5 Steps Of Persuasive Speech

17.3 Organizing Persuasive Speeches

Learning Objectives

Understand three common organizational patterns for persuasive speeches.
Explain the steps utilized in Monroe's motivated sequence.
Explicate the parts of a problem-cause-solution speech.
Explicate the process utilized in a comparative advantage persuasive voice communication.

A classroom of attentive listeners

Steven Lilley – Engaged – CC Past-SA 2.0.

Previously in this text we discussed general guidelines for organizing speeches. In this section, we are going to look at three organizational patterns ideally suited for persuasive speeches: Monroe's motivated sequence, problem-cause-solution, and comparative advantages.

Monroe's Motivated Sequence

Ane of the most normally cited and discussed organizational patterns for persuasive speeches is Alan H. Monroe's motivated sequence. The purpose of Monroe's motivated sequence is to help speakers "sequence supporting materials and motivational appeals to class a useful organizational pattern for speeches as a whole" (German et al., 2010).

While Monroe'southward motivated sequence is commonly discussed in most public speaking textbooks, nosotros practice want to provide one small-scale caution. Thus far, well-nigh no inquiry has been conducted that has demonstrated that Monroe'southward motivated sequence is whatsoever more persuasive than other structural patterns. In the only study conducted experimentally examining Monroe'southward motivated sequence, the researchers did not detect the method more persuasive, simply did notation that audience members establish the pattern more organized than other methods (Micciche, Pryor, & Butler, 2000). We wanted to add together this sidenote considering nosotros don't want yous to think that Monroe's motivated sequence is a kind of magic persuasive bullet; the research only doesn't support this notion. At the same time, enquiry does support that organized messages are perceived equally more persuasive every bit a whole, so using Monroe'southward motivated sequence to recall through ane's persuasive argument could still be very beneficial.

Table 17.one "Monroe's Motivated Sequence" lists the basic steps of Monroe'due south motivated sequence and the subsequent reaction a speaker desires from his or her audience.

Table 17.1 Monroe's Motivated Sequence

Steps	Audience Response
Attention—Getting Attending	I desire to listen to the speaker.
Demand—Showing the Need, Describing the Problem	Something needs to be washed near the problem.
Satisfaction—Satisfying the Need, Presenting the Solution	In order to satisfy the need or set up the problem this is what I need to do.
Visualization—Visualizing the Results	I can see myself enjoying the benefits of taking action.
Action—Requesting Audience Activeness or Approval	I volition human action in a specific style or approve a decision or behavior.

Attention

The first step in Monroe's motivated sequence is the attending step, in which a speaker attempts to get the audience's attention. To gain an audience'south attention, we recommend that yous think through iii specific parts of the attention step. Kickoff, you lot need to have a strong attention-getting device. As previously discussed in Affiliate 9 "Introductions Thing: How to Brainstorm a Speech Effectively", a strong attention getter at the starting time of your spoken language is very important. Second, you need to make sure you introduce your topic clearly. If your audience doesn't know what your topic is rapidly, they are more likely to finish listening. Lastly, you need to explicate to your audition why they should intendance about your topic.

Needs

In the need footstep of Monroe'south motivated sequence, the speaker establishes that there is a specific demand or problem. In Monroe's conceptualization of need, he talks about four specific parts of the need: statement, illustration, ramification, and pointing. Start, a speaker needs to give a articulate and curtailed statement of the trouble. This function of a speech should exist crystal clear for an audience. Second, the speaker needs to provide one or more examples to illustrate the demand. The illustration is an attempt to make the problem concrete for the audience. Next, a speaker needs to provide some kind of bear witness (east.g., statistics, examples, testimony) that shows the ramifications or consequences of the problem. Lastly, a speaker needs to point to the audition and evidence exactly how the problem relates to them personally.

Satisfaction

In the third footstep of Monroe'due south motivated sequence, the satisfaction step, the speaker sets out to satisfy the need or solve the trouble. Within this step, Monroe (1935) proposed a five-footstep plan for satisfying a need:

Statement
Explanation
Theoretical demonstration
Reference to practical feel
Meeting objections

Starting time, yous need to clearly state the attitude, value, belief, or action you desire your audience to accept. The purpose of this statement is to clearly tell your audience what your ultimate goal is.

Second, you lot want to make sure that you clearly explain to your audience why they should accept the attitude, value, conventionalities, or activity you proposed. Just telling your audience they should practice something isn't stiff enough to actually become them to alter. Instead, you really need to provide a solid argument for why they should accept your proposed solution.

Third, you need to testify how the solution you have proposed meets the demand or problem. Monroe calls this link between your solution and the demand a theoretical demonstration because you lot cannot show that your solution volition piece of work. Instead, you theorize based on research and good judgment that your solution will meet the need or solve the problem.

Fourth, to help with this theoretical demonstration, you need to reference practical experience, which should include examples demonstrating that your proposal has worked elsewhere. Research, statistics, and skillful testimony are all great means of referencing applied experience.

Lastly, Monroe recommends that a speaker answer to possible objections. As a persuasive speaker, 1 of your jobs is to think through your speech communication and see what counterarguments could be made against your speech and and then rebut those arguments within your spoken language. When you offer rebuttals for arguments against your speech, it shows your audience that y'all've done your homework and educated yourself well-nigh multiple sides of the effect.

Visualization

The adjacent step of Monroe's motivated sequence is the visualization step, in which you ask the audience to visualize a hereafter where the demand has been met or the problem solved. In essence, the visualization stage is where a speaker can show the audience why accepting a specific attitude, value, belief, or behavior can positively bear on the future. When helping people to flick the time to come, the more concrete your visualization is, the easier information technology volition be for your audition to see the possible time to come and be persuaded by information technology. You also need to make sure that you clearly bear witness how accepting your solution will directly benefit your audience.

According to Monroe, visualization tin be conducted in one of three ways: positive, negative, or contrast (Monroe, 1935). The positive method of visualization is where a speaker shows how adopting a proposal leads to a ameliorate future (eastward.g., recycle, and we'll have a cleaner and safer planet). Conversely, the negative method of visualization is where a speaker shows how not adopting the proposal volition lead to a worse future (east.g., don't recycle, and our world will become polluted and uninhabitable). Monroe also acknowledged that visualization can include a combination of both positive and negative visualization. In essence, y'all prove your audition both possible outcomes and take them decide which ane they would rather have.

Action

The final step in Monroe's motivated sequence is the action footstep, in which a speaker asks an audience to approve the speaker's proposal. For understanding purposes, we pause action into two singled-out parts: audience activity and approval. Audience action refers to direct physical behaviors a speaker wants from an audition (e.g., flossing their teeth twice a day, signing a petition, wearing seat belts). Approval, on the other hand, involves an audition'southward consent or understanding with a speaker's proposed attitude, value, or belief.

When preparing an action stride, it is important to brand certain that the activeness, whether audience activeness or approval, is realistic for your audience. Asking your peers in a college classroom to donate 1 m dollars to charity isn't realistic. Asking your peers to donate one dollar is considerably more realistic. In a persuasive speech communication based on Monroe's motivated sequence, the action step will end with the oral communication's concluding device. Every bit discussed elsewhere in this text, you need to make sure that y'all conclude in a vivid way so that the speech ends on a high point and the audience has a sense of energy as well as a sense of closure.

Now that we've walked through Monroe's motivated sequence, let's look at how yous could employ Monroe's motivated sequence to outline a persuasive speech:

Specific Purpose: To persuade my classroom peers that the United states should take stronger laws governing the apply of for-profit medical experiments.

Main Points:

Attention: Desire to make nine thousand dollars for but 3 weeks of work lying around and not doing much? Then be a human guinea hog. Admittedly, y'all'll have to have a tube down your throat most of those 3 weeks, but yous'll earn three grand dollars a calendar week.
Need: Every day many uneducated and lower socioeconomic-status citizens are preyed on by medical and pharmaceutical companies for apply in for-turn a profit medical and drug experiments. Practice you want one of your family members to fall prey to this evil scheme?
Satisfaction: The United States should have stronger laws governing the use of for-profit medical experiments to ensure that uneducated and lower-socioeconomic-status citizens are protected.
Visualization: If we enact tougher experiment oversight, nosotros can ensure that medical and pharmaceutical inquiry is conducted in a way that adheres to basic values of American decency. If we exercise non enact tougher experiment oversight, we could find ourselves in a world where the lines between research subject, guinea hog, and patient become increasingly blurred.
Action: In gild to prevent the atrocities associated with for-profit medical and pharmaceutical experiments, please sign this petition asking the US Department of Health and Man Services to pass stricter regulations on this preying industry that is out of control.

This case shows how you lot tin can take a basic speech topic and employ Monroe's motivated sequence to clearly and easily outline your speech efficiently and finer.

Table 17.2 "Monroe's Motivated Sequence Checklist" also contains a simple checklist to help you lot brand sure you hit all the important components of Monroe's motivated sequence.

Table 17.2 Monroe's Motivated Sequence Checklist

Step in the Sequence	Yeah	No
Attention Step
Gained audition's attention	□	□
Introduced the topic clearly	□	□
Showed the importance of the topic to the audition	□	□
Need Step
Need is summarized in a clear argument	□	□
Demand is adequately illustrated	□	□
Need has clear ramifications	□	□
Need clearly points the audience	□	□
Satisfaction Step
Programme is clearly stated	□	□
Plan is evidently explained	□	□
Plan and solution are theoretically demonstrated	□	□
Plan has articulate reference to practical experience	□	□
Plan tin can run across possible objections	□	□
Visualization Stride
Practicality of plan shown	□	□
Benefits of plan are tangible	□	□
Benefits of plan chronicle to the audition	□	□
Specific type of visualization chosen (positive method, negative method, method of contrast)	□	□
Action Pace
Call of specific action by the audience	□	□
Action is realistic for the audience	□	□
Final device is vivid	□	□

Problem-Cause-Solution

Another format for organizing a persuasive speech is the problem-cause-solution format. In this specific format, yous discuss what a problem is, what yous believe is causing the problem, and then what the solution should be to correct the problem.

Specific Purpose: To persuade my classroom peers that our campus should adopt a zero-tolerance policy for detest spoken language.

Main Points:

Demonstrate that there is distrust among dissimilar groups on campus that has led to unnecessary confrontations and violence.
Testify that the confrontations and violence are a result of hate speech communication that occurred prior to the events.
Explain how instituting a campus-wide zero-tolerance policy confronting hate speech could stop the unnecessary confrontations and violence.

In this speech, you want to persuade people to support a new campus-wide policy calling for cypher-tolerance of hate speech. One time yous have shown the trouble, you then explain to your audience that the cause of the unnecessary confrontations and violence is prior incidents of hate speech. Lastly, you argue that a campus-wide naught-tolerance policy could help prevent future unnecessary confrontations and violence. Again, this method of organizing a oral communication is as simple equally its name: trouble-cause-solution.

Comparative Advantages

The final method for organizing a persuasive speech is called the comparative advantages speech format. The goal of this spoken communication is to compare items side-by-side and show why one of them is more advantageous than the other. For case, permit's say that you're giving a oral communication on which e-book reader is amend: Amazon.com's Kindle or Barnes and Nobles' Nook. Here'southward how yous could organize this speech:

Specific Purpose: To persuade my audience that the Nook is more advantageous than the Kindle.

Main Points:

The Nook allows owners to trade and loan books to other owners or people who accept downloaded the Nook software, while the Kindle does non.
The Nook has a color-bear on screen, while the Kindle'south screen is black and greyness and noninteractive.
The Nook'due south memory tin be expanded through microSD, while the Kindle'southward retentivity cannot be upgraded.

Every bit you tin can run into from this spoken communication'south organisation, the simple goal of this spoken language is to show why one thing has more positives than something else. Obviously, when you are demonstrating comparative advantages, the items y'all are comparing need to be functional equivalents—or, as the saying goes, you cannot compare apples to oranges.

Key Takeaways

There are three common patterns that persuaders can use to assistance organize their speeches effectively: Monroe's motivated sequence, problem-crusade-solution, and comparative advantage. Each of these patterns can effectively aid a speaker think through his or her thoughts and organize them in a way that will be more likely to persuade an audience.
Alan H. Monroe'south (1935) motivated sequence is a normally used speech format that is used by many people to effectively organize persuasive messages. The pattern consists of five bones stages: attending, need, satisfaction, visualization, and action. In the first stage, a speaker gets an audition's attention. In the second stage, the speaker shows an audition that a need exists. In the third stage, the speaker shows how his or her persuasive proposal could satisfy the need. The quaternary phase shows how the futurity could be if the persuasive proposal is or is not adopted. Lastly, the speaker urges the audience to accept some kind of action to aid enact the speaker'south persuasive proposal.
The problem-crusade-solution proposal is a three-pronged spoken communication pattern. The speaker starts by explaining the problem the speaker sees. The speaker then explains what he or she sees equally the underlying causes of the trouble. Lastly, the speaker proposes a solution to the problem that corrects the underlying causes.
The comparative advantages spoken language format is utilized when a speaker is comparing two or more things or ideas and shows why one of the things or ideas has more advantages than the other(s).

Exercises

Create a speech using Monroe's motivated sequence to persuade people to recycle.
Create a speech using the problem-crusade-solution method for a problem you run across on your college or university campus.
Create a comparative advantages speech comparing two brands of toothpaste.

References

German, K. Yard., Gronbeck, B. E., Ehninger, D., & Monroe, A. H. (2010). Principles of public speaking (17th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon, p. 236.

Micciche, T., Pryor, B., & Butler, J. (2000). A test of Monroe'due south motivated sequence for its effects on ratings of message system and attitude modify. Psychological Reports, 86, 1135–1138.

Monroe, A. H. (1935). Principles and types of speech. Chicago, IL: Scott Foresman.