Illustrating a concept with personal anecdotes (brief stories) can help you further build credibility and reassure your listeners that you’re not judging them. Peter, a senior in a speech class, used the following personal anecdote in a speech about phobias:

Phobias come in many different forms—and most, if not all, can be cured with therapy, medication, or a combination of the two. I know this because I’ve lived with one of these myself. Although you would not know it to look at me today, I once had a horrible fear of swimming in the ocean. Just the thought of stepping into the open, boundless ocean—water that might have sharks swimming in it—used to give me the shakes, sweaty palms, the works. It was a real problem. But after lots of therapy, I took a doctor’s advice and joined a bay swimming club. With the help of my new friends in the club, I forced myself to swim in the bay—including a swim under the Golden Gate Bridge at dawn and during slack tide. Being out there with people I really trusted cured me of the fear.

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Peter illustrates one type of phobia in a way that gives him credibility (he speaks from experience). His personal anecdote also demonstrates that he took his subject seriously. Finally, it enables him to avoid offending audience members who may have struggled with similar fears.

You can achieve similar effects with anecdotes about events your listeners may have experienced personally. In a speech on credit card debt, a freshman student named Jackson sought common ground with his audience through the following anecdote:

You really have to be careful about credit cards. You usually get on somebody’s mailing list right out of high school. Suddenly your mailbox is filled with offers for free credit cards. And they don’t have a service charge for the first three months. You can get credit up to five thousand dollars and pay just a minimum payment each month. Hasn’t that happened to most of you in this room? It happened to me, too. And we all know how fast that credit card debt can pile up!