Chapter 17: Persuasive Speaking

Foundations of Persuasion

Speaker’s Corner – The north-east corner of Hyde Park is the haunt of many orators who speak on any subject under the sun. This Southern US gentleman was speaking on the Bible. – CC BY 2.0.

Every day we are bombarded by persuasive messages. Some messages are mediated and designed to get us to purchase specific products or vote for specific candidates, while others might come from our loved ones and are designed to get us to help around the house or join the family for game night. Whatever the message being sent, we are constantly being persuaded and persuading others. In this chapter, we are going to focus on persuasive speaking. We will first talk about persuasion as a general concept. We will then examine four different types of persuasive speeches, and finally, we’ll look at three organizational patterns that are useful for persuasive speeches.