COMM 203 EXAM II

What are your textbook's 3 suggestions for enhancing your credibility?

1. Explaining Your Competence - advertise your expertise on the speech topic. Investigate your topic thoroughly and tell the audience, tell about experience that gives you special knowledge and insight. 2. Establish Common Ground with the Audience - speaker connects themselves with the values, attitudes, or experiences of the audience. 3. Deliver Your Speeches Fluently, Expressively, and with conviction

What four methods of organization are used most often in persuasive speeches on questions of policy?

1. Problem-Solution Order: 2. Problem-Cause-Solution Order 3. Comparative Advantages Order: each main point explains why a speaker's solution to a problem is preferable to other proposed solutions. 4. Monroe's Motivated Sequence: seeks immediate action. The five steps are attention, need, satisfaction, visualization, and action.

How do you generate emotional appeals?

1. Use Emotional Language - "eyes of every child" 2. Develop Vivid Examples - story of the kid with malaria 3. Speak with Sincerity and Conviction

What are questions of policy? Give an example of a question of policy.

A question about whether a specific course of action should or should not be taken. They inevitably involve questions of fact and sometimes value. However, question of policy always go beyond questions of fact or value to decide whether something should or should not be done. ex - What measures should be taken to protect people's privacy online?

What is credibility (ethos) and what are the factors of it, according to Lucas?

Credibility: The audience's perception of whether a speaker is qualified to speak on a given topic. Competence - how an audience regards a speaker's intelligence, expertise, and knowledge of the subject. Character - how an audience regards a speaker's sincerity, trustworthiness, and concern for the well-being of the audience.

Define ethos, pathos, & logos. Where do we get those words?

Ethos: Name used by Aristotle for what modern students of communication refer to as credibility. Logos: The name used by Aristotle for the logical appeal of a speaker. the 2 major elements of logos are evidence and reasoning. Pathos: The name used by Aristotle for what modern students of communication refer to as emotional appeal.

Why is using evidence important?

Evidence is particularly important in classroom speeches because few students are recognized as experts on their speech topics. It can also enhance your credibility, increase both the immediate and long-term persuasiveness of you message, and help "inoculate" listeners against counter persuasion. Evidence is also crucial whenever your target audience opposes your point of view.

How does evidence work? Is evidence more ethos or logos?

Evidence is used to answer the audience's possible questions and give credibility to the speaker. It shows the speaker really knows what they are saying. Also, to prove a point. Tips: be specific, novel (say things people don't know already), Credible, prove point. Evidence is more of logos.

What kinds of emotions can be used in pathos appeals?

Fear - like a serious illness. Compassion - maybe for war refugees. Pride - like in one's country. Anger - at a terrorist and their supporters. Guilt - about not helping the less fortunate. Reverence - for admire person.

What do we know about audiences for persuasive speeches? How do they process persuasive messages? What does it mean to have a mental dialogue with the audience?

In some persuasive speeches, you will deal with controversial topics that touch your listener's basic attitudes, values, and beliefs. This may increase their resistance to persuasion and make your task more difficult. Listeners do not just sit passively and soak in everything the speaker has to say. Instead, they engage in a mental give-and-take with the speaker- this is called mental dialogue. While they listen, they assess the speaker's credibility, delivery, supporting materials, language, reasoning, and emotional appeals. They may have negative/positive responds at any point. The give-and-take is specially vigorous when listeners are highly involved with the topic and believe it has a direct bearing on their lives.

Explain what categorizing credibility as initial, derived, and terminal helps us understand about it. (I won't quiz you on the terms themselves).

Initial - the cred of the speaker before they start to speak Derived - cred of speaker produced by everything they say and do during the speech itself Terminal - the cred of the speaker at the end of the speech All 3 are dynamic. High initial credibility is a great advantage for any speaker, but it can be destroyed during a speech, resulting in low terminal credibility. The reverse can also happen. Initial credibility can be strengthen or destroyed by the end of your speech, and your terminal credibility will affect your next speech. If your audience sees you're sincere and competent, they will be much more receptive to your ideas.

Why is it important to consider ethics when speaking persuasively? (and are ethics more important here than in informative speeches?)

Maintaining the bond of trust with listeners is also vital to a speaker's credibility. Make sure your goals are ethically sound and that you can defend them if they are questioned or challenged. Study topic thoroughly so you wont mislead your audience through shoddy research or muddled thinking. Learn about all sides of an issue, seek out competing viewpoints, and get your facts right. Also be on guard against more subtle forms of dishonesty such as quoting out of context, portraying a few details as the whole story, and misrepresenting the sources of facts and figures. Take care to present statistics, testimony, and other kinds of evidence fairly and accurate.

Explain the difference between passive agreement and immediate action as goals for persuasive speeches on questions of policy.

Passive Agreement: a persuasive speech in which the speaker's goal is to convince the audience that a given policy is desirable without encouraging the audience to take action in support of the policy. Immediate Action: A persuasive speech in which the speaker's goal is to convince the audience to take action in support of a given policy.

What is persuasion? Why is it important?

Persuasion is the process of creating,reinforcing, or changing people's beliefs or actions. It is important because it counts for the 26% of U.S gross domestic product. It is also vital to being an informed citizen and consumer. The more you know about persuasion, the more effective you can be using powers of critical thinking to assess the barrage of persuasive messages you're exposed to everyday.

How do you organize questions of fact or value speeches?

Question of FACT: the question about the truth or falsity of an assertion. However, many questions of fact cannot be answered absolutely. There is a true answer, but we don't have enough information to know what it is. ex- Who will win the Super Bowl next year? Other questions deal with issues on which facts are murky or inconclusive. ex - Is there intelligent life in other parts of the Solar System? Persuasive speeches on question of fact are usually organized topically. Question of VALUE: A question about the worth, rightness, morality, and so forth of an idea or action. ex- what is the best movie of all time? Such questions not only involve matters of fact, but they also demand *value judgement* - judgment based on a person's beliefs about what is right or wrong, good or bad, moral or immoral, proper or improper, fair or unfair. Persuasive speeches on question of value are almost always organized topically. When you speak on a question of value, you must make sure to justify your judgement against some identifiable standards. Also, once you go beyond arguing right or wrong to arguing that something should or should not be done, you move from a question of value to a question of policy.

What is reasoning? What are the four types of reasoning Lucas presents?

Reasoning is the process of drawing a conclusion on the basis of evidence. 1. Reasoning From Specific Instances - moves from particular facts to a general conclusion. ex- your brother did good in P.E, your friend did good in P.E, you did good in P.E, Therefore P.E is an easy class. 2. Reasoning From Principle - Reasoning that moves from a general principle to a specific conclusion. ex- All people are mortal. Socrates is a person. Therefore, Socrates is mortal. 3. Casual Reasoning - reasoning that seeks to establish the relationship between causes and effects. ex- there's a banana on the ground and you step on it and fall. You reason that the banana was the cause of your fault. 4. Analogical Reasoning - reasoning in which a speaker compares two similar cases and infers that what is true for the first case is also true for the second. ex - if you're good at tennis, you'll probably be good at ping-pong

Explain how the ethics get tricky with emotional appeals.

There is no question that emotional appeals can be abused by unscrupulous speakers for detestable cause. But emotional speakers can also be wielded by honorable causes. When using emotional appeals ethically, you have to make sure it is appropriate to the speech topic.If you want to move listeners to act on a question of policy, emotional appeals are not only legitimate but perhaps necessary - appeal to heart as well as heads for action. On the other hand, emotional appeals are usually inappropriate in a persuasive speech on question of fact. In this case you have to only deal with specific information and logic. Even when trying to move listeners to action, you should never substitute emotional appeals for evidence and reasoning; always build a persuasive speech on a firm foundation of facts and logic.

Why is the motivated sequence especially useful in speeches that seek immediate action from listeners?

They follow the psychology of persuasion. It is more detailed than problem-solution order. It follows the process of human thinking and leads the listener step by step to the desired action. One indication of its effectiveness is that it is widely used by people who make their living by persuasion - especially advertisers.

What are the three basic issues you must deal with when discussing a question of policy?

need, plan, and practicality.