Persuasive

Theme: Your choice!

Research: 5 or more authoritative sources cited in APA/MLA format. Internet source material ending in “.com” MAY NOT BE USED for this presentation (.gov, .edu, .org…..are acceptable to cite). Be sure to dig through books, articles, magazines to find your credible sources.

Time: 5-7 minutes

Delivery Style: Extemporaneous

Misc: Speech must be presented standing up and facing an audience of 5 or more adults (over age of 16)

Description: Choose a topic that is timely and important-something you feel represents a problem or opportunity that requires community action. You will be using Monroe’s Motivated Sequence as your primary persuasive structure. Establish the existence of the problem to your audience, offer a clear and explicit solution to that problem, and call on your audience to be involved in that solution. Offer them something specific and simple that they can do in order to take action, now! In some cases, the proposed actions of your audience may represent a complete solution to the problem. In other cases, their action may be just the first step in a lengthy process. In either case, your audience should have a specific understanding of what they can do to help solve the problem. Most importantly, don’t forget to cite each of your sources throughout your speech. Don’t wait until the end and rattle off a list of source material, but rather, cite the source when you use the information from that source during your speech.

Your topic should not be anything similar to those on the “prohibited topics list” attached. If you have a question on whether or not your topic would work, feel free to email me in advance. Keep in mind that you are persuading your audience to do something specific. Be careful not to let this turn into an informative speech! In addition, if you are choosing a common/popular topic, try to find some new information to add so that you don’t bore your audience with the same argument they have been hearing for years; try to think outside of the box! Finally, this speech is based in factual research and not opinion, so be wise in choosing a topic that you can research and support.