What Is The Purpose Of A Persuasive Speech

I found the persuasive speech of policy to be difficult to put together. I put a lot of time into the organization, and practiced my speech many times, and I think overall, I did fairly well. With every speech though, I think there is always room for improvement. I felt my introduction went well. It was organized, and I felt that I was able to draw my audience in to want to know more. The topic was well suited for my audience since many are going into the medical field, and breast cancer is a topic that many hear about, and unfortunately many know someone that has been affected by breast cancer. I feel I had a lot of good material to support my purpose of the speech. I had a variety of facts from reliable sources that were cited throughout my speech, and also a story of a personal friend about how she helped make a difference for many people. I think when you add a story about a real person’s experience it really adds to the speech, and makes the topic more real for the audience. With this story, I think it also helped demonstrate how this one act helped change a current
policy. She changed the way many people looked at risk-reducing surgery. It was an example of how having further discussions with doctors gave her the opportunity to help spread the word, and many more community members and doctors are now more educated. My message was trying to show others how having further in depth discussions with their doctors and spreading the word to others about ways to reduce breast cancer risk through lifestyle changes can and will make a difference, and this story was just one example of how powerful words can be. I decided to try and use Monroe’s Motivated Sequence for my speech. It was again, a bit of a struggle, but I think I did okay. I really liked how his sequence was laid out, because I felt it would be the most powerful for the delivery of a persuasive speech. I chose not to add visual aids to my speech, I didn’t think what I came up with would’ve added to my speech and would’ve been more of a distraction to me than it would’ve benefited the audience. Although, I’m a big fan of visual aids I was a little disappointed that I was unable to come up with anything to add. I do feel that I could’ve had a little better eye contract. Even though I practiced my speech many times, I think my nerves got the best of me, and didn’t do the best as I could’ve. I really wanted to make sure I didn’t stubble my words too much since I felt I had some powerful and persuasive words to say to my audience, and I feel that is why my eye contact wasn’t as good as I felt it could have been. Overall, I was mostly pleased with my speech.
I worked hard on it, and I hope it showed to my audience. Although, not perfect by any means. I would have liked to have a little more eye contact and after watching my speech I realized I miss spoke on the statistics of breast cancer and spoke the fact there were 231 women with breast cancer, when it should’ve been 231,000. That’s a huge mistake, and was pretty disappointed in it. If I could do the speech over I would give more eye contact, not make the mistake of facts about breast cancer, and most of all, try to calm my nerves. The persuasive speech of policy was difficult for me, but was a good challenge. With it being such a challenge I felt I did fairly well. This speech definitely broadened my skills. Although, if there is a next time for a persuasive speech I will remember the ways to help improve to make my delivery a better
success.