topic proposal

· Speech(including visual aid): 150

· Topic Proposal: (4/8): 30

· Skeleton Outlines (4/19): 40

· Draft Outline (4/26): 60

· Final Outlines (5/3): 20

Purpose:

This is the “big one” this semester, and the persuasive speech practices one of the most important and commonly-used genres of public speaking. This speech aims to help you practice and develop persuasive speaking by choosing a topic you are interested in/passionate about and working to move your audience to feel differently about it, potentially even getting them to commit to action.

The research and argumentation elements we are training with this speech are causal reasoning, persuasion, audience adaptation, and research/credibility. The delivery elements we will emphasize are (again) working with visual aids, vocal variety, and eye contact. This is obviously a little different because of our online format, but we’ll be doing activities that track along with what we would do in-class.

Task:

You should approach this speech in a few different steps. First, choose your topic. It should be something you are interested in and feel strongly about. Alternatively, this is a great chance to learn more about something. However, your existing knowledge will not be enough. You will want to review chapter 16 and think carefully about what kind of proposition you’re working with. Is this a speech of fact, value, or policy? What do you want to accomplish from your audience? Second, you will want to supplement this by conducting additional research using books, periodicals, and government websites where relevant. You can draw on what we learned from our visit from the library to help find and strengthen this research! Third, you should develop your purpose, central idea, and main points. Fourth, you should fill out those main points with research. Fifth, you want to create a visual aid to help support your speech. Finally, you will do your practice and give your speech to a live audience and upload it to Vocat.

Details:

· The speech should be between 6 and 8 minutes in length. Speeches that exceed or fail to meet this requirement (other than a 30 second grace period) will be penalized.

· The speech must cite three acceptable sources (not webpages unless specifically cleared) in the form of books, journal articles or periodicals, newspapers, or government websites.

· The speech must use a visual aid that is carefully designed and well executed. If you are unable to use it while actually giving your presentation, I will evaluate the visual aid itself.

· The speech should be delivered extemporaneously from a keyword outline rather than memorized, impromptu, or manuscript.

Steps:

This speech, like the informative one, builds sequentially. You want to be on top of things as quickly as possible and develop it as we go. You will be turning in the following things in sequential order.

TOPIC PROPOSAL: Due to Blackboard by the end of week 2.1. I’ll give brief feedback on these, and you can find more information on that Blackboard assignment. I’d recommend doing the topic explosion/foraging research activity first. You’ll write up a specific purpose and central idea and identify what type of proposition this speech is as well as whether this is a speech to convince or to actuate. Once you have that feedback, you’ll create a….

SKELETON OUTLINE: This is the “in-between” phase of a draft outline and some roughed out ideas. You should have written out fully your specific purpose, central idea, main points, and two or three types/pieces of evidence you will use/want (e.g. “statistic on how many people are affected by Type II Diabetes in the US). You will submit this to BB by the end of week 2.3 (4/19). You’ll get feedback from me and you’ll then revise and develop this into the next phase, a….

DRAFT OUTLINE: This should be a nearly-complete full-sentence outline of your persuasive speech. We will do peer review on these like we did with the informative speech. I’ll pair you with a partner (based on topic), Then, with my feedback and feedback from your peers, you will revise those into your…

FINAL OUTLINES: Due, along with a bibliography at the end of week 2.5. These should be a revision and completion of your earlier outlines.