Cathy A.
Cathy A.

3 Basic Types of Persuasive Speeches

5 min read

Published on: Dec 20, 2018

Last updated on: Jan 23, 2023

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There are many different types of persuasive speeches that you could choose for public speaking. Anything from a localized claim like changing a college's policy to more substantial societal claims like empowering the LGBT community could make for an impressive persuasive speech.

You need to present facts and evidence in order to support your claim so that you can easily persuade your audience to agree with your opinion. The three types of questions that give rise to persuasive speeches are questions of fact, value, and policy.

In this blog, you will learn about these three types of persuasive speech, so let’s begin.

Types of Persuasive Speeches

Persuasive speeches work with evaluative statements that can be supported by data and reasoning. The subject matter and the content of the speech determine what kind of persuasive speech it is. The three types of persuasive speeches that are used to persuade the audience are:

1. Factual Persuasive Speech

The first type of persuasive speech is a factual persuasive speech. It is based on whether a particular belief or statement is true or false and is backed with strong evidence. It attempts to persuade the audience to believe whether something happened or not and whether something exists or not.

Some factual claims are simple to answer and easy to handle. For example, a speaker is talking about Neil Armstrong landing on the moon in 1969. This example is well documented and has concrete evidence that supports the fact that Neil Armstrong did land on the moon.

In contrast, some facts are hard to establish, and they can’t be answered in a definite way. For example, the right age of getting married or the negative sides of medical testing. There is not enough evidence that clearly answers these factual claims in any specific direction.

Other factual claims that are hard to answer clearly are the predictions of what may or may not happen. For example, the speaker tries to convince the audience that the Covid-19 virus will be with us until 2021. While there may be evidence that it will end at the beginning of 2021, you still don’t know exactly what will happen in the future.

Your job as a speaker is to persuade your audience, which acts as both opposition attorneys and judges.

2. Value Persuasive Speech

Value persuasive speech is a type of speech that tells whether something is right or wrong, beautiful or ugly, moral or immoral, good or bad. It questions the ethical and moral aspects of a particular topic or defines the truth or falsity of an assertion.

For example, can you prove that capital punishment is moral or immoral? The government has added extra tax on gas-guzzling monstrosities, etc. These are some examples of value persuasive speech, where you can’t prove whether it is moral or immoral, right or wrong.

The opposition speaker or the audience might agree or disagree with your point of view. While listening to a value persuasive speech, it is hard to determine why the speaker has chosen a specific stance on a particular topic without listening to his criteria for making a certain evaluation statement.

For example, a persuasive speaker is stating that all social media sites are immoral, then it’s really no surprise that he believes that online dating is also immoral. As such, the speaker needs to explain his criteria for making a particular evaluation statement clearly. Ultimately, the speaker has to provide a clear criterion and state a clear label for how he came to that evaluation.

3. Policy Persuasive Speech

The other most common claim in persuasive speech is policy claims. This claim is used to convince the audience to either accept or reject a certain policy, candidate or rule. It argues the nature of the problem and the solution that should be taken. It is probably the most common type of persuasive speech because we live in a society surrounded by policies, rules, and laws.

For instance, a speaker is making a statement that the legal definition of prostitution needs to be revised; he is trying to get the agreement and immediate action. This type of claim encourages a quick call to action. It always has a direct and clear opinion about what needs to change what should occur.

The policy claim talks about the below persuasive goals: immediate action and passive agreement.

  • Immediate Action

    The immediate action persuades the audience to start engaging in certain behavior. It requires the speaker to convince the audience to act upon his proposal quickly.

    For example, the speaker delivers a speech at a school and wants to persuade the student audience to eat more fruits. He would say that an apple a day keeps the doctor away, so I’m encouraging you to eat the apple that I gave you and add other fruits to your diet as well.

    This action of the speaker makes the audience act immediately on his proposal. Remember that the more quickly you make your audience act upon your proposal, the more likely they will actually adopt it.

  • Passive Agreement

    The alternative to immediate action is a passive agreement that only requires getting the audience to agree with what the speaker is saying. When the speaker tries to gain a passive agreement, he attempts to make the audience agree with what he is saying or to accept the policy without practically doing anything.

    For instance, the speaker argues that the LGBT community should have equal human rights as other human beings. The speaker attempts to reach the audience’s agreement by presenting encouraging and strong facts without demanding any action from the audience.

    The passive agreement’s main goal is to encourage the audience to adopt a specific attitude, value, belief, or behavior but not necessarily to get the audience to enact any specific behavior.

Hopefully, this guide has made the idea of persuasive speech clear to you, and you can easily write an effective speech now. Writing any type of persuasive speech is a complicated task, but if you read some persuasive speech examples, you can easily write a good speech.

However, if you still feel like you cannot write a good persuasive speech, you can hire a professional writer. MyPerfectWords.com is an online writing service that provides good quality speeches at affordable prices. Our writers are experts at crafting a perfect persuasive speech outline and a flawless speech in no time.

Place your order now and get a top-notch persuasive speech within your given deadline. Buy speeches now at cheap rates from our essay writer service and impress your audience with an amazing speech.

Cathy A.

WRITTEN BY

Cathy A. (Literature, Marketing)

Cathy has been been working as an author on our platform for over five years now. She has a Masters degree in mass communication and is well-versed in the art of writing. Cathy is a professional who takes her work seriously and is widely appreciated by clients for her excellent writing skills.

Cathy has been been working as an author on our platform for over five years now. She has a Masters degree in mass communication and is well-versed in the art of writing. Cathy is a professional who takes her work seriously and is widely appreciated by clients for her excellent writing skills.

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