Angie Brown
HUM/111
6/03/2012
Prepared for: Professor Marilyn Jean Trollope
Persuading Your Audience
To persuade your audience you must first help your audience recognize the quality of your ideas, using techniques that will work is the best way to do this.
The techniques I would use to persuade my audience effectively are as follows:
Understanding why people reject ideas: The more people challenge one’s ideas or beliefs, the more likely they are to reject those ideas and beliefs. People usually reject ideas for several reasons, the idea is impractical, too expensive, unworkable, or disruptive of existing procedures are just a few of those reasons.
Know the audience you want to persuade: You need to get an idea of what your audience already knows about the problem or issue. Ask yourself, has your audience been influenced by misconceptions, does your audience have a narrow perspective, is your audience as clear on the problem or issue as you are, and more. Getting to know your audience as much as possible will help you to persuade them by using the answers to these questions to present your ideas.
Anticipate your audience’s objections: You need to identify both valid and invalid objections so that you can address them when presenting your idea. Brainstorming can be used to determine your audience’s objections or imaginary dialog will also help you to find objections.
Finally, present your ideas to advantage: Respecting your audience is a key when presenting ideas so that you do not offend their position on the subject. Stating the familiar first gives the audience something to agree upon before presenting your idea. Using an appropriate tone such as calm, objective, and courteous tone works with respecting your audience. Make sure that you are able to back up your evidence with supporting facts and be prepared to follow up on all significant objections.
Using these techniques will show your confidence in