Jill - In my Fundamentals of Oral Communication class we were
taught these exact methods in giving speeches. To fully relate this to
Aristotle's tactics, I will tell of my persuasion speech. I gave a speech
on eating disorders and how the media encourages eating disorders in women.
In my invention or construction of my argument, I showed how statistics
of eating disorders had risen from the past to now. I also showed examples
of advertisements with skinny models which the youth of our day and women
of our day expect themselves to look like. With these examples, I failed
to show a contrast of advertisements of the past or possible advertisements
of the future. I did show that through using perfect bodies in advertisements,
we had glorified this part of our nature over other more important things.
In my arrangement, I gave an interesting story to catch the audience's
attention, then I shared that I had credibility because I had struggled
with an eating disorder and so had my sister and best friend. I stated
my purpose to make my audience aware of the effect of the media and to
stop the glorification of perfect bodies. I did not reveal my main point
at the end, rather I ended with examples of what we could do. My style
contained vivid examples with the actual advertisements and stories of
those who had suffered. I spoke in everyday language, but failed to create
fresh metaphors. I spoke candidly, which was easier by not memorizing
my speech--this contrasts with Aristotle's encouragement of memory. It's
amazing that Aristotle's speech techniques are still being taught in classrooms
today.
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