Sp Cm 212 Fundamentals of Public Speaking
Preparation Outline
Lecture 8W
The Persuasive Speech: Questions you will have to meet:
Problem? Plan? Practicality? and Questioning Sources
As we saw on Monday, the Persuasive speaker has one key responsibility (over and
above the basic three she shares with the Informative speaker): and that is, to answer all the
audience's reasonable doubts and objections. This is because persuasion works like a dialogue:
the audience isn't passive, and can't be beaten into submission; they are your equals, with their
own beliefs, worldviews, experiences, habits and practices. The best thing you can do to
persuade them is to listen to their concerns, and meet them. Even when your audience isn't
actually asking questions, therefore, it's up to you as a persuasive speaker to engage them in
"mental dialogue."
As we also saw on Monday, it's unlikely that persuasion will lead to immediate
conversions. Perhaps you should consider instead that the aim of persuasion is to get your
audience to think. After all, if people think carefully about something, they're likely all to reach
the same, correct, conclusion—eventually. Right? Or is that too optimistic?
In any case, to meet your responsibility as a persuasive speaker, you're going to need
three things:
1. A great topic which you're passionate about.
2. A sense of what doubts & objections you can expect.
3. Ways to meet them!
On Monday, we went over topic selection; today, we will discussion the questions your
audience will be posing to you (mentally) when you try to persuade them. In particular, we'll
look at two sets of questions:
1. The 3 Big Questions that will come up every time.
2. The questions they'll have about your sources.
[So: On to the 3 Big Questions: the most important knowledge you'll need to give a good
persuasive speech.]
I. The 3 Big Questions your audience is always going to ask about a question of policy are:
problem? plan? and practicality?
A. As a persuasive speaker on a question of policy, you have to answer your audience's
question: What's the problem?
1. When you try to persuade someone to do something different, it's very likely
that they will resist.
a. They will think things like "Change is bad! If it's not broke, don't fix
it! Mind your own business!"
b. For example, that's likely what you or your groupmates thought on
Monday, when I asked you to change where you sat.
2. As a persuasive speaker, you have the burden of proof: it is up to her to prove
that change is needed. That is what you do by answering the Problem Issue.
3. For example, you gave me several questions about the Problem Issue when I
spoke on Monday, asking whether cars were really that expensive, or whether
global warming really exists.
B. As a persuasive speaker on a question of policy, you have to answer your audience's
question: What exactly is your plan to solve it?
1. Once you explain the Problem, your audience is going to want to know:
"Well, how are you going to solve it?!"
2. This is easy enough to answer when the plan is simple ("stop driving!"), but
harder to do when the plan is complex ("raise the CAFE standards!) Make sure
you explain what you want to do in some detail.
C. As a persuasive speaker on a question of policy, you have to answer your audience's
question: Is that practical?
1. There are many good ideas about solving our energy problems. The trouble is:
many of them cost too much! That is the Practicality Issue.
2. For one thing, your audience is going to want to know "Will your plan really
solve your problem?"
3. Your audience is also going to want to know "What are all the other
disadvantages and costs of your plan?"
4. For example, on Monday you asked how you were going to be able to do
errands without a car, or get home on weekends, or travel at night after the bus
stops.
[Exercise]
[In addition to these 3 Big and enduring Questions, there are a lot of questions your audience is
going to ask about the sources of information you use—especially online sources.]
II. Before trusting your sources, your audience is going to want to know: Is it expert? Is it
biased? Has it been reviewed?
A. Deciding whether to trust any information source requires critical thinking.
1. The internet in particular is tricky: it's like the Wild, Wild West out there.
2. ISU librarians have put online a list of two dozen questions you should ask
about any website.
B. There are 3 Big Questions, however, that will help you the most.
1. The first is: Expertise: Does the person who wrote this know what he/she is
talking about? Otherwise, the "information" may be bogus.
2. The second is: Bias: Does the person who wrote this have financial or
ideological interests which significantly distort his/her judgment?
a. Note that everyone has a point of view—that is not necessarily a bias.
b. A bias arises from economic or ideological commitments that prevent
the person or organization from thinking or speaking reasonably. For
example, we don't really expect a company to tell us bad things about its
own products.
3. The third is: Review: Has this information been reviewed by a neutral party?
a. When do you trust anything online?—for example, when do you trust a
person who is trying to sell you something? Sites like eBay and Amazon
have developed "ratings," which allow buyers to rate sellers. We find that
a seller with a higher rating is more trustworthy.
b. We use this kind of outside rating in many aspects of life, for example:
Letters of Reference; Second Opinions; Consumer Reports;
Endorsements; Student ratings of professors; the EnergyStar seal of
approval.
c. We have developed similar methods for getting "outside evaluation" of
information, for example: Editors of major newspapers/magazines; peer
review of scholarly articles; review panel review of information on
WebMD; and librarians' collections of information into "virtual
libraries"—like our own Sp Cm 212 Instruction Commons website.
d. Internet sources which have been reviewed by neutral parties are much
more trustworthy than those which have just been self-published.
i. Unfortunately, reviewed sources often aren't free—reviewing
costs money!
ii. Fortunately, the ISU library has already paid for access to many
of these sources, so you can use them!
iii. For example, in researching your persuasive speech you are
required to use "Academic OneFile" (replaces Expanded
Academic ASAP).
[Exercise]
[In summary:]
Today we have gone over two sets of questions you need to answer for your audience:
The Big Questions of Policy? Plan? Practicality? and the three questions about sources, namely
Expertise? Bias? and Review?
Test 2 will draw from a list of 20 questions, including ten specifically directed to
persuasive speaking. We have now gone over the first four of these ten, namely:
9. What specific claim(s) does the speaker make on the Problem (Need) Issue?
How does the speaker support his/her claim(s)?
10. What specific actions is the speaker calling for in his/her claims on the Plan
Issue? How does the speaker support his/her claim that the Plan will solve the
Problem?
11. What specific claim(s) does the speaker make on the Practicality Issue?
How does the speaker support his/her claim(s)? Identify one objection to
Practicality that the audience is likely to make, which the speaker has not dealt
with in the speech.
12. What is the least credible Source cited by the speaker? Why isn't it credible?
On Friday in Lab you'll practice developing a persuasive case by asking these
questions. By Monday morning, you will hand in your topic ideas, and your analysis of
the Problems, Plan, and Practicalities of your preferred topic.
Then next Monday we'll begin discussing how to answer these questions.