Sample speech

Sometimes a persuasive speech will be so well written that you find yourself agreeing with something completely illogical. Look at the example below – it doesn’t make sense logically but it manipulates your emotions and thus convinces you almost in spite of yourself.

Studying it should make you more aware of why people go along with some really crazy ideas (scientology, suicide bombings…). It’s all because of how the writer/speaker makes you feel:

Blowing Hot Steam

Ladies & gentlemen, the time has come to outlaw that most dangerous of domestic appliances – the kettle! We may well smile as we picture our whistling friend as a hatchet-wielding killer; yet this seemingly innocent chrome contraption causes chaos in our homes every year, whilst the media remains suspiciously silent on the issue.

Well I for one am tired of these lies of silence, and for this reason I have spent the last month touring the A&E departments of our countries hospitals, doing a little market research of my own!

Mayo General revealed a shocking array of third degree burns caused by clumsy kettle carrying. One ashen-faced 25yr old (who does not wish to be named) tripped carrying a fully loaded kettle and ended up with the contents searing his nether regions. Needless to say his crown jewels are tarnished beyond repair! Nearby, a dazed and confused pensioner with a nasty purple lump on his temple described being attacked by his kettle-wielding Missus after he refused (one time too many) to get up off the couch and make them a cuppa! Meanwhile, a nail-chewing mother looked on in horror as her darling daughter howled in pain & clawed at the bandages covering her left arm from shoulder to wrist. Never again would making hungover Mommy an industrial strength cup of coffee for Mother’s Day seem like a good idea!!!

And so I say to you my friends, declare war on kettles. Let this marriage-wrecking, family-destroying, genital-mangler of a device be criminalised for once and for all. Canvas your local politician now and let this serious yet swept-under-the-carpet issue take it’s rightful place alongside the war on terror, the war on drugs and the war on organised crime.  

Look at the techniques used here – connect to audience, alliteration, hyperbole, emphatic words, vivid imagery, eye-witness testimony, sarcasm, list, an order (canvas you local politician), repetition of a key phrase.

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