Persuasive Speech (Policy Speech) Assignment
Your third speech is a Policy speech. It is a specialized type of persuasive speech. In it you will accomplish two tasks. First, you will select a topic that allows you to advocate a change to existing public policy/behavior; create a new public policy; or, reinforce a current policy being debated today. Second, you will prepare a brief speech advocating for your policy.
The Policy speech will be 5 to 6 minutes in length. Your evaluation is broken down into four large sections: strategic organization of content; preparation and presentation of content; delivery skills, all of which were evaluated last time; and, new to this speech, a section on the argument and policy.
To complete this speech successfully, you will execute these large steps in the speechmaking process:
1) Topic selection, confirmation of speech purpose, summary of speech topic, and identify a primary expert
Research and development of the content for the speech
2) Practice and preparation for the oral presentation.
The “topic selection” phase is first. It involves several steps that will be summarized in a post to the appropriate discussion forum on the class Blackboard site (found using the “graded assignments” menu link; find the “speech submission folder,” open the “persuasive (policy) speech” folder, and then use the topic forum link; or, use the “topic selections go here” menu link).
1. Select a topic.
2. Research THREE (or more) documents that assist you in discovering information about the selected topic. These resource documents must be current within the last 2 years (if possible; if not, student must justify, in their speech and the annotation for the bibliography, why they are using an older resource. Create an annotation for each – an annotation is a 25- to 50-word summary of the “central idea” and the resource’s relevance to your speech. Do this before you submit your topic, but do not include in the topic submission.
3. Identify a primary expert (not necessarily the author of any resource) who can guide your learning.
4. Identify an organizational strategy that best suits the purpose of your speech (given what you have learned).
5. Using this information, craft a policy proposal about the changed, reinforced, or new policy.
6. Create claim statements based on your organizational structure (usually 2 or 3 claims).
7. Face-to-Face classes: do not repeat topics already posted. You will not receive credit for your submission if you do so. Online classes: avoid topics already posted; similar topics with clearly different proposals are okay (they should have different experts).
Bibliography, Additional Source Materials, and Resource Analysis is next.
8. Create claim statements based on your organizational structure (usually 2 or 3 claims).
9. Fact-check your research: confirm the validity of each claim in your speech by finding two additional resources NOT used so far. These are listed in an “additional source materials” section of the bibliography (and is required). You must have 3+ primary resources.
10. Include in the “additional source materials” section of the bibliography ANY original resource that is incomplete (and thus cannot be used as one of your three, or more, primary sources), or non-academic or non-professional resources referenced while doing research. Include annotation. Complete bibliographies must include an author, a date of publication, a host resource (name of the website, publication, etc.), title of the resource, and a working URL/link for research completed using the internet.
11. Perform resource analysis on the three most important bibliographic entries (see sample below).
The final written prep project is to create an argument outline.
12. Cut/paste the appropriate topic submission information to the top of the outline. You submitted this already (see #7).
13. Begin with your claim statements that coordinate with the organizational structure of the speech. Do not use numbers, letters, or Roman numerals; use the role each statement plays in the speech as a label. For example, your first claim should be labeled, “CLAIM #1:”. You’ll note it is followed by a colon (“:”) so that what follows is understood to be the first claim statement.
14. Add grounds, backing, and warrants that support the claims. Each of these will include (parenthetically) the resource where you found the support materials. Be sure you begin each with an appropriate label: “GROUNDS #1:”, “BACKING #3:”, etc.
15. For a 6- to 8-minute speech you should have several grounds for each claim. Each grounds statement has backing, and a warrant. Or, each claim as a very large warrant that covers the entire section of the speech. Backing should be a mixture of quotations and citations. Backing requires information from your bibliography, not sure what you use from the bibliography. Readers and listeners need to know where your information comes from. Warrants are best if they feature local people; this is not always possible.
16. Include other argument elements, as desired and appropriate, including (parenthetically) the resource where that element is found. These elements are transitions, rebuttals and verifiers, qualifiers, modalities, restatements, signposts, and roadmapping.
17. Create an introduction, conclusion, and transitional statements. Place them appropriately at the beginning, ending, and between grounds and claims. Label them as you do the other argument terms, starting each with a description (i.e., “Transition:”).
18. This is an argument outline. It should reflect the bulk of the material you plan to include in your speech. One page, written, corresponds roughly with two minutes of speaking time.
19. Upload the argument outline + annotated bibliography + resource analysis + additional resource materials to the Safe Assign link found in the policy speech assignment folder. Use the “written document goes here” link.
You are now ready to practice your speech. Here are some guidelines:
1. Practice out loud, avoiding the temptation to read, quote, or memorize the argument outline. Study it, but do not read from it. Loose guide: you will practice out loud as much as you spent preparing the written submission in #19.
2. Create ONE notecard to assist with getting through the speech, and additional card(s) for quotations and dense content, such as statistics or citations. If you need more than one card as a “cheat sheet” you likely need to practice out loud more.
3. If using a visual aid, please clear this with the instructor via email at least 48 hours prior to giving the speech. There are guidelines or rules for visual aid usage (see Chapter 22). The aid should supplement the speech, not be required for the speech to “work.”
4. To assist with a good introduction and conclusion: both the introduction and conclusion should contain a verbatim policy proposal. Be Bold!
5. Go give a great speech!
SAMPLE TOPIC SUBMISSION :
Topic: Covid19
Summary: Common sense preventative health measures help limit the contagious spread of Covid19.
Policy Proposed: The US Government should mandate preventative measures to help limit the spread of Covid19.
General Purpose: To Persuade
Specific Purpose: To persuade my audience to support a federal policy regulating common sense preventative health measures to limit the contagious spread of Covid19.
Need to Address: National Health
Master Claim: Preventative health measures limit contagious spread of Covid19.
1. Covid19 is an airborne virus that accumulates risk when spread indoors.
2. Risk mitigation requires preventative strategies for indoor activities.
Organizational Structure: Cause-Effect
Expert: Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
Note: This sample policy proposal was composed in November 2020, when the US experienced an exponential surge in Covid19 cases and had just received word of a first potential vaccine. Neither the US government, nor the state of Oklahoma, had a preventative measure policy regulating things like mask wearing, social distancing, hand washing, and contact tracing. At the time, such a policy was offered by President-Elect Biden as part of a collection of solutions to solving the Covid19 pandemic.
Sample Resource Analysis:
Gravity Payment’s Dan Price on How He Measures Success After His $70K Experiment
By Jim Ludema and Amber Johnson
28 August2018
From: https://www.forbes.com/sites/amberjohnson-jimludema/2018/08/28/gravity-payments-dan-price-on-how-he-measures-success-after-his-70k-experiment/#16701ade174b
Master Claim (Central Idea/Thesis): The authors of this article interview Dan Price, owner and CEO of Gravity Payments, on how he measures the success of his experiment to make the minimum wage at his company $70K.
Topical Organization Structure.
The primary expert is Dan Price, who created the experiment and implemented the minimum wage at his company.
Master Claim: Raising the minimum wage at his company to $70K benefits not only to his employees but also the entire company.
Claim #1: Raising the minimum wage at his company to $70K has been beneficial to his company.
Warrant #1: They currently have 80% more customers than they had when they announced the wage hike.
Qualifier: “The purpose of an organization is to make the humans’ lives better. It’s not the purpose of the humans to make the organization better… People should come first.”
Grounds #1: Price states that what he got in return for this experiment was more than he ever could have imagined.
Claim #2: Raising the minimum wage at his company to $70K has been beneficial to his employees.
Warrant #1: Company went from having zero to many first-time home buyers per year.
Warrant #2: Savings rates for things like retirements for people at Gravity almost tripled.
Warrant #3: Company went from having zero or close to zero first-time parents to about 20 babies born per year. Grounds #1: “Those babies, they carry with them almost infinite potential, solving some of the existential crisis of humanity, curing cancer, solving things like global warming.”
