484 Part 4 Public Speaking
NAME: Bryan Au
OCCUPATION: Raw organic chef, cookbook author, and spokespersonCheeseburger combo
meals. Frozen pizzas.
Drive-thru fried chicken
and microwaveable
fried chicken. Get a burrito at the convenience
store. Tear off the plastic wrapper. Throw the bur-
rito in the microwave. Press 3. This isn’t how col-
lege students eat. This is how many people eat.
It’s SAD—the Standard American Diet.
I advocate the benefits of raw organic food. I
recently published a cookbook, Raw in Ten Minutes,
and I pitch my ideas to agents, publishers, busi-
nesses, and TV executives. I deliver persuasive pre-
sentations over the Internet, on television shows,
in conference rooms, one on one, and in front of
thousands of people. I talk about vegan food, and
I promote wheat-, gluten-, and dairy-free food.
And as you may have already guessed—what? no
cheese? no burgers? no cheeseburgers?—I run into
some very hostile audiences.
Fortunately, I have a background in commu-
nication. As an undergraduate, I took a number
of communication classes, and the principles
and concepts I learned in those classes have
been especially valuable to me as a persuasive
speaker. For example, as a persuasive speaker, I
seek to influence my audience’s preexisting atti-
tudes and beliefs toward raw organic food. Those
attitudes and beliefs include, but are not limited
to, raw food 5 gross. I try to counteract those
beliefs and attitudes, and by doing so, I hope to
influence my audience’s behavior. In other words,
I hope to change people’s eating habits.The proposition-of-fact part is easy. Through
stories, slides, examples, and statistics, I can
persuade my audience that organic food is
healthier than overprocessed food. There is, for
example, a great bonus feature on the Super Size
Me DVD that shows a plate of french fries from
a certain fast-food restaurant. Those fries have
been left out on a counter, unrefrigerated, for a
number of months. At the end of those months,
the fries look exactly the same. Images like that
bolster my propositions of fact.
Because I deal with hostile audiences, it’s
particularly important that I make appeals to
ethos. I need to come across as trustworthy and
full of goodwill. I start my presentation with an
informal question-and-answer session. People
ask me questions, and I ask them questions.
Has anyone eaten any raw food this week? What
about a salad? Through this informal Q&A, I try
to demonstrate to my listeners that I’m not trying
to force a particular diet on them. I acknowledge
their point of view (hey, I like fast food too!), and
I look for ways to bridge the gap between us. I
also appeal to their senses. My raw organic food
recipes don’t look like lumpy white tofu on a bed
of wheatgrass. My recipes look and taste like
comfort food.
Finally, with a bridge established between
me and my audience, I make a quick little pathos
appeal. I dare everyone to give raw organic food
a try. Just as I’m daring you.real communicator
The Slippery Slope
The slippery slope fallacy is employed when a speaker attests that some event
must clearly occur as a result of another event without showing any proof that
the second event is caused by the first. For example, “Video surveillance cameras
should not be installed in major metropolitan areas. The next thing you know,
the government will be reading our text messages.”