Chapter 14 Knowing Your Audience

As I've said in my last post I am pretty nervous about the persuasive speech. After reading Chapter 14 I am at least grateful not to have to persuade a hostile audience to buy into something they are against. I liked the advice the book gave on how to deal with a persuasive speech given to a negative audience. It is important to establish your credibility well. The next step I find helpful in any argument or debate situations, to establish a common ground. Doing so can diminish the audiences hostility by making them aware that you are not just against what they believe in. They will listen and be more open minded once they see that. Getting your audience to see your points in a positive light is also helpful. Being ready for negative feedback is important, and acknowledge it in your speech. That will make the audience aware that you know why they do not agree with you. The last suggestion is to keep your goals within reason, just having a hostile audience listen to what you have to say is a great start. Speaking to a positive audience is much easier. In this situation its important to offer enlightening evidence for your topic, to make it interesting and fresh, to tell a story to help highlight your goals, and to move past just being agreed with and try to get your audience to actually take action. An uninformed audience is open minded but knows nothing about your topic. Its important to show them why your topic is important, to establish your credibility, to use lots of repetition and redundancy in your speech, and to go easy on the persuasion. An apathetic audience requires a skilled speaker. You have to liven up your audience by having a great attention getter. You might need to make your topic personal for them, to show how it directly impacts their life. You also need to only represent one side of the issue. Using presentation media can also help get your audience interested. I expect our class to be a positive, open minded, uninformed on some topics but mostly interested audience.