497REAL REFERENCE A Study Tool
Define the goals of persuasive speaking:
c Coercion involves manipulation, threats, intimida-
tion, or violence (p. 466).
c Persuasive speaking uses the process of persuasion
to influence attitudes, beliefs, and behavior (p. 466).Develop a persuasive topic and thesis:
c Choose a topic that is controversial and aim to cre-
ate change in the audience (p. 467).
c Thesis statements are often given as a proposition, a
statement of your viewpoint on an issue (p. 467).
c A proposition of fact is a claim of what is or what
is not and addresses how people perceive reality
(p. 467).
c A proposition of value makes claims about some-
thing’s worth (p. 469).
c A proposition of policy concerns what should
happen and makes claims about what goal, policy, or
course of action should be pursued (pp. 469–470).
Evaluate your listeners and tailor your speech to them:
c Social judgment theory holds that your ability to
persuade depends on audience members’ attitudes
toward your topic (pp. 470–471).
c A receptive audience agrees with you (p. 471).
c A neutral audience neither supports nor opposes you.
A hostile audience opposes your message (p. 471).
c Latitude of acceptance and rejection (or non-
commitment) refers to the range of positions on
a topic that are acceptable or unacceptable to your
audience, influenced by their original or anchor
position (p. 471).
c The stages of change model helps predict your
audience members’ motivational readiness and
progress toward modifying behavior. The five stages
are precontemplation, contemplation, preparation,
action, and maintenance (p. 472).
c Maslow’s hierarchy of needs holds that our most
basic needs must be met before we can worry about
needs farther up the hierarchy (pp. 473–474).
c The Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) high-
lights the importance of relevance to persuasion and
holds that listeners will process persuasive messages
by one of two routes: central processing (deep,
motivated thinking) or peripheral processing
(unmotivated, less critical thought) (pp. 474–476).Explain three forms of rhetorical proof (or classical
appeal): ethos, logos, and pathos:c The speaker’s moral character, or ethos, influences
the audience’s reaction to the message (pp. 477–478).
c Logos refers to appeals to the audience’s reasoning,
judgments based on facts and inferences (p. 479).
c Inductive reasoning involves drawing general con-
clusions from specific evidence; deductive reasoning
applies general arguments to specific cases (p. 479).
c A syllogism is a three-line deductive argument, draw-
ing a conclusion from two general premises (p. 479).
c Pathos appeals to the listeners’ emotions (p. 481).Identify the logical fallacies, deceptive forms of
reasoning:
c The bandwagon fallacy: a statement is considered
true because it is popular (p. 482).
c Reduction to the absurd: an argument is pushed
beyond its logical limits (p. 482).
c The red herring fallacy: irrelevant information is
used to divert the direction of the argument (p. 482).
c The ad hominem fallacy: a personal attack; the focus
is on a person rather than on the issue (pp. 482–483).
c A hasty generalization is a reasoning flaw in which
a speaker makes a broad generalization based on
isolated examples (p. 483).
c Begging the question: advancing an argument
that cannot be proved because there is no valid evi-
dence (p. 483).
c Either–or fallacy: only two alternatives are pre-
sented, omitting other alternatives (p. 483).
c Appeal to tradition: “that’s the way it has always
been” is the only reason given (p. 483).
c The slippery slope fallacy: one event is presented as
the result of another, without showing proof (p. 484).
c The naturalistic fallacy: anything natural is right or
good; anything human-made is wrong or bad (p. 485).Choose an appropriate organizational strategy (or
pattern of arrangement) for your speech:
c The problem–solution pattern proves the existence of a
problem and then presents a solution (pp. 485–486).
c The refutational organizational pattern presents
the main points of the opposition to an argument
and then refutes them (pp. 486–487).
c The comparative advantage pattern tells why
your viewpoint is superior to other viewpoints on
the issue (p. 487).
c Monroe’s motivated sequence pattern is a five-step
process (pp. 487–489).Now that you have finished reading this chapter, you can✁