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We need to be able to argue without being argumentative in the professional world. You are making arguments whether you are fundraising for a non-profit, pitching a business proposal, or suggesting a change in company policy. You often want to raise awareness, identify a pressing problem, discuss appropriate solutions, and outline specific steps for the audience when making the case for your topic.
To be persuasive, you must be clear (the audience may have little to no prior knowledge), convincing (you must persuade the audience that your argument is valid), and compelling (you are trying to motivate the audience enough so that they want to take specific actions). Thus, persuasive speaking necessitates clarity, strategy, topic mastery, as well as a sense of style and presence.
You should be able to design persuasive speeches that address problems and solutions and motivate audience members by the end of this course. You should be able to strategically employ rhetorical style and deliver passionate and compelling speeches.
Syllabus :
1. Welcome. Let's develop a persuasive argument.
- Welcome to persuasive speaking!
- What’s this course about?
- What are the assignments?
- What is persuasion?
- Good persuasion requires careful planning.
- Good persuasion involves logos, pathos, and ethos
- Good persuasion responds to questions of fact, policy, and value.
- What’s the status quo and burden of proof?
- What are the stock issues and how do they help?
- Stock issue: Ill. Something demands our attention.
- Stock issue: Blame. Why does the ill persist?
- Stock issue: Cure. What should we do?
- Stock issue: Consequences. What happens if we act?
- Using these tools to build arguments for and against.
- How to record speech videos
2. Designing your persuasive speech
- What are key arrangement concerns?
- Congruency. Everything should fit together.
- Calls to action. What should the audience do?
- Calls to action. Highlighting audience efficacy.
- Stock issues arrangement. Building to the call to action.
- Monroe's motivated sequence. Helping the audience visualize the cure.
- Go big. Move from policy to value.
- Go small. Protect the argument from larger issues.
- Challenge softly. Introduce new evidence.
- Find your cost-benefit balance
- Show, don't tell. Include a story.
- Validate your argument. Include some testimony.
- Sample persuasive speech #1
3. Strategic and motivational language
- That doesn’t sound right! Avoiding fallacies.
- Fallacies of reasoning. Something is missing
- Fallacies of reasoning. Flawed causality.
- Fallacies of relevance. Bad evidence.
- Fallacies of relevance. Bad response.
- Framing. Building credible commonalities.
- Identification. We're on the same side.
- Topic value. Finding the best words for your subject.
- Stylistic devices are easy equations for eloquence.
- Sound repetition. Assonance, consonance, alliteration, asyndeton, and polysyndeton.
- Phrasing repetition. Anaphora, epistrophe, and symploce.
- Writing big applause lines. Anadiplosis, antimetabole, and maxims.
- Stylistic hotspots. Where to include style in your speech.
4. Compelling delivery
- Why do I say um?
- How can I avoid saying um?
- Dressing for a successful speech.
- Preparing your speaking space.
- Engaging the audience by working the room.
- Making good eye contact.
- Who is a good model of imitation for you?
- Barack Obama. A model of stylistic energy.
- Bobby Jindal. Beware of over-relying on your scripts.
- Stylistic delivery requires your commitment.
5. Week 5: Review and assessment
- Course review
- Other courses in this specialization
