This Issues in Communication narrative is designed to provoke individual thought or discussion about concepts raised in the chapter.

Sally Crawford, a sophomore, worked hard on her persuasive speech. She decided her speech topic would be the newly reported dangers of food dyes since she thinks many people use them and are unaware of their danger. She felt she was qualified to talk about the topic because she had recently learned about the possible correlation between cancer and the use of food dye in her introductory nutrition course and because she had recently declared nutrition as her major. Although Sally thought she had already learned enough about the topic from her course, she interviewed her nutrition professor, Dr. Capra, for the speech. Dr. Capra, though very knowledgeable on the topic, also heads a consumer awareness group opposed to the unnecessary use of food additives.

The speech Sally delivered was impassioned and well organized. She felt she accomplished what she had set out to do: to persuade her audience of the dangers of food dyes through her competence as a speaker, her dynamic delivery, and her ability to convince her listeners that this topic was relevant to their lives. When her instructor asked the class for feedback, Sally was surprised and discouraged to hear that very few of her classmates had been convinced. Many of her classmates said that although she appeared to be competent, they did not consider her very trustworthy because her main source of information was clearly biased. In Sally’s effort to be dynamic and persuasive, she had neglected some necessary components of establishing her credibility, and she had not been as thorough as she could have been when she was gathering information.

Apply what you have learned about source credibility as you ponder and discuss the following questions: Do you think Sally’s audience was fair? What additional sources could Sally have used for her speech? What could she have done differently to establish herself as a more credible source? What kinds of supporting materials might Sally have used to improve the effectiveness of her speech?