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Speaking Persuasively

Chapter Summary

This summary is organized around the questions found at the beginning of the chapter. See if you can answer them before reading the summary paragraphs.

1. Why are informative speaking and persuasive speaking part of a continuum?

Persuasive speeches share much with informative ones. The primary goal of informative speaking is to convey knowledge, but the speaker must convince the audience to listen. Persuasive speakers often need to educate listeners, but their main objective is to change the attitudes, beliefs, and possibly behaviors of their audience. According to social judgment theory, speakers need to identify the audience's anchor beliefs and try to influence attitudes that fall within their latitudes of acceptance or noncommitment.

2. What are the types of persuasive speaking?

There are three types of persuasive speaking: speeches that reinforce, convince, or call for action. Speeches to reinforce attempt to strengthen existing attitudes and beliefs. Speeches to convince urge listeners to accept contentious facts, evaluate beliefs, or support actions. Speeches that call for action build on the support a speaker has earned to move the audience to a specific behavior.

3. How can you distinguish between claims of fact, value, and policy?

Claims of fact, value, and policy each reflect a different goal of the speaker and desired response from listeners. Claims of fact make claims about the truth or falsity of a statement. Claims of value ask listeners to form a judgment or evaluation. Claims of policy ask listeners to consider a specific course of action.

4. How are arguments built and what kinds of appeals can be used to support them?

Arguments consist of claims, evidence, and reasoning. Even if an argument makes sense, audiences will not necessarily accept it, so speakers must rely on persuasive appeals to support their arguments. Persuasive appeals can be based on credibility, reasoning, emotion, or cultural myths. Speakers establish credibility by demonstrating good sense, goodwill, and good moral character. Appeals based on reasoning demonstrate a clear and justifiable connection between the evidence provided and the conclusion drawn. They can be based on either inductive or deductive reasoning. Speakers can appeal to emotions by referring to the physical needs for food and water and to human needs and desires for security, belonging, love and esteem, and self-actualization. Myths, legends, and shared stories can also form the basis of persuasive appeals.

5. What are some options in organizing persuasive speeches?

Speeches to reinforce often use topical or chronological patterns. Cause-and-effect and problem-solution patterns are often appropriate for speeches to convince. One of the most common organizations for speeches that call for action is the motivated sequence. The motivated sequence has five stages: attention, need, satisfaction, visualization, and action.

6. How can speakers persuade with responsibility?

In addition to demonstrating credibility by thorough and careful preparation, speaking responsibly requires showing respect for opposing points of view, keeping the interests of the audience in mind, welcoming listeners to verify your information, avoiding coercion, and considering your own feelings and interests. Speakers also need to check their own reasoning and avoid common fallacies such as name-calling, appeals to popular opinion, false cause, appeal to authority, hasty generalization, and the slippery slope.










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