How to Write a Persuasive Speech In 7 Steps

When in high school, college, or university, you can be assigned to write a persuasive speech. However, writing a persuasive speech can sound challenging and challenging without knowledge of what it entails or without prior knowledge and experience.

When writing a persuasive speech, just like a persuasive essay, you aim to implore your audience to adopt a point of view or take a specific course of action. You have to convince your audience, unlike an informative speech where you only inform them.

When assigned to write a persuasive speech, you need to understand the basics that let you derail or even fail. Luckily, this detailed guide covers every imaginable aspect of persuasive speech, which sets you up to write a memorable, persuasive speech.

What is a persuasive speech?

A persuasive speech is a written text with critical information on a topic to convince the audience of an opinion, point of view, or course of action. It is a written piece containing arguments and counterarguments supported by relevant, credible, and appropriate evidence and well-thought-out reasons.

An excellent persuasive speech has balanced arguments and strikingly convinces the audience to take specific actions or change their reasoning.

There are three main categories of persuasive speeches:

1. The value-based persuasive speeches focus on moral or ethical values. You can, for instance, write a persuasive essay about the "ethical foundations of abortion."
2. These are speeches where you make a claim of policy, which entails arguing about the nature and extent of a problem and presenting an actionable solution. The aim is to convince the audience to accept the proposal or actively enact a policy.
3. These are persuasive speeches based on claims of fact. They argue about the truth or falsity of an assertion. For instance, you can write a speech about the impacts of animal testing in the cosmetics industry.

Now that we understand what a persuasive speech is and its categories let's look at how to outline a persuasive speech during the pre-writing stages.

Persuasive Speech Outline

When writing a persuasive speech, or any speech, you will need a working, practice, rough, or preparation outline. This outline helps you arrange and work through the various components of your speech. It enables you to map out the significant things about your speech, such as the hook statement, thesis statement, main points, and concluding points. Outlines help refine the organizational pattern of your speech, making it possible to move your audience with the speech.

In most cases, outlining entails arranging and rearranging points to achieve the desired flow. Therefore, the outline births the first draft and should comprise complete sentences, making it a script for your speech.

And once you are done with your speech, you would want to prepare a speaking outline that now includes some brief points to remind you of the most critical ideas you must discuss when delivering your speech.

Let's look at an example of a persuasive speech outline or structure.

Speech Outline Structure/Format

Title:

Topic:

Specific purpose statement:

Hook:

Thesis statement:

Outline of main points:

(transition)

Main Body

1. Main Point 1
   1. Topic sentence
   2. Supporting ideas, evidence, and sentence
   3. Concluding sentence (with transition)
2. Main Point 2
   1. Topic sentence
   2. Supporting ideas, evidence, and sentence
   3. Concluding sentence (with transition)
3. Main Point 3
   1. Topic sentence
   2. Supporting ideas, evidence, and sentence
   3. Concluding sentence (with transition)
4. Do the same until exhausted
5. Counterargument
   1. Topic sentence
   2. Evidence and examples
   3. Concluding sentence

Conclusion

1. Restate the thesis
2. Summarize the main points and counterarguments
3. Call to action

Example of a Persuasive Speech Outline

Steps to Write a Convincing Persuasive Speech

Writing a perfect persuasive speech is an art that comes with proper planning, practice, and revision. Unfortunately, many people do not know how to start a speech. Here are some eight tried and tested steps to write an outstanding persuasive essay speech.

1. Select a good persuasive speech topic

The foremost step in writing a great speech, like an essay, is to pick a befitting topic. And to do this, you must actively consider your interests, research capacity, setting, time, audience, and resources. Then, select a topic you can discuss with your audience without getting bored. It should be a topic that is relevant to your profession or course. Besides, ensure you are comfortable with the topic and can find enough scholarly evidence to persuade your audience.

2. Understand your audience

Know whom the speech is meant for and then craft a speech based on their preferences and interests. Depending on your topic, assess whether your audience is:

• Hostile - are likely to oppose your point of view based on fear, prejudice, ignorance, or culture.
• Neutral - do not have any investment towards the current status quo but are on a middle ground.
• Motivated - actively anticipating change. An audience is already aware of the problem and looking forward to your solutions.

Apart from the above aspects, the purpose is to understand your audience by further analyzing its: age, gender, beliefs, values, problems/concerns, culture, interests, and obstacles/barriers. With the knowledge of your audience, you can now set a goal for your persuasive speech.

3. Define your goal for the speech

You should set the goal for the speech based on the needs and aspirations of your audience. For example, is it about influencing a policy? Is the speech about making changes to the status quo? Is the speech meant to prevent some action or decisions? Setting the goal will determine the best approach to persuade the audience. You can use ethos, pathos, and logos effectively if you know the goal you are to achieve in the persuasive speech.

4. Find relevant scholarly sources

With the topic, audience analysis, and goal for your speech ready, you then find scholarly articles that you can use to support the claims in your speech. Successful speech writing depends on how you articulate the points or arguments. With the tons of information available on a topic, you should be shrewd in choosing the best. Only use scholarly sources such as books, journal articles, peer-reviewed journals, and credible websites. Our professional speech writing service has experts who know how to research sources. They can help you write an academically and professionally sound persuasive speech.

5. Write your thesis

With the assumption that you have chosen a great persuasive speech topic, researched, understood the direction and scope of the speech, and now developed insights on the topic, you need to come up with the main argument, controlling idea, or thesis statement. This should be the belief or opinion you will try to convince your audience to adopt or embrace. The thesis statement should be clear, coherent, and concise.

Example when writing a persuasive speech on why people should keep pets: Although keeping pets is considered an arduous task that consumes part of one's income, pets are beneficial to humans as they provide companionship, and security and allow people to be physically active.

6. Write a Speech Outline

As we already discussed, a speech outline is critical, the same way you need an essay outline to succeed in writing an essay. An outline will define how you begin your persuasive speech, develop the arguments and counterarguments, and conclude the speech. First, map out the components of your speech to help you envision the bigger picture. Then, choose the connecting ideas and sentences to maintain a good flow.

7. Write your first draft

At this stage, you have everything in place to write the best persuasive speech one would ever read or care to listen to. Therefore, all left is to piece it up by bringing life to it. And to do so:

• Have a powerful opening. You should begin your speech with a powerful attention-grabber or hook. It can be a statistic, rhetorical question, quote, or scientific fact that arouses your audience's interest. Next, provide some background information on the topic before writing the thesis of your persuasive speech. Although it can be written first, some people prefer writing the introduction last so that it captures everything in their speech. And that is allowed in any form of formal or informal writing.

• Write well-supported body paragraphs. Organize the body of your speech as per your selected speech organization pattern. And as you do so, ensure you use proper evidence, examples, and reasons. Your persuasive essay is meant to influence and motivate. Therefore, it should be as objective as it can be. Limit personal tone or voice as much as possible. Only focus on supporting the central idea using logical evidence. Each paragraph should only focus on one main point and feature a topic and concluding sentence.

• Discuss the counterargument. After you have written the arguments and supported the claims, you should balance your speech by writing a counterargument. Counterarguments show that you are mature enough to bring to life the reasoning of dissenting voices. In addition, it shows that you are impartial in your research and ready to advance a scholarly discussion. Your counterarguments should also be backed by evidence but link them to your main claim or thesis. You should use evidence from credible scholarly sources.

• End the speech powerfully. And after writing everything, you should end your persuasive speech powerfully. Restate your thesis using new words to loop your arguments to the introduction. Summarize the main arguments and counterarguments and offer proof but in brief. Finally, present your call to action as the last sentence of your conclusion.

8. Edit, proofread, and revise your speech

Take a break from writing to break the monotony. After the break, read out the speech aloud to yourself. Make necessary changes such that your grammar, spelling, and punctuations are correct. You can hire a proofreader to read and edit your persuasive speech for you as well. If you are to deliver the speech, practice how you will deliver the speech early enough before the due day.

How to Organize Arguments or Points in the Speech

When writing your persuasive speech, you can use different organizational patterns or strategies as we further explore below:

• Monroe's motivated sequence - this approach entails writing the speech in a problem-cause-solution pattern.
• Comparative advantage - you write the speech by comparing two or more things and then explain which one has an advantage over the other.
• Problem-solution - you provide two main points: the problem and the solution to the specified problem. For example, if your persuasive speech seeks to address policy changes or reforms, you can do this.
• Causal - in this pattern, you write the cause and then describe the effects of the cause. It is a great organizational strategy when your persuasive speech focuses on an action or phenomenon's positive and negative consequences.
• Problem-cause-solution entails outlining the problem, cause, and solutions as you advance through your essay.
• Topical - this organizational pattern is the standard organizational pattern for speeches where you divide the main points based on the topic and subtopics and explain them using subpoints.
• Spatial - this organizational pattern entails arranging points in the speech based on the directions. You make the points appear relative to other points.
• Chronological - this organizational pattern entails arranging ideas in your speech based on-time order. It is best when exploring sequence events.
• Biographical - a good strategy when writing a speech about an individual's life.

100 Persuasive Speech Essay Topics

The foundation for giving a compelling, persuasive speech, whether when doing it with prior planning or impromptu, is choosing a good topic.

Remember, in a persuasive speech, unlike an informative speech, you are aiming to present arguments that are well-supported by credible, relevant, and appropriate evidence, facts, and well-thought-out reasons to advocate or implore the audience to take a course of action or adopt a point of view.

Below is a comprehensive list of persuasive essay topics and ideas you can consider.

1. Should artists be allowed to do street murals?
2. Should tattoos be considered unprofessional?
3. Should college be free?
4. Should everyone attend college?
5. Should governments take care of the unemployed?
6. Are romantic movies and books unrealistic?
7. Does watching violent movies affect the behavior of kids?
8. Are teenagers committing suicide due to social media pressure?
9. Should the federal minimum wage be increased?
10. Is capitalism harmful or beneficial?
11. Should people retire at a mandatory age?
12. Should the minimum drinking age be lowered?
13. Should all youths be drafted into the military after college?
14. Is outsourcing manufacturing better?
15. Are paid paternity and maternity leaves tenable?
16. Does a toxic workplace increase stress levels?
17. Would four-day workdays improve productivity?
18. Has the traditional college model become obsolete?
19. Are online classes better than in-personal classes?
20. Should criminals be hanged?
21. Should countries go to war?
22. Are boarding schools realistic?
23. Should college athletes be paid like professional athletes?
24. Are income-share agreements better for students than loans?
25. Are students who perform more likely to succeed in life than fail?
26. Preschool should be free to low-income families
27. Education should be free and fair globally
28. Corrupt African leaders should be jailed
29. Schools should have long holiday breaks
30. Is homeschooling beneficial to children?
31. Should kids cycle to school?
32. Are charter schools disadvantageous to low-income families?
33. Should sex education be mandatory?
34. Are exams an accurate measure of learning?
35. Talents are better than education.
36. Are electric motor vehicles (EMV) worse than hybrid vehicles?
37. Do electric vehicles reduce or increase pollution?
38. Schools should introduce mandatory music classes
39. Should schools teach life skills to students?
40. Should disposable diapers be banned?
41. Should sensationalism in the media be banned?
42. Should theme parks and zoos be closed?
43. Should parents force church-going on their children?
44. Are religious communities peaceful?
45. Should Puerto Rico be added as a USA state?
46. Should governments provide jobs to the youth?
47. Should the USA open its borders to Immigrants?
48. Universal health care should be accessible to everyone
49. All schools in the world should teach the same curriculum
50. Genetically modified foods are the promise of the future
51. Should the voting age be reduced?
52. Can taxing cigarettes reduce smoking among the youth?
53. Should governments ban tobacco products?
54. Are products from hemp better?
55. Should medical marijuana be legalized?
56. Are plant-based diets better at reducing weight?
57. Is intermittent fasting better?
58. Should fraudsters' assets be frozen?
59. Presidents should only invest in their countries
60. Should prisoners be allowed to vote?
61. Is Covid-19 harmful to animals?
62. Should MNCs hire ex-pats or locals?
63. Should corporations that provide massive employment be legible for tax breaks?
64. Should police use rubber bullets on demonstrators?
65. Is it possible to live peacefully without money?
66. Are homeless people poor?
67. Are poor people happy?
68. Do the rich make mistakes?
69. Are leaders made or born?
70. Should governments spend more on weapons than food?
71. Should there be a limit to owning cars?
72. Is it possible to make it with hard work alone?
73. Should animal testing for cosmetics be banned?
74. Should organ donation be mandatory?
75. Are self-driving cars accurate?
76. Is too much screen time harmful to kids?
77. Should the internet be free for all?
78. Should parents alter the genes of their kids?
79. Should the military use unmanned drones in warfare?
80. Should children not be on social media?
81. Are social media websites and apps beneficial?
82. Are selfies a show of psychological issues?
83. Is the cancel culture a good or bad thing?
84. Should people depend on social media for news?
85. Should cyberbullies be banned from social media?
86. Is TikTok more popular than YouTube?
87. Should social media companies be allowed to sell data and insights about users?
88. Does giving kids freedom increase their creativity?
89. Are social media influencers beneficial to society?
90. Is social media fond of fake news?
91. Should kids own property?
92. Should inmates be allowed conjugal rights?
93. Can youths become better politicians?
94. Is global warming reversible?
95. Can overpopulation be controlled?
96. Should sugar be banned from hospitals?
97. Should people exercise regularly?
98. Should cancer treatment be free?
99. Life-saving drugs should be free.
100. Can child obesity be addressed?

Final Remarks

You can spice up your persuasive speech by using appropriate vocabulary, linking words and phrases, and ensuring you are in sync with your audience's interests.

Check out our post on writing an outstanding case study, which can also be helpful during your college or university journey. 

Balance your arguments and counterarguments and have a powerful introduction and concussion for the speech. The 8-step approach we have discussed above is tried and tested by our professional essay writers. If you need a professional speechwriter for hire, you can order on our website and let us do the rest.

We wish you the best of luck as you write your speech.