Analyzing Sam's Persuasive Speech

On Thursday, our class finished the last of the persuasive speeches. We were persuaded to take certain actions that could benefit our lives or the community around us. The speech that I was assigned to assess was Sam’s speech. His topic was why all division three colleges should have turf fields for out-door sporting events. He had positive techniques that he used in his speech, but there were also areas of improvement. First, I will begin with the positives of his speech. I was glad that he picked a topic he was passionate about because Sam is a football player, and he was able to use personal experiences to support his main points. Sam’s major persuasive technique that he used was reasoning and logic. He had great supporting data and statistics
that would persuade anyone to understand the benefits of turf fields. Another, positive aspect of Sam’s speech was his voice. He had a steady and natural tone throughout his speech; even if, he was fumbling for words a few times. Lastly, one of his best aspects of his speech was his visual aids. He used great examples that showed the need of turf fields, by showing comparisons of turf versus grass fields. Sam had a lot of positives in his speech, and I hope he keeps using them moving forward. Next, I will discuss the points of improvement of Sam’s speech.
Overall, he needed to work on the persuasive aspects of his speech. When listening to the delivery, it almost sounded like an informative speech about all the different benefits of turf fields. I did not really understand what the action steps were for Sam’s topic because the turf fields is already been approved to be built at the Lakeland campus. I think his topic could have been improved if he changed the direction of his topic a little bit. For example, his topic could have been, “To persuade the class to support the development of the new turf field.” This way, he could use the same supporting data with a more directed action step and make his topic more personal for the students. Lastly, I believe his speech could benefit from a more developed introduction and conclusion. He started his speech with a good attention grabber and photos, but then, simply jumped into his speech. His introduction could be improved by giving a preview of his main points and stating where he got his facts from before the body of his speech. The same goes for Sam’s conclusion, it needed better organization. He signaled the end of his speech and reemphasized a few main points, but he missed a good sign-off with an established action steps. Overall, his weaknesses could be improved through better organization and more practice with his introduction and
conclusion.
Sam had a good handle on his speech through all his positives, like his visual aids. However, he needs to improve on a few things, which will improve is speeches, like better organization of his introduction and conclusion. With practice from the remaining speeches in this class, I think he has the potential to become a great speaker.