I have heard quite a few public speeches throughout my lifetime, but one that truely sticks out to me to this day was a speech given by one of my classmates last semester. Not only did she evoke strong emotion with her audience, she was having an honest conversation with them without anyone but her needing to say a word. My classmate was speaking about physical abuse from an ex-boyfriend, and her sense of urgency and passion about how painful domestic violence can be was projected by her building a community among her audience. At the end of her speech we were all ready to take action against domestic violence, and I went forward and actually did so. She also established her credibility well by not only appearing very professional, but by her research and facts about the topic. After stating a fact, she made sure that her audience knew where she got that information, and those sources were pretty prestigious and usually academic journals. The element that made her speech most memorable was her ability to persuade us as an audience to become active participants in domestic violence resistance. Her personal stories and data made her speech one that will stick out in my mind for a very long time.
The worst speaker I ever heard was actually an anti-abortion speech given in a small community church when I was in Junior High. This speech was terrible because it was one sided, not supported by any kind of evidence such as statistics or facts, the information seemed to only be based on an ideology and not reality. I just remember the message not being supported with data, which made me feel like the speech had no credibility or persuading elements.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I guess it makes sense that the speaker rely on motivational augments in a church settings. Most arguments made in church are purely emotional and contain very few "facts" or even logic. I too find these types of arguments ineffective when the audience doesn't share the speakers point of view. It seems that this method has a very weak effect on persuading anyone of differing beliefs but may be highly effective at motivating people who already share the speakers point-of-view. Maybe this is one of the reasons why this topic remains so polarized, as both sides of the argument seem to be so emotional, because the "facts" are difficult to define.
ReplyDelete