Full Persuasive Speech: Litter by Audry Royzspal

Audience Analysis

Audrey’s audience analysis indicates that showing the effects of pollution on campus might be a persuasive argument. She makes her point by showing pictures of litter in the places where audience members live, work, and study.

Audrey targets her audience’s demographics effectively. Her evidence includes a survey that shows that “if [people are] age 24 or under, … are single and have never been married, or drive more than fifty miles in a day, they are more likely to litter.” Most of the students in her class fit in this category, and those who commute are likely to be frequent drivers.

Content and Supporting Ideas

Throughout her speech, Audrey makes citations where necessary, giving the source and date of the publication or survey. Here she makes reference to a government survey published on the Internet.

This citation is confusing. The speaker has just cited two articles by the journalist Megan Donald, and here indicates that Donald has written more on the subject, but refers to the article as Cynthia Metzger’s. While the audience may be able to understand Audrey’s meaning, her delivery is a bit confusing, and the citation should be clearer.

Introduction/Transitions/Conclusion

In the introduction, Audrey clearly states her speech topic and purpose.

She also does a good job of previewing her main points.

Here, Audrey sums up her two previous main points and makes a clear transition to her third.

In her conclusion, Audrey effectively reviews her main points and reminds the audience of the negative effects of littering. While this reminder is a useful argument to motiviate her audience, in the body of her speech she neglected to emphasize that littering has a negative effect on each audience member. She ought to have raised this point in the body of her speech and supported it with evidence.

Delivery

Throughout the speech, Audrey holds onto her notecards without letting them become an obstacle. With them in her hands, she is still able to manipulate her visual aids and make effective movement between the open floor and the overhead projector.

Audrey makes several verbal slips and corrects herself. Here the speaker stops to apologize and correct a minor error in wording that would likely not have been noticed, and the correction makes little difference to proving her point. While it is perfectly natural to make an error in delivery, it is best to move on without comment, or to quickly make a correction and move on. Do not apologize for your mistake or dwell on it.

Visual Aids

Here, Audry reveals her visual aid for exactly as long as she is speaking about it, making it the focus of her presentation while it is relevant. She then removes the aid before it becomes a distraction.

Her visual aids are large, easy to see, and well labeled. The captions and arrows are helpful for her audience.

Using visual examples from her audience’s own daily lives is particularly effective. Not only does Audrey directly show the negative effects of littering, she shows it in a context that her audience members are likely to have sympathy for: their campus and community.