 In this video, we're going to address one of the most challenging types of public speaking and that is speaking to persuade Persuasive speaking is a real challenge. People don't like to change their ideas and their minds and they don't like to be told I'm not they're wrong. They don't like to be told what to do and so forth. So Persuasive speaking can become a real challenge in that regard. So First of all, let's talk about what it is we mean when we talk about persuasive speaking So let's start at the beginning speaking to persuade is simply working to influence the attitudes beliefs Values or actions of others. So when we speak to persuade our goal is to do one of those things to influence these things to influence The audience and there and the way that they think the way that they believe the the behaviors that they display. So We're working to influence the audience There are a couple different persuasive strategies And to keep in mind as we as we work toward persuasive speaking and being an effective persuasive speaker first of all We can select an important topic. I mean we talked before in topic selection about Topics, you know topics you love and topics the audience you care about and that's where those topics come from But it should be something of importance to the audience something that matters If we're going to speak to persuade we shouldn't be wasting the audience time with something small or something obvious Like, you know murder is bad. Yeah, okay. We get that and you know children should not be abused Yep, you're probably not going to have to work too hard at that So we're going to need an audience that the top that the audience cares about something that has At least a degree of importance for them We want to prove the relevance the audience we have to convince them of why this is important, right? And as this kind of illustration points out, you know, what we want to say and what they're interested in Somewhere in there. It's got to be some relevance and if the audience doesn't understand that at first Then it's our job as a speaker to help them understand that relevance and to prove that relevance to convey that relevance And to pull them in right some topics the audience may automatically be interested in or you know May have a stronger level of interest at the get-go. If not, we need to demonstrate that relevance for them and show them Why this is an important topic We need to keep Aristotle's persuasive appeals in mind You know our pal Aristotle thousands of years ago pointed out that persuasive speaking effective persuasive speaking really comes down to these Three things ethos pathos and logos. So let's take a look at these for just a moment So we can understand them and incorporate them in our persuasive speaking First of all ethos is persuasion based on credibility. So the credibility of the speaker essentially you're asking the audience to trust you So we convey ethos and we we Include ethos in our persuasive speaking through things like being knowledgeable We want to be knowledgeable We want to demonstrate to the audience that we know what we're talking about In fact, we want to convey a level of expertise right that we are an expert in this area if possible At the very least we want to demonstrate that we've done research and become knowledgeable If at all possible and if it's accurate we want to let the audience know that we are an expert in this area We also want to be honest the audience needs to be able to trust us trust our honesty So being honest with them is an important part of developing credibility as a speaker and trustworthiness again when we talk about credibility we really get into the area of Competence and character. Those are the two things that build Credibility so competence coming in your knowledge and your expertise in this area Credibility our character coming through and showing through in your honesty and your ability to be trustworthy And then finally ethos comes from Identifying with an audience right helping the audience understand that you are kind of one of them Through that then we want to build goodwill with the audience Not only do we want to demonstrate kind of that we are one of them But but we want to show them that we have their best interests in mind And and and at heart here that's why we're trying to persuade them of these things So we want to build goodwill with the audience through those things And then finally we want to use charismatic and confident delivery Audiences are going to be more persuaded and they're going to find you more credible if they believe that you are That you are confident that in what you're talking about That you actually believe this and that you can convey that with some sense of charisma as well So ethos is an important part of any speech But certainly in persuasive speaking it becomes even more critical that we get the audience to have faith in us That we demonstrate that competence and that character And that we identify and build goodwill with them so that they will I can place that trust in us through ethos The second aspect of Aristotle's persuasive strategies is called pathos and pathos is based on emotion So here we're talking at the heartstrings of the audience, right? We're trying trying to work at them through their emotions So when we look at pathos, we need to Do things like use examples and stories about people We need to again connect this topic to the audience through Through personalization, right? We want to they don't want just statistics and things like that That's all that's the area of logos and we'll talk about that But in addition they want to know how this affects people What impact this has on them as a person on their families on their loved ones on their communities So we use examples and stories about people that demonstrate what we're talking about We can use photos we can bring up photos of different things again Personalize things give them that real world sense and pull their emotion into this by using photos of things And showing real life examples We can use emotive language a whole other discussion on language here, right? So but we can use emotive language language that conveys emotion and also that pulls an emotion out of that audience or Brings up an emotion within that audience so we can use our language carefully We can make careful choices regarding language and use emotive language To enhance the pathos of our speech And then we can use logos which is based on logic. So if pathos is tugging at our heartstrings Logos is working toward our mind, right? It's working on the audience's mind And and trying to get them to think using logic and reason So when we think about logos, um, first of all, we think about a variety of things like facts using facts Using statistics using sound reasoning all those things are incorporated into logos to Demonstrate to the audience the importance of this topic the validity Of the topic and of our argument and all those types of things, right? So again, pathos is going to be Showing them the real world implications through examples and photos and and emotive language Whereas logos is going to appeal to their minds and say look, we are logical people and here's some support Here's some statistics that back up what I'm saying. Here's some facts that we know to be true And this is how they all connect through sound reasoning. So when we think about basic logic Really, it starts with a claim the person makes a claim, which is just essentially, what do you know? What do I know as a speaker? I'm making a claim. So what is it that I know? Then I need to support that with evidence demonstrating how I know it or how we as a as a society or Or um, you know as a group know these things to be true And then finally we add in reasoning. So how does this evidence prove this claim? What's the connection there, right? I made this claim. I showed you some evidence But what's the connection? Does that evidence really connect to that claim and prove that claim? Or is it just totally, you know disconnected and and not connected at all? And that's a fallacy of logic. We don't want that So claim plus evidence plus reasoning Gives us logic and that's where that's where it comes in So we can use logic to enhance the logos, right? The logical appeal of our persuasive strategies So when we think about these things together, we think about ethos the credibility that the speaker brings We add in the pathos using emotion and when And we include some logos as well and that gives us persuasion It gives us our persuasive strategies now the amount of each of these things you need Is going to vary depending on your speech depending on your audience depending on a variety of things Ethos will always be there. You need to be credible as a speaker. You need to be believable Pathos and logos really depends We we know from research that that audience that are opposed audiences that are opposed largely opposed to what it is you are Are proposing Then they're going to be more convinced by logos than by pathos All right But audiences that are largely already in favor and you're just trying to stoke those fires and get them even more Fired up about something they're going to respond more to pathos Now you need to have both regardless of what you're talking about But again, if you know your your audience is going to be in opposition Then you can enhance the logos and maybe lay off the ethos pathos a little bit And vice versa if you know the audience is already kind of on your side You can really lean into that pathos and not have to bring in quite so much logo So it's really going to depend but there's some balance of each of these things That needs to be present in a persuasive speech Okay, some additional persuasive strategies things to keep in mind when we are persuading First of all, we want to patch holes For the audience by addressing counter arguments while we're speaking If we're talking about something and we know that the audience is going to have objections to something To some idea to some evidence whatever it is We want to go ahead and address that address their counter arguments patch those holes while we're speaking We need to understand the persuasion is incremental Persuasion doesn't happen all once if if people, you know are somewhere on the spectrum, right? Or whatever it is you're talking about you're going to have people that are strongly for it You're going to have people that are strongly opposed to you know people in the middle Who either don't know or don't care about it as much or don't have a really strong opinion You're rarely ever going to take the people that are strongly opposed to your topic And flip them in the course of one speech over to to being in favor of it, right? That's not really realistic and that's not really what we're shooting for our goal is to move them one or two notches closer To the middle or closer to to being in favor of something, right? That should be considered a success in persuasion persuasion happens Incrementally in little bits over time. So keep that in mind It's not a failure as a persuasive speaker if you don't totally convert everybody in the audience We're working to to get them to think about these things and to move to these things incrementally We want to target needs want to consider maslow's hierarchy of needs and and think about okay How am I appealing to this audience and one of the most effective appeals that are going to work with this audience? Where are they at? What does this topic address in terms of maslow's hierarchy of needs is this an issue of of physiological Need or is it a safety need or which of these does it address and how should I incorporate that? We need to target needs within the audience We need to appeal to shared values. We want to we want to Let the audience know that we are one of them. We're talking about identification, right? And so we need to let the audience know that we have those same values and that that's why we're doing this that we Share their values and so this will enhance those things So these are some things we can keep in mind when we're seeking to persuade If you have questions about persuasive speaking or anything else related to public speaking Please feel free to give me an email shoot me an email and be happy to chat with you in that way About these things in the meantime I hope you'll really give strong consideration of these things as you prepare your next persuasive speech persuasive speeches are Incredibly challenging to put together But with the right type of preparation and with a mind toward these things that we've discussed You can really be an effective persuasive speaker