Giving a Persuasive Speech - how to convince your audience

A persuasive speech has to persuade your listeners to take action, you want them to think, act and believe in what you want them to.

You might want them to buy a certain product, take a certain action or believe a certain thought.

You should start with a proposition and then use some examples to back it up.

Present some facts and figures but make sure that they're accurate and that they support your point of view.

If there have been similar problems you can tell your audience how they were solved. Perhaps your proposition is that a new road through your village should not be built, if you can find other villages that have dealt with the same problem without having a road built, use it in your speech.

Try to make it personal to your listeners, if it's going to effect their family, home or job they will start to take notice.

You might also want to appeal to their sense of adventure - perhaps you're trying to pesuade the audience to relocate to another area of the country - sell it as an adventure.

Everyone likes to feel that they are respected and highly thought of - imagine you're trying to persuade a room of sports coaches to do a particular training course. You'll need to convince them that they'll be the best and will be much busier if they attend the course.

If you can find a celebrity who supports your proposition, it helps. An easy example is trying to persuade a teenage audience to buy a particular brand of clothes. If Jessica Simpson wears them, your're half way there!

Once you've got a title for your speech. The next thing to do is to research and write it and then practise it out loud.

Ideas for speeches

For a list of persuasive speech topics click here.

For a list of informative speech topics click here.

For a list of debating topics click here

An example of someone giving an ongoing persuasive speech is a real estate agent.