outline help

Persuasive speech models describe ways that you can organize the content of your speech so that it maximizes persuasive appeal.  It is the form of the speech. For your speech, you will need to use one of three persuasive speech models: (1) Problem-Solution-Benefits, (2) Problem-Cause-Solution, or (3) Motivated Sequence.  NOTE:  While you will need to use one for the persuasive speech you give in class, they are very useful for speeches you give elsewhere. 

A Problem-Solution-Benefit designed speech can be useful particularly when the speaker wants to advocate a change in behavior or a policy that involves several parts (i.e., that’s complex). In the problem section, the speaker establishes that the problem is significant. It has some profound impact on people’s lives, the employee’s performance, or the organization’s goals and objectives. The benefits main point shows how the solution solves the problem and how it has additional benefits.

The problem-solution-benefits speech has three parts:

I. Problem or Opportunity.

II. Solution.

III. Benefits

This is easy to structure using the typical organizational structure we have been using in this class. An introduction with attention getter, orientation, thesis statement and preview; three main points signposted and introduced; conclusion with review and sense of closure.

Sample Problem-Solution-Benefit

This example merely shows the propositional and organizational content of the speech. An actual outline would also need to include source of information. The solution main point does NOT need to be listed as steps. However, it does need to be a substantial part of the speech.

Attention Getter: A scene of people engrossed in iPads, smartphones, and laptops, in the midst of a beautiful day.

Orientation: In the last decade, we have experienced an explosion in personal electronic technology—electronics that people can carry with them (cell phones, tablets, laptops). We have acquired these pieces without giving much thought to their actual benefits and potential harms in our lives.

Thesis: People should embrace a weekly technology fast to reduce the negative impact of personal electronic technology.

Preview: First, I will briefly describe the problems associated with excessive personal electronic technology; second, I will detail my plan for a weekly technology fast; finally, I will describe the benefits with adopting this practice.

I. Excessive electronic technology creates problems

II. A weekly technology fast reduces those problems

A. Step 1—Make a prioritized inventory of your personal electronic technology

B. Step 2—Choose one day of the week to be your fast day.

C. Step 3—Beginning with the least important pieces of technology slowly stop using those pieces week by week.

D. Step 4—Observe the changes in your patterns as you practice your weekly fast.

III. You will discover that this weekly technology fast creates benefits.

Today we have seen that while there are problems with excessive technology use, we can reduce those problems through a weekly technology fast. This fast has the benefit of giving us space to see what we have been missing.

Closure: And maybe next time we encounter a beautiful day and good friends we won’t be so busy with cell phones and laptops that we fail to enjoy it.

Problem-Cause-Solution

Problem-Cause-Solution speeches are particularly useful when people focus on the symptoms of a problem and the speaker recognizes that the underlying cause needs to be addressed in order to truly improve conditions. For example, a company’s new team-based approach may be failing to produce the creative and collaborative spirit the organization had hoped. A manager might recognize that the problems of people not collaborating, continued competition, and stifled creativity are symptoms of a larger underlying cause that the organization still manages people as individuals. Rather than giving incentives for teamwork and team performance, performance evaluations still focus on individual performance. There’s no tangible incentive for teamwork. The main points of a speech like this might be:

I. Problem: The organization’s team-based approach is failing to create a collaborative creative culture.

II. Cause: The organization expects teamwork but incentivizes individual performance.

III. Solution: The organization should make teamwork a central part of employee evaluations to create a more collaborative creative culture.

Motivated Sequence is a very common approach to organizing persuasive speeches. It was developed by Alan H. Monroe at Purdue University (Ehninger, Gronbeck and Monroe). Motivated Sequence design is particularly useful when you have one specific action you want your audience to take.  Unlike the other speeches, the motivated sequence speech moves seamlessly from one element to the next.  The elements of structure that we’ve used earlier—introduction with preview, signposts and taglines, review and closure—are replaced with this structure.

Attention:  Grab the audience’s attention. 

Need:  Present them with a compelling need.  A situation that should be changed or opportunity that should be claimed.

Satisfaction:  Present them with a generalized recommendation that ameliorates the need. 

Visualization:  The audience needs to get a clear picture of what their life could be like by adopting the proposed recommendation. Visualization is almost always in the form of narrative.

Action:  Give the audience a clear, direct, call to action. 

Example Motivated Sequence

Attention:  Beautiful day that no one enjoys because their busy interacting with the world through the 3” X 6” smart phones. 

Need:  With the introduction smart phones people have been craving cell phones that do more and more. Apps for this and apps for that.  The effect has been that people’s perspective on the world has been reduced to a tiny frame of reference.  This causes stress, eye strain, repetitive motion disorders, and anxiety.

Satisfaction:  We all need a cell phone but, what would happen if people went for the least complicated phone rather than the most complicated phone?

Visualization:  Imagine, you’re driving down the freeway, trying to use an iPhone and end up in a wreck because it’s too complicated to use and drive at the same time.  Imagine you’re in a meeting and you miss the important instructions because you’re responding to an e-mail on your iPhone.  Imagine that your child wants you to read to them but you’re so frustrated with figuring out your new Samsung Galaxy that you snap at her and send her to bed crying. 

Imagine instead, that you go with a self-explanatory, intuitive, cell phone, the sort of cell phone that has only the most basic (and really only necessary phone services) you need.  Phone, text, address book. You become a safer driver; you are a less distracted worker; you are freed to interact with family with authenticity. 

Action :  When your cell phone plan says it’s time to “upgrade” think about “upgrading” to simplicity and freedom by getting the least complicated (and probably least expensive) phone the company offers.