
Ad hominem arguments. You attack a person rather than an idea.
o
Hasty generalizations. You make a bold claim based on limited evidence.
• To present a fallacy-free speech, always:
o
Thoroughly research and carefully compose your presentation.
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o
Conduct additional research to find evidence that strengthens your reasoning if you think your
claims may contain fallacies.
APPEALING
TO
YOUR
AUDIENCE’S
NEEDS
AND
EMOTIONS
Persuasion is more than just credibility and reasoning. Appealing to your listeners’ emotions and
encouraging them to experience strong feelings about your issue makes it more likely that they will agree
with you and follow your suggestions.
• Develop motivational appeals that are explicit statements that speak to these needs and feelings.
o
Using motivational appeals in your speech encourages your audience to connect personally with
your topic (pathos).
CONNECTING TO YOUR AUDIENCE’S NEEDS
• According to psychologist Abraham Maslow, much of human behavior is motivated by the desire to
meet basic life needs, the hierarchy of needs. If you’re extremely hungry or tired, nothing matters to
• Maslow’s hierarchy of needs includes the following:
1. Physical needs like food and shelter.
2. Security needs like avoiding harm and uncertainty.
3. Social needs, which include forming bonds with others.
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PROVIDING TESTIMONY AND STORIES
• Listeners will pay more attention to a persuasive speech when you present relevant testimony from a
person they can relate to or tell a compelling story about your topic. Consider how you can
incorporate testimony or a personal story to make an emotional connection with your audience.
USING DESCRIPTIVE LANGUAGE
• Use the cooperative principle to produce understandable messages, which means using language that
is as informative, honest, relevant, and clear as required for a particular situation. When composing
your speech, you want to use the cooperative principle
to ensure that your audience comprehends what you are saying.
GUIDELINES
FOR
PERSUASIVE
SPEECHES
There’s no doubt that persuading an audience is challenging. But careful preparation can lead to
success. While preparing, composing, and delivering your speech, it is important to be realistic about
ESTABLISH GOODWILL WITH YOUR AUDIENCE
• Show your listeners that you’re genuinely concerned about their welfare. You can demonstrate
goodwill in several ways:
o Noting in your speech’s introduction how your topic relates to your audience.
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o
Staying objective when preparing the speech and investigating all sides of the issue.
KEEP YOUR SPECIFIC PURPOSE REALISTIC
• Remember that you may not be able to effect change with one presentation. This is especially true
with speeches of value and policy. People don’t easily abandon their deep-seated values or behaviors
just by listening to a single speech. Keep this in mind as you’re developing your specific purpose.
DECIDE HOW TO PRESENT YOUR ISSUE
• Decide how you’re going to deal with points of view that differ from your own. Will you
acknowledge these opposing viewpoints in your speech, or ignore them? Consider two things when
answering this question:
1. Think about how much time you have for your presentation. If discussing opposing views about
your topic means that you’ll have to cut relevant arguments in support of your position, don’t do
it.
2. Ask yourself if your audience will already be familiar with the opposing views. If not, introduce a
MAINTAIN HIGH ETHICAL STANDARDS
• Give your listeners valid and reliable information based on sound research. If you distort, withhold, or
misrepresent the facts, you deprive listeners of the information they need and the ability to freely
accept or reject your message. That’s unethical and therefore incompetent.
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CLASS DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Describe the last persuasive message you heard. Review the discussion of specific purpose in
your textbook and determine which purpose your example persuasive speech used. How
effective was the message? What could have been improved?
• Ask students to share their examples with the class. Have students try to identify which types of
2. Have you ever felt coerced as a result of listening to a persuasive speaker? What do you think
would have contributed to this feeling? Did the speaker use any fallacies in his or her
argument? If so, give an example.
• Discuss with students the differences between coercion and persuasion by discussing the
3. When considering the use of appeals in a persuasive speech—ethos, logos, and pathos—what
aspects of the speech will help you decide what appeal to include?
• Ask students to share their answers and discuss how important it is to consider all three types of
appeals when preparing their presentations, even though some parts of the speech might rely
4. What aspects of persuasive speaking do you find to be the most challenging? What can you do
to help work through these challenges?
• Have students discuss the individual challenges they face to becoming an effective persuasive
speaker, and then ask them to identify their strengths. Encourage students to pay special attention
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5. Do you think an effective persuasive speaker has power? If so, do you think it is important for a
persuasive speaker to consider the ethical side of his or her message? Why or why not?
• Discuss the influence that persuasion has on an audience and why it is important for a speaker to
ensure his or her message is ethical. Have students think of examples of historical figures who
CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1.
Fallacies Library Scavenger Hunt
Goal: To help students understand and identify examples of fallacies.
Time: 60 minutes
1. After your class discussion of fallacies in reasoning, arrange to meet your class in the library.
2. Divide students into teams of three or four, and ask each team to find one example of the
following:
a. Ad hominem arguments
b. Hasty generalizations
3. Encourage students to use all of the resources in the library, including magazines, newspapers,
and books. They can use their phones or electronic devices to take pictures of their findings.
2.
We Dream of a Community Where . . .
Goal: To give students an opportunity to explore the different types of reasoning.
Time: 45 minutes
1. Divide students into four groups.
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2. Ask the groups to brainstorm how they would answer the following question: “We dream of a
community where. . . .” Once complete, have each group select one of the types of reasoning
3. Have each group give its presentation. Have the group identify which type of reasoning they
selected and why they chose it.
4. Discuss which group was most effective and why.
3.
Current Events and Persuasion
Goal: To help students identify persuasive techniques being used in current events.
Time: 20 minutes
1. Divide students into groups of three or four.
2. Ask students to use their electronic devices to find an example of public speaking related to a
should analyze it by discussing the following:
a. Did the speaker establish goodwill effectively?
b. Did the speaker use any fallacies?
4.
The Campus Newspaper and Monroe’s Motivational Sequence Activity
Goal: To allow students an opportunity to practice using Monroe’s motivational sequence.
Time: 60 minutes
1. Collect several current copies of the campus newspaper, or use the local paper.
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4. Have each group select an article that presents an issue that can be argued. Explain that each
group needs to outline a speech about their selected argument using Monroe’s motivational
sequence.
5.
Pass the Debate
Goal: To help students develop effective persuasive skills.
Time: 30 minutes
1. Select a topic that is sure to spark a lively debate with your students.
3. This exercise will work best if students are standing in a circle.
4. Explain to your students that they are going to “speed debate” on the given topic. Announce the
topic. Give the selected object to the first person and have them make one remark in favor of or
5. Discuss the outcome with students.
MEDIA RESOURCES
1.
Stephen’s Guide to the Logical Fallacies
Have students visit Stephen’s Guide to the Logical Fallacies, located on the Minnesotans for
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2.
Averting the Climate Crisis
This TED Talk by former vice president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore is a good example of
3.
Ethos, Pathos, Logos
Educator Krista Price explains in this six-minute video the art of persuasion using the concepts of
4. Is It “Deduction” or “Induction,” My Dear Watson?
This four-minute video using scenes from the popular Sherlock Holmes movie shows Holmes using