Page 416 - Between One and Many The Art and Science of Public Speaking

Chapter 14 Persuasive Speaking 383

Regardless of the organizational pattern you choose, there are some prin-
ciples of organization you should follow. First, always put your best arguments
and support either early or late in the speech. Do not hide them in the middle.
Over the years, research has shown that in some cases people best remember
what they hear fi rst, whereas in other cases, what comes last is most memorable.
Either way, the middle of the speech is not the place for your best material.
Second, with hostile or indifferent audiences, it is particularly important to
have some of your best material early in the speech. Otherwise, they will tune
you out before you get to the critical points you want to make.

Message Sidedness

Once the overall organization of a persuasive message has been decided on, the
organization of arguments relative to your persuasive purpose needs to be con-
sidered. To be most effective, carefully order the arguments in your persuasive
message and include an acknowledgment of the other side of the issue. Whereas
the research once was not consistent in this regard, it now shows that a persua-
sive speech that is two-sided rather than one-sided will be more effective. 6
A one-sided persuasive speech only offers evidence in support of your claim;
a two-sided persuasive speech makes use of a brief statement of the other side
of the issue and your response to it. Let’s say, for example, that you want to
persuade your audience to support the claim that the war on drugs is a failure.
In a standard one-sided persuasive speech, you would only present evidence
and appeals you believe will prove effective with your audience. In a two-sided
speech, you would do all of this and more. After making the argument, you
would indicate what the other side might have to say, as well as present your an-
swer to those arguments. Of course, this does not mean you abandon your point
of view. Rather, you acknowledge counterarguments to it. You would then go on
in your speech to point out the weaknesses in the other side’s point of view. You
simply tell the audience that there are reasonable people who don’t support your
position and then give the audience an example of the kind of evidence these
reasonable people have given for not supporting your side. You then refute this
example with a further argument or show that in spite of their argument, your
overall claim is more credible.
Not only is a two-sided message more persuasive than a one-sided message,

but research suggests at least two other benefits from its use. First, a two-sided
message enhances the audience’s perceptions of the speaker’s credibility. Sec-
ond, it makes audience members more resistant to counterpersuasion because it
gives them a rebuttal to common arguments associated with the opposing view.

Evidence and Persuasion

Unless your credibility with your audience is unimpeachable before you speak,
organization is a necessary but insuffi cient condition for successful persuasive
speaking. You also need to include evidence to support the claims you make

in your message. For many years, social scientific research on the value of ev-
idence in persuasion was thought to be confl icting and inconsistent. In 1988,
however, communication scholar John Reinard published a thorough analysis of