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Page 359
A Study Tool
Now that you have finished reading this chapter, you can
Define the goals of persuasive speaking:
- Coercion involves threats, intimidation, or violence (p. 336).
- Persuasive speaking uses the process of persuasion to influence attitudes, beliefs, and behavior (pp. 336–337).
Develop a persuasive topic and thesis:
- Choose a topic that is controversial, and aim to create change in the audience (p. 337).
- Thesis statements are often given as a proposition, a statement of your viewpoint on an issue (p. 337).
- A proposition of fact is a claim of what is or what is not and addresses how people perceive reality (pp. 337–338).
- A proposition of value makes claims about something’s worth (p. 338).
- A proposition of policy concerns what should happen and makes claims about what goal, policy, or course of action should be pursued (p. 338).
Evaluate your listeners and tailor your speech to them:
- Social judgment theory holds that your ability to persuade depends on audience members’ attitudes toward your topic (p. 339).
- A receptive audience agrees with you (p. 339).
- A neutral audience neither supports nor opposes you (p. 339).
- A hostile audience opposes your message (p. 339).
- Latitude of acceptance and rejection refers to the range of positions on a topic that are acceptable or unacceptable to your audience, influenced by their original or anchor position (pp. 339–340).
- 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. 340–341).
- The Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) highlights 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. 341–342).
Explain three forms of rhetorical proof:
- The speaker’s moral character, or ethos, influences the audience’s reaction to the message (p. 343).
- Logos refers to appeals to the audience’s reasoning
, judgments based on facts and inferences (pp. 343–344). - Inductive reasoning involves drawing general conclusions from specific evidence; deductive reasoning applies general arguments to specific cases (pp. 343–344).
- A syllogism is a three-line deductive argument, drawing a conclusion from two general premises (p. 344).
- Pathos appeals to the listeners’ emotions (pp. 344–345).
Identify the logical fallacies , deceptive forms of reasoning:
- The bandwagon fallacy: a statement is considered true because it is popular (p. 345).
- Reduction to the absurd: an argument is pushed beyond its logical limits (pp. 345–346).
- The red herring fallacy: irrelevant information is used to divert the direction of the argument (p. 346).
- The ad hominem fallacy: a personal attack; the focus is on a person rather than on the issue (p. 346).
- Begging the question: advancing an argument that cannot be proved because there is no valid evidence (p. 346).
- Either-or fallacy: only two alternatives are presented, omitting other alternatives (p. 346).
- Appeal to tradition: “that’s the way it has always been” is the only reason given (p. 347).
- The slippery slope fallacy: one event is presented as the result of another, without showing proof (p. 347).
Choose an appropriate organizational strategy for your speech:
- The problem-solution pattern proves the existence of a problem and then presents a solution (pp. 347–348).
- The refutational organizational pattern presents the main points of the opposition to an argument and then refutes them. This works well when the opposing argument is weak (pp. 348–349).
- The comparative advantage pattern tells why your viewpoint is superior to other viewpoints on the issue (pp. 349–350).
- Monroe’s motivated sequence pattern is a five-step process that begins with arousing listeners’ attention and ends with calling for action (p. 350).