Your how-to or persuasive speech includes a very broad prompt in order to allow you to explore a topic of your own individual choosing. You have a choice of writing either a how-to speech or a persuasive speech.
Prompt:
Be sure that any topic choice is school appropriate, meaning that the topic is not offensive, vulgar, does not glorify illegal behavior, and does not infringe on the rights of any specific group.
How-to – Write and present a speech explaining how to do, make, use, fix, repair, or accomplish something.
Because you are not demonstrating the process and are only talking about it, it is best to select a topic explaining how to do something that is more general. For example, if you are explaining how to bake a cake, you will not perform the action of baking a cake. This can be tricky to explain, so a better choice might be how to improve your reputation or how to quit biting your nails. Something that doesn’t require that you show your audience the actions you’re speaking about will be a better topic for this type of how-to speech.
Your other option is to write a Persuasive Speech.
Persuasive – Write and present a persuasive speech to convince your audience that your opinion, assertion, or claim is correct or valid.
This can be a personal opinion or an opinion about the world around you. For example, you could try to persuade your audience that one musician or music style is better than another in your personal opinion; on the other hand, you instead could look at a broader topic by persuading your audience whether or not a specific public policy is effective.
The Written Script
You will submit a written text of your speech, just as you would submit an essay. Within that script, if you are writing using any sources, you will want to cite your sources. If you are writing using personal knowledge or opinions, then you will not need to cite sources.
Often, speeches are not cited because the speaker is speaking from their own personal experiences or knowledge rather than using experts to support their opinions. Whether or not you need to cite sources will depend on what topic you choose to write about. Because of this factor of extra work, you will want to think carefully about what type of topic you want to write about based on how much research and source citation you would like to do.
The content of your speech will make it clear to your instructor whether or not you used sources. For example, if you are trying to persuade your audience that a certain law is not effective, then you will be expected to support that opinion with expert opinions and data, signaling the use of sources. However, if you are writing about how you personally trained your dog, then that will rely on personal experiences that would not require sources.
To be clear, the rule is that if you did any sort of research or reading outside of this course information in order to do the assignment, then you need to cite your source.
