A persuasive speech attempts to influence or reinforce the attitudes, beliefs, or behavior of an audience. This type of speech often includes the following elements:
- appeal to the needs of the audience
- appeal to the reasoning of the audience
- focus on the relevance of your topic to the audience
- fit the speech to the audience - ensure they understand the info
- make yourself credible by demonstrating your expertise
Watch out for logical fallacies in developing your argument:
- ad hominem argument = attacking an opponent rather than their argument
- bandwagoning = using popular opinion as evidence
- begging the question = using circular reasoning
- either-or fallacy = the argument is structured as having either one answer or another
- hasty generalization = taking one instance as a general pattern
- non sequitur = aka: it does not follow; your conclusions are not connected to the reasoning
- red herring fallacy = using irrelevant info in the argument
- slippery slope = arriving at a truth by supposing a series of possible events
