Speaking to Persuade

Speaking to
Persuade

Methods and Strategies

What is persuasion?

It is the process of creating,
reinforcing, or changing
people’s beliefs or actions

Degrees of Persuasion

Strongly
opposed

Moderately
opposed

Slightly
opposed

Neutral

Slightly in
favor

Moderately
in favor

Strongly in
favor

Persuasion involves any movement in a listener’s disposition from
left to right

Ethics and Persuasion

You must ensure your goals are ethically sound

“It is not possible to bring about a truly
beneficial result by using unethical methods” -
Martin Luther King Jr.

(Review notes from ch. 2 for a refresher on ethics in
public speaking)

Processing persuasive
messages

- Think of persuasive speaking as an activity

you do with your audience

- You are engaging in an intellectual back-and-

forth with your audience

- Think of reactions your audience might have

during various parts of your speech and be
prepared to respond to them

- Using your audience analysis data is good for

this

Open Ended

Based on our discussion so far, what kinds of questions would you like to include in your audience analysis survey?

Question of Fact vs.
Question of value

Question of Fact

- Something that can be answered without

bias or debate, objective

- These are informative speeches

Question of Value

- Speaker and audience make judgement

calls based on information

- Persuasive speaking

Organization for
question of value speech

General Purpose: to persuade the audience

Specific Purpose: to persuade the audience that it is ethically and morally
wrong to purchase clothing made in sweatshops overseas

Central Idea: purchasing clothing made in sweatshops encourages and
enables executives and brands in the fashion industry to continue the practice

Main Points:

I. It is important to be an informed consumer and be aware of the way your dollars are

supporting ethical OR unethical practices

II. Sweatshops pose multiple human rights violations

III. Consumers have a responsibility to be informed about the effects of their monetary

spending and how it contributes to the livelihood, health, and wellbeing of other
human beings

Question of
Policy

A question of policy is meant to have the
audience adapt a course of action or
change/adopt a certain behavior.

- Speech to gain passive agreement
- Speech to gain tangible action

Poll

What type of persuasive speech are you giving?

• Question of fact

• Question of Value

• Question of Policy

Consider the
following

- Demonstrate need

- Propose a plan

- Prove that the plan is

practical / will work

Options for
organization

- Problem / Cause / Solution

- Problem / solution

- Comparative advantages

- Monroe’s motivated sequence

❑Attention

❑Need

❑Satisfaction

❑Visualization

❑Action

Building
Credibility

Factors: competence and character

Types: initial credibility, derived
credibility, and terminal credibility

Strategies:

- Explain your competence
- Establish common ground
- Deliver fluently, expressively, and with

conviction

Using evidence to build
credibility

In order to build credibility,
your evidence should be

- Specific

- Novel

- From credible sources

- Clearly connected to

claims

Word Cloud

How will you build credibility with your audience?

Types of
Reasoning

- Reasoning from specific instances

- Reasoning from principle

- Casual reasoning

- Analogical reasoning

Fallacies to Avoid

- Hasty generalization
- False cause
- Invalid analogy
- Bandwagon
- Red herring
- Ad hominem
- Either Or
- Slippery slope
- Appeal to tradition
- Appeal to novelty

Word Cloud

Which of these fallacies is new to you?

Effective persuasion usually
involves emotional appeal…

- Fear

- Compassion

- Pride

- Anger

- Guilt

- Reverence

So how do we do it?

- Using emotional language
- Develop vivid examples
- Speak with sincerity and conviction

But you need to be careful that your methods are
still ETHICAL…

- Fear mongering
- Playing up internal biases, “fanning the flame”
- Make sure you are appropriate to topic
- Not appropriate for question of fact speeches
- BALANCE with evidence and reasoning

Organizing a speech for
question of policy

General Purpose: to persuade the audience

Specific Purpose: to persuade the audience that carpooling is an
appropriate measure to minimize personal contributions to rising levels of
air pollution

Central Idea: Individual vehicle use in combination with increasing
distances for commuters are contributing to rising levels of air pollution.
Carpooling or taking public transportation helps mitigate the effects.

Main Points:

I. Vehicle emissions are on the main contributors to air pollution in urban
areas

II. Longer distances for commutes and the return to offices post pandemic
presents an issue

III. Carpooling and Public Transportation minimizes personal / individual
contributions to the problem

Your turn…

• Think of your speech topic

• What kind of persuasive speech are you giving? QUESTION OF POLICY

 You are tasked with persuading the audience to change their behavior based on a question of value
 You have proposed a problem – you are now persuading your audience to engage in solutions

 YOUR NEXT TASK(S)

Figure out what solutions you are
proposing and what kinds of reasoning
you would like to use