Persuasive Oral Presentation

1. Persuasive Oral Presentation A step by step guide

2. Step 1: Choose an issue YOUR ISSUE CAN ONLY DATE BACK AS FAR AS SEPTEMBER 2011 • popular issues include: • India refusing to use the technology in cricket • Asylum Seekers • Bullying: bully's being allowed to go on school camps. • $1 limit on poker machines • Gay Marriage • Bali Boy. • BE CAREFUL: Some issues have multiple sub-issues. You need to choose just one. e.g. Whaling: • Should it be banned full stop all around the world? • Should the Australian government totally disallow whaling in their territory, research purposes or not. • Do Greenpeace go too far to stop Japanese whalers in the southern ocean? • Should the Japanese vessel be legally pursued for ramming a Greenpeace vessel?

3. Step 2: Gathering information • Research information • Variety of sources: • Herald Sun • The Age • The Guardian • Credible websites • Online journals • Credible magazines • Legal documents • Both persuasive and informative articles

4. Step 3: • Establish the facts: Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? NOTE: When you introduce your presentation, the first thing you will need to establish is what the actual issue is and who it involves.

5. Step 4: Breaking down your resources • Choose two different coloured pens/highlighters – one colour for each side of the argument. i.e. Green = for Red = against • Read all of your information and highlight/underline arguments that support both sides, colour coding as you go.

6. Step 5: Collate your information • Draw up a for and against table and put the arguments/evidence you’ve found into the appropriate side of the table. IMPORTANT: Make sure that you source your information.

7. Step 6: Decide on your contention (opinion) • Which side of your for and against table is the strongest? • Write your contention out and make sure that it is specific. If you’re contention is too general then it will be too difficult to prove.

8. Step 7: Choosing your arguments • Go back to your for and against table and choose the 3-5 strongest arguments from the appropriate side. • And one argument from the other side that you can rebut. NOTE: Make sure that you choose arguments, not evidence. An argument is a general idea that you can prove. Evidence is a specific example. For example: Argument: Strict laws are required to keep p-plate drivers safe. Evidence: “P-platers are three times as likely as more experienced drivers to be involved in a car accident.” (The Age, 8/2/08, ‘New P-plate laws will mean safer driving’)

9. Step 8: Finding evidence Find/brainstorm evidence to support each of your arguments: • Hard evidence (statistics, expert opinions, credible sources) • Anecdotal evidence (relevant personal story) • Visual images (photos, graphs, posters or videos)

10. Step 9: Drafting Write a draft of your speech • Consciously include persuasive language devices such as: • Inclusive/exclusive language • Generalisations • Rhetorical questions • Attacks • Positive and negative connotations • Emotive language • Emotional appeal • Draw on the reader’s sense of tradition or patriotism • Appeal to the reader’s hip pocket • Think very carefully about how you want your audience to think, feel or act and cater your language to suit that purpose. i.e. If you were doing the Australian flag issue, you’d make appeals to patriotism or if you were doing ‘smacking’ then you might use lots of emotive language and emotional appeal. • Now is the time to decide if you’re going to take on a persona or not.

11. VOICE (Tone) • When writing a draft of a written speech it’s important that you write as though you are speaking. • Establish a clear tone in your writing. Do you want to sound angry, sympathetic, aggressive, nonchalant, surprised, concerned ... • Your word choice and sentence structure is very important and will dictate how the audience feels.

12. Drafting your introduction: Structuring your introduction: 1. Clearly establish what the issue is. 2. Clearly state your contention. 3. Briefly introduce your main arguments. Your opening sentence or action should be engaging. Will your start with a famous quote, a brief activity, a visual, a loaded statement?

13. Drafting your arguments Structuring your arguments: 1. Signpost that you’re moving on to a new point First argument: i.e. “Firstly,” “First of all,” “To begin with,” “To start with,” “At the outset,” Middle argument/s: “Secondly,” “Thirdly,” “Furthermore,” “In addition,” “Also,” Last argument: “Finally,” “Lastly,” “As a final point,” 2. Clearly stateyour first argument. 3. Provide evidence to prove your argument and explain it’s relevance. 4. Link your argument back to your contention

14. Drafting your conclusion Structuring your conclusion: 1. Signpost that your speech is coming to an end. i.e. “In conclusion,” “To conclude,” 2. Reiterate your contention. 3. Brieflyremind your audience of your main ideas. 4. Finish with a strong closing statement Your final sentence needs to be memorable, relevant and hard hitting. IMPORTANT: Don’t introduce any new evidence or ideas in your conclusion.

15. Step 10: Editing and improving • Edit your speech • Use a dictionary and thesaurus to improve your vocabulary. • Get a friend or family member to read over it. • Make sure that your speech would make sense to a stranger. Just because you know what you mean doesn’t mean your audience will! • Complete a language analysis of your speech. Have you included sufficient and effective persuasive language.

16. bibliography • You must include in your speech where all your sources come from. Some choose to either hand out or display on a slide a bibliography… However A more sophisticated way of putting in a bibliography is to include it into your speech. Eg. Margaret Court on the 25th of January makes a very appealing argument via the Age newspaper about Gay Marriage being never allowed. By using a large picture……. Or As cited by Julia Gillard in the Herald Sun on the 20 January 2012 “there should be…”