Chapter 16 Persuasive Speaking 467use organized and well-developed presentations to influence their audience’s
attitudes and beliefs about their (or their opponents’) suitability for the presi-
dency. And, of course, they want to influence your behavior by getting you to
vote for them.
Influencing your audience does not necessarily mean radically changing
their attitudes, beliefs, or behavior; it can also mean reinforcing them. For
example, when a political party attempts to rally its base, its goal is not to change
their faithful listeners’ minds but to strengthen their support and get them
more actively involved. Of course, to do this effectively, the party must first
correctly identify their listeners’ existing attitudes and beliefs. In fact, whether
your goal is to change or reinforce your audience’s attitudes, it is important
to use audience analysis (discussed in Chapter 12) to first identify what those
attitudes currently are.
Developing a Persuasive Topic and Thesis
An effective topic for a persuasive speech shares some characteristics with an
informative one: it should be something that you’re interested in, that you
know something about, and that is specific enough that you can find a variety
of appropriate sources on the topic but not so specific that you can’t possibly
develop it. When your purpose is to persuade, however, you must also keep a few
other points in mind.
First, your topic should be one that people could have reasonable disagree-
ment about or resistance to. Issues such as human cloning, immigration reform,
and government wiretapping lend themselves to a persuasive purpose because
people hold strongly differing opinions about them. Second, the topic must
allow the speaker to develop a message intended to cause some degree of change
in the audience. For example, the topic of mandatory smoking bans could seek
changes from different audiences who hold very different views: encouraging
action (a change in behavior) from people who already agree that smoking
should be banned in public or seeking a change in the attitudes of smokers who
currently see no problem with smoking in public places.
Once you have determined that a particular topic interests you and can be
persuasive, it’s time to think about developing your thesis statement. In a
persuasive speech, thesis statements are often given as a proposition, or
a statement about your viewpoint or position on an issue. There are
three types of propositions that we will examine: propositions of fact,
propositions of value, and propositions of policy.
Propositions of Fact
If you’ve ever argued on behalf of something you believed
to be true, you’ve made a proposition of fact—a claim
of what is or what is not. Persuasive speeches built
on propositions of fact commonly involve issues that
are open to some interpretation and on which there
are conflicting beliefs or evidence. The truth of the
IN THE FILM Inception,
spy Dom Cobb takes
coercion to the next level by
manipulating his targets’
subconscious minds to
extract valuable information.
Stephen Vaughan/©Warner Bros./
Courtesy Everett CollectionAs you consider your
audience’s attitudes,
beliefs, and behavior, don’t
forget the cultural context
(Chapter 1) and their group
affiliations (Chapter 5). Your
listeners’ gender, religious
beliefs, socioeconomic
status, and ethnicity—as
well as their personal
experiences—inform their
attitudes, beliefs, and be-
havior. If you fail to respect
these factors, you may fail
to persuade your audience.As you consider yourCONNECT