Strengthen Your Case with Organization

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Once you’ve developed your speech claims, the next step is to structure your speech points using one (or more) of the organizational patterns described in Chapter 13 and in this chapter. Factors to consider when selecting a pattern include the nature of your arguments and evidence; the response you want to elicit from audience members; and your target audience’s attitudes toward the topic. Following are organizational patterns especially well-suited to persuasive speeches.

Problem-Solution Pattern

Some speech topics or claims clearly suggest a specific design, such as the claim that cigarettes should cost less. Implied is that the current high price of cigarettes represents a problem and that lower prices represent a solution. The problem-solution pattern of arrangement is a commonly used design for persuasive speeches, especially those based on claims of policy (see p. 196). Here you organize speech points to demonstrate the nature and significance of a problem and then to provide justification for a proposed solution:

  1. Problem (define what it is)
  2. Solution (offer a way to overcome the problem)

Most problem-solution speeches require more than two points to adequately explain the problem and to substantiate the recommended solution. Thus a three-point problem-cause-solution pattern may be in order:

  1. The nature of the problem (explain why it’s a problem, for whom, etc.)
  2. Reasons for the problem (identify its causes, incidence)
  3. Proposed solution (explain why it’s expected to work, noting any unsatisfactory solutions)

When arguing a claim of policy, it may be important to demonstrate the proposal’s feasibility. To do this, use a four-point problem-cause-solution-feasibility pattern, with the last point providing evidence of the solution’s feasibility.

This organization can be seen in the following claim of policy about changing the NBA draft:

THESIS: The NBA draft should be changed so that athletes like you aren’t tempted to throw away their opportunity for an education.
  1. The NBA draft should be revamped so that college-age athletes are not tempted to drop out of school. (Need/problem)
  2. The NBA’s present policies lure young athletes to pursue unrealistic goals of superstardom while weakening the quality of the game with immature players. (Reasons for the problem)
  3. The NBA draft needs to adopt a minimum age of twenty. (Solution to the problem)
  4. National leagues in countries X and Y have done this successfully. (Evidence of the solution’s feasibility)

Monroe’s Motivated Sequence

The motivated sequence pattern of arrangement, developed in the mid-1930s by Alan Monroe,21 is a five-step sequence that begins with arousing listeners’ attention and ends with calling for action. This pattern is particularly effective when you want the audience to do something—buy a product, donate to a cause, and so forth.

STEP 1: ATTENTIONThe attention step addresses listeners’ core concerns, making the speech highly relevant to them. Here is an excerpt from a student speech by Ed Partlow on becoming an organ donor:

Today I’m going to talk about a subject that can be both personal and emotional. I am going to talk about becoming an organ donor. Donating an organ is a simple step you can take that will literally give life to others—to your husband or wife, mother or father, son or daughter—or to a beautiful child whom you’ve never met.

There is one thing I want to acknowledge from the start. Many of you may be uncomfortable with the idea of becoming an organ donor. I want to establish right off that it’s OK if you don’t want to become a donor.

Many of us are willing to donate our organs, but because we haven’t taken the action to properly become a donor, our organs go unused. As a result, an average of eighteen people die every day because of lack of available organs.

STEP 2: NEEDThe need step isolates the issue to be addressed. If you can show the members of an audience that they have an important need that must be satisfied or a problem that must be solved, they will have a reason to listen to your propositions. Continuing with the organ donor speech, here the speaker establishes the need for donors:

According to statistics compiled by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, found on the OPTN Web site, there are nearly 73,000 people on the waiting list this day for an organ transplant. Over 50,000 are waiting for a kidney transplant alone, and the stakes are high: 90 percent of patients who receive a kidney from a living donor live at least 10 years after the transplant. One of the people on the waiting list is Aidan Malony, who graduated two years ago from this college. Without a transplant, he will die. It is agonizing for his family and friends to see him in this condition. And it is deeply frustrating to them that more people don’t sign and carry organ donor cards. I have always carried my organ donor card with me, but didn’t realize the extreme importance of doing so before talking to Aidan.

Every sixteen minutes another name joins that of Aidan Malony and is added to the National Transplant Waiting List.

STEP 3: SATISFACTIONThe satisfaction step identifies the solution. This step begins the crux of the speech, offering the audience a proposal to reinforce or change their attitudes, beliefs, and values regarding the need at hand. Here is an example from the speech on organ donation:

It takes only two steps to become an organ donor. First, fill out an organ donor card and carry it with you. You may also choose to have a note added to your driver’s license next time you renew it.

Second and most important, tell your family that you want to become an organ donor and ask them to honor your wishes when the time arrives. Otherwise, they may discourage the use of your organs should something happen to you. Check with your local hospital to find out about signing a family pledge—a contract where family members share their wishes about organ and tissue donation. This is an absolutely essential step in making sure the necessary individuals will honor your wish to become an organ donor.

STEP 4: VISUALIZATIONThe visualization step provides the audience with a vision of anticipated outcomes associated with the solution. The purpose of this step is to carry audience members beyond accepting the feasibility of your proposal to seeing how it will actually benefit them:

There are so many organs and such a variety of tissue that may be transplanted. One organ donor can help up to fifty people. Who can forget the story of 7-year-old American Nicholas Green, the innocent victim of a highway robbery in Italy that cost him his life? Stricken with grief, Nicholas’s parents, Reg and Maggie Green, nevertheless immediately decided to donate Nicholas’s organs. As a direct result of the donation, seven Italians thrive today, grateful recipients of Nicholas’s heart, corneas, liver, pancreas cells, and kidneys. Today, organ donations in Italy are twice as high as they were in 1993, the year preceding Nicholas’s death. The Italians call this phenomenon “The Nicholas Effect.”

STEP 5: ACTIONFinally, in the action step the speaker asks audience members to act according to their acceptance of the message. This may involve reconsidering their present way of thinking about something, continuing to believe as they do but with greater commitment, or implementing a new set of behaviors. Here, the speaker makes an explicit call to action:

It takes courage to become an organ donor.

You have the courage to become an organ donor.

All you need to do is say yes to organ and tissue donation on your donor card and/or driver’s license and discuss your decision with your family. You can obtain a donor card at www.organdonor.gov.

Be part of “The Nicholas Effect.”

Comparative Advantage Pattern

Another way to organize speech points is to show how your viewpoint or proposal is superior to one or more alternative viewpoints or proposals. This design, called the comparative advantage pattern of arrangement, is most effective when your audience is already aware of the issue or problem and agrees that a need for a solution (or an alternative view) exists. To maintain credibility, make sure to identify alternatives that your audience is familiar with and ones supported by opposing interests.

With the comparative advantage pattern, the main points in a speech addressing the best way to control the deer population might look like these:

THESIS: Rather than hunting, fencing, or contraception alone, the best way to reduce the deer population is by a dual strategy of hunting and contraception.
  1. A combination strategy is superior to hunting alone because many areas are too densely populated by humans to permit hunting; in such cases, contraceptive darts and vaccines can address the problem. (Advantage over alternative #1)
  2. A combination strategy is superior to relying solely on fencing because fencing is far too expensive for widespread use. (Advantage over alternative #2)
  3. A dual strategy is superior to relying solely on contraception because only a limited number of deer are candidates for contraceptive darts and vaccines. (Advantage over alternative #3)

Checklist: Steps in the Motivated Sequence

Checklist: Steps in the Motivated Sequence

Step 1: Attention Address listeners’ core concerns, making the speech highly relevant to them.

Step 2: Need Show listeners that they have an important need that must be satisfied or a problem that must be solved.

Step 3: Satisfaction Introduce your proposed solution.

Step 4: Visualization Provide listeners with a vision of anticipated outcomes associated with the solution.

Step 5: Action Make a direct request of listeners that involves changing or strengthening their present way of thinking or acting.

Print this Checklist


Refutation Pattern

When you feel confident that the opposing argument is vulnerable, consider the refutation pattern of arrangement, in which you confront and then refute (disprove) opposing claims to your position. Refutation works best when you can target the audience’s chief objections to the opposing argument. If done well, refutation may influence audience members who either disagree with you or are conflicted about where they stand.

Main points arranged in a refutation pattern follow a format similar to this:

MAIN POINT I: State the opposing position.
MAIN POINT II: Describe the implications or ramifications of the opposing claim, explaining why it is faulty.
MAIN POINT III: Offer arguments and evidence for your position.
MAIN POINT IV: Contrast your position with the opposing claim to drive home the superiority of your position.

Consider the speaker who argues for increased energy conservation versus a policy of drilling for oil in protected land in Alaska.

THESIS: Rather than drilling for oil in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, we should focus on energy conservation measures as a way of lessening our dependence on foreign oil.
  1. Proponents claim that drilling in the Arctic Refuge is necessary to decrease dependence on foreign oil sources and hold down fuel costs while adding jobs, and that modern drilling techniques along with certain environmental restrictions will result in little negative impact on the environment. (Describes opposing claims)
  2. By calling for drilling, these proponents sidestep our need for stricter energy conservation policies, overlook the need to protect one of the last great pristine lands, and ignore the fact that the oil would make a negligible dent in oil imports—from 68 percent to 65 percent by 2025. (Describes implications and ramifications of opposing claims)
  3. The massive construction needed to access the tundra will disturb the habitat of caribou, polar bear, and thousands of species of birds and shift the focus from energy conservation to increased energy consumption, when the focus should be the reverse. (Offers arguments and evidence for the speaker’s position, as developed in subpoints)
  4. The proponents’ plan would encourage consumption and endanger the environment; my plan would encourage energy conservation and protect one of the world’s few remaining wildernesses. (Contrasts the speaker’s position with opposition’s, to drive home the former’s superiority)