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Chapter 17
Persuasive Speaking
CHAPTER OUTCOMES
• Identify the different types of persuasive propositions
• Understand the importance of credibility in persuasive speaking
• Explain how to organize a persuasive speech and support your claims
• Explore the strategies for appealing to your audience’s needs and emotions
• Learn the general guidelines for 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 important—how to get your audience to
believe what you have to say. In this chapter, we focus on persuasive speeches—those that
reinforce or change listeners’ attitudes and beliefs and possibly even motivate them to take
action.
• Persuasive speeches reinforce or change listeners’ attitudes and beliefs—and may motivate
them to take action.
• Persuasive speaking is notably different from coercion, which involves using threats,
manipulation, and even violence to force others to do something against their will. Any use
of coercion is unethical.
TYPES OF PERSUASIVE PROPOSITIONS
• When thinking about the topic of your presentation, you will want to consider what type of
proposal you want your listeners to accept. There are three types:
2. A proposition of value urges a judgment on a topic or explains why something is good
or bad.
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 know as much as possible about your audience, paying special attention to
any strongly held attitudes, beliefs, and values is especially helpful when preparing a
persuasive speech.
• To help you create persuasive main points and present your message ethically, consider
these questions while researching your topic and composing your speech:
○ Will the audience have favorable views toward your topic?
○ Will they strongly oppose your position?
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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.
• Knowing how your audience will process your message will help when you’re composing
the presentation. Routes listeners can take when processing messages include these two:
○ Central route: Audience members who are highly motivated to listen and who have the
knowledge needed to understand your message will take this route to processing your
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:
○ Connect the topic to the needs and interests of your audience by making it personally
relevant to them in your speech introduction.
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○ Continue motivating the audience to use central route processing by composing a main
point on the positive outcomes of accepting your speech thesis.
○ Tell the audience what highly credible experts have said about the issue so they
understand why it is important or something they should care about.
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
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
3. Motivate your audience to take action. This could include taking up a charitable cause,
making different choices, or participating in a political action.
CREDIBILITY IN PERSUASIVE SPEECHES
• Credibility is an audience’s perception of a speaker’s trustworthiness and the validity of the
information provided in the speech. If your listeners think you’re credible, they are more
likely to believe you.
• Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle pointed out three elements that are necessary in
constructing an ethical and competent persuasive speech. These elements are known as
rhetorical proofs, and they include the following:
○ Ethos or credibility
• 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
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
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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:
○ Try varying the volume and pitch of your voice.
○ Establish eye contact with audience members.
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 gives listeners evidence to support your claims.
• Successful persuasive speeches have a clear organization and use logical reasoning to prove
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.
○ 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
2. Need. Clearly state the problem you want the audience to be concerned about as a main
3. Satisfaction. Show the audience that the plan you are recommending is reasonable and that
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
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.
• 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:
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b. A minor premise, or specific instance of the general claim.
c. A conclusion about the relationship between the two ideas.
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
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:
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 effect to its cause, you have to work back in time. This type of claim
is best suited for explaining why something occurred. You can also claim that specific
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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:
○ Ad hominem arguments. You attack a person rather than an idea.
○ Hasty generalizations. You make a bold claim based on limited evidence.
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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 the needs and
feelings of your listeners.
○ 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, or the hierarchy of needs. If you’re extremely hungry or
tired, nothing matters to you except food or rest. Maslow’s framework is useful for planning
motivational appeals for your speech. If you show your listeners how certain needs are in
danger or how specific needs could be satisfied if they follow your call to action, you’ll
likely capture their attention.
• Maslow’s hierarchy of needs includes the following:
2. Security needs like avoiding harm and uncertainty.
4. Ego needs, which include having respect and admiration from others.