Understanding persuasion and persuasive speaking can be challenging. Persuasive speeches typically center on questions of fact, value, or policy and involve changing your audience's attitudes, values, or beliefs. Your success as a persuasive speaker depends on your ability to adapt messages to your audience. This section explores the complexity of persuasion, the different types of persuasive speeches, the common organizational patterns used in persuasive speaking, as well as how to construct a persuasive speech.

There are many important reasons to study public speaking. This opening section explores public speaking in the modern age as well as the many benefits associated with becoming a competent speaker.  This section also explains the process of public speaking and the different models of communication. Ethics is explored as well as the ethical choices public speakers and listeners must make. Last, this section introduces the National Communication Association’s Credo for Ethical Communication as well as the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in relation to free speech.

Reasoning and argument are critical components of persuasive speaking. This section examines persuasive appeals as well as the fundamentals of reasoning and argument. Ethos, logos, and pathos are discussed as well as the many forms of reasoning. Argument construction is explored as well as Toulmin’s model.  The section concludes by discussing logical fallacies and how to avoid them.

When thinking about public speaking, many people focus of the act of speech delivery. However, before we can deliver a great speech, we have to write a great speech. That means we need to make sure our content is accurate and meaningful to our audience. Conducting research greatly assists in this process. This section introduces the concept of researching. Students will learn the differences between primary and secondary research, academic and nonacademic research, and MLA and APA source citation styles.  This section also discusses plagiarism and how to avoid it by using and citing sources ethically. Students will also learn about the different types of supporting materials along with where and how to gather them. Additionally, students will learn how to assess supporting materials and effectively incorporate them into their speeches.

If you’re like most people, the thought of giving a speech in front of a group of people probably makes you nervous, anxious, and perhaps even fearful. In fact, speaking in public is consistently ranked among people’s top fears, more so than flying, drowning, creepy-crawly critters, and zombies (Ingraham, 2014)! Understandably, public speaking can be challenging for even the most seasoned speaker, and there are many factors that go into communication apprehension (CA) and public speaking anxiety (PSA). This chapter will discuss some of the differences between communication apprehension, public speaking anxiety, glossophobia, as well as general social anxiety, along with the causes and symptoms of each. Additionally, this section offers some techniques for understanding and managing your fears or nervousness, while presenting exercises for reducing your speaking anxiety. This section also features resources that will help you build your confidence as a speaker, and teach you to present like a pro! 

What to speak about? How to find a topic?  Does the topic have the appropriate scope? Being stuck, not knowing what to talk about? How to move from general purpose to specific purpose and a thesis statement? These are key questions speakers must answer as they prepare for a presentation.  First, determining general purpose: Is the goal to inform, to persuade or to entertain.   Next, the section discusses how to broaden the topic or narrow the topic down to meet speaking constraints. Finally, it suggests tools to help to come up with topic ideas for topics. Once a topic is selected, the speaker must determine their specific purpose and central idea.