Speech Topics » Persuasive Speech Topics

How to Find the Best Speech Topics (All Ages)

editor — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 21:33:04 +0000

Watch, Read, and Listen to the Local News in Your Area to Find the Best Speech Topics

• Your local news media, including television, newspaper, and talk radio offer an abundance of speech topics that are sure not to bore an audience.The fact is, television stations, newspaper publishers, and radio stations must create enough daily appeal to keep their ratings – yet avoid stepping on advertising sponsors’ toes.

• Therefore, only the ‘cream of the crop’ in the news makes it and much of choosing what is aired and printed has to do with how much the topic will resonate with the public.

• Different news publishers have different demographics that describe their readership’s and listener’s ‘common threads’ such as: location, age, and education level are among the top descriptive categories of an audience.By having demographics fully understood, this also helps publishers and station managers weed out content that could be considered inappropriate for its audience.

Great Speeches and Speech Topics are Targeted to the Audience

• Think about this: television anchors can do an entire ‘speech’ within a minute or two. Television news is a batch of “little speeches” that answer ‘who, what, why, how, and when’.

• When formulating your speech, you need to address these questions as well in order to avoid leaving your audience confused and with more questions.

• Look closely to how the news is delivered; are who, what, how, why, and when addressed? Of course it is because professional journalists know instinctively how to answer those questions—they same questions their audience would have.

• This is why most journalists begin their news coverage with a statement such as, “On October 5, 2009, a young boy of the St. Martin area accidentally fired his father’s rifle, killing a prize horse,” for example.

The Best Speech Topics are Often Found in Questions

Using the above example of a boy accidentally shooting a prized horse, what questions come to mind? Brainstorm on paper as if you were doing an interview with the family. How did the boy get a hold of the rifle? Has the boy had mental problems or disobedience issues? Why wasn’t the rifle more securely stored?

1. Ask these questions and you will wind up with several potential speech topics such as:

2. Should parents be fined for unsecured weapons? Should minor children be banned from using weapons at family gatherings (e.g. target practice)?…and so forth.

3. Paying close attention to the local news (as well as international news) can lead to great speech topics from questions that still remain.

Many speech topics can exist right in the schoolyard.

• For example, dress codes make for great speech topics; what dress codes do you feel are unfair? Are students prohibited from wearing body art such as tattoos and piercings? Who made up the rules? Do school dress codes violate civil rights?

• Other speech topics that can found at school can be written around:

1. Cafeteria and snack foods: healthy or not? Is it cheaper and healthier to bring your lunch and snacks from home?

2. Is the playground safe?

3. Should your school be “locked down” during school hours?

• If you are asked to give a speech at work, usually these speeches are focused on motivation, leadership, and success but speech topics can also be focused on employer/employee issues.

• Persuasive speeches can serve as a catalyst for change and are gaining momentum as the ‘peaceful way’ to speak out on issues that frustrate workers and employers. However, the most effective speech topics cast a positive light on potential solutions after identifying the problem.

• Such speech topics often then lead to ‘water cooler’ chats about positive solutions instead of being focused simply on the existing problem.

• Motivational speeches can be effectively written around an impacting quote and then geared toward the issue. “Rome wasn’t built in a day” can lead to “Positive steps for ABC Company to Consider with Cost Reduction.”

• Speeches that are written entirely based from one’s own perspective are usually not well-accepted.

• You want your speech to speak to your audience and show facts and figures that substantiate your position on the topic. You also want to be sure to show the other side of an argument or issue and explain why those explanations are not the best solutions.

Choosing the Right Persuasive Speech Topics

admin — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 15:32:46 +0000

If you are looking to take a speech class in college or high school try not to shy away from taking the class. Finding the right persuasive speech topic is not as hard as you may think.

When you are choosing a topic for you speech, you need to take into consideration how you are actually going to change your listeners’ views, and convince them to agree with what you are actually trying to say.

Once you have your initial persuasive topic, you need to then work on narrowing down your ideas, and pick out your points on what you can say to convince your listeners to agree with what you are saying.

The main thing that you need to always remember is who your listeners are, and then you can start narrowing down your topic. You may be working with a rather controversial topic, and you need to take this step by step and tackle it at a very practical level. Remember that the more controversial topic you are working with, the harder it might be to actually convince your listeners.

Once you have an understanding of who your listeners are, you want to then do your research and take very thorough notes on how you are going to start convincing them. Write everything down, making notes beside the most important topics. Make sure that you can answer any questions they may already have, give them hard evidence, and facts, and even use pictures to show them why you are trying to persuade them.

Keep in mind that you too are considered a listener, and answer any questions that your audience might have. If you can, then present your audience with a strong cause and effect argument, as well as showing your listeners how you are going to solve a particular problem within you persuasive speech topic.

Make sure that you have a very strong goal set within your topic, show them a fact claim that allows them to see where you are going to guide them. Then set your value claim and your policy claim, so that your points are valid and logical. This will help you convince your audience, and will give you the appearance of an expert.

You should also make sure that you do your research thoroughly so you know where you need to start and where you need to go to persuade your audience with your persuasive speech topic.

A good persuasive speech also addresses the other side of your argument. Be sure to anticipate opposing views and address them.

How to Develop Persuasive Speech Topics

admin — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 16:12:36 +0000

Finding a persuasive speech topic itself is not difficult. But to get your listeners really change their views or to convince them to act or to agree with your opinion and solutions is another story.

Here’s how to develop and narrow down a persuasive speech idea.

Steps

1. Determine who your listeners are because the more controversial persuasive speech topics you choose, the harder it will be to convince them. Figure out the social-economic status of your audience. How old are they? Males, females, ethnicity? What is their political, educational, religious status? What are their needs and interests?

2. Note down why the topic of your choice interests you and what your clear opinion is.

3. Answer these questions: What is attitude of your public towards your persuasive speech topic? Why do they have to agree or act? Can you make the topic more relevant to them?

4. Provide evidence, hard facts, statistics, new figures, illustrations, quotations, definitions. Ask yourself, why do I think something is true or false?

5. Appeal to the morality and values of your listeners. Why do you like or dislike something? Why do your listeners have to agree that something is right or wrong, moral or immoral, valuable or worthless? Why do you want to convince them?

6. Offer examples the public will recognize, try to find common ground on related subjects and expert testimonies, and compare your idea with oppositional ideas.

7. If you suggest a change of policy then persuade that there is a problem and get the audience to agree with your solution.

8. Appeal to human needs, to reason and to emotion. Summarize the present situation, the causes and the negative effects everybody will recognize. Then present your solution to solve the problem.

9. Set the goal of your persuasive speech topic. Formulate it in a single phrase.

Examples: Fact claim: I want to persuade that the aging population has negative effects on the economy. Value claim: I want to persuade that metal detectors in schools violate the rights of students. Policy claim: I want to persuade the public that arranged marriages should be outlawed.

10. Turn your goal into an effective persuasive speech topic statement that is clearly identifying your message.

The Aging Population Hurts The Economy, Metal Detectors In Schools Violate Students’ Rights and Arranged Marriages Should Be Outlawed are examples of a catchy persuasive speech topic statements.

Tips:

Definition of a persuasive speech topic: It has to state or claim facts, values or policies in order to get your listeners change their views or to convince them to act or to agree with your opinion and solutions. Tip: persuade and not just inform.