Persuasive Speech

[ChronicHD]

Hey BlueLighters,

The information you guys have put up all over this community has helped me so much in the past, and I'm hoping it can help me again.

I have to make a persuasive speech for a communications class at my university. It's supposed to be about something that I am interested in and knowledgeable about, so naturally I want to write mine on drugs.

I literally cringe when I hear people give horrible speeches on medical marijuana, legalization, decriminalization, etc. All the speeches are either done by nerds who know NOTHING about what their talking about complete with tons of facts about how "Drugs kill, ruin families, etc." straight from the DEA website.

On the other side of the spectrum are the kids who clearly are huge druggies and the speech basically consists of "uhhhh...like yo man, drugs are sweet".

I want my speech to be a nice medium between the two. I have experience in lsd, coke, marijuana, tobacco, alcohol, shrooms, benzos, amphetimines, and a few RC's.

I would like my speech to vary from the usual, and just more be about my experiences with drugs while advocating for RESPONSIBLE use. Basically my speech will be about everything that Bluelight stands for.

Does anyone have any ideas on how I can elaborate on such a speech, or narrow my topic down a little? Any help at all would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks again for all your time and continued support

(Mods: I hope this is in the right forum, I'm sorry and if it's not appropriate here please move it.)

 

[grimble crumble]

well obviously your trying to persuade your audience to a perticular opinion or claim. "Drugs" is a pretty broad and controversial subject. I think you would have the most success narowing down your thesis to something along the lines of: "Psychedelics should be used in end of life therapy for people suffering from terminal diseases." this would be a good one because it hasnt been done to death like the cannabis discussion also there is a lot of respectable research done by maps on the subject.

another good one could revolve around MDMA's potential as treatment for PTSD maps also has info on this subject to.

the number one thing to remeber - try to sound like you are passionate about your claim, not passionate about taking drugs.

good luck

 

[ChronicHD]

the number one thing to remeber - try to sound like you are passionate about your claim, not passionate about taking drugs.

Thanks, that is a great point and I will have to remember that considering the thoughts I've been having were leaning more towards me being into drugs and the culture and rather a bit off topic.

 

[satricion]

well obviously your trying to persuade your audience to a perticular opinion or claim. "Drugs" is a pretty broad and controversial subject. I think you would have the most success narowing down your thesis to something along the lines of: "Psychedelics should be used in end of life therapy for people suffering from terminal diseases." this would be a good one because it hasnt been done to death like the cannabis discussion also there is a lot of respectable research done by maps on the subject.

another good one could revolve around MDMA's potential as treatment for PTSD maps also has info on this subject to.

the number one thing to remeber - try to sound like you are passionate about your claim, not passionate about taking drugs.

good luck

This is good advice. The most important thing is to have one contention or argument and make sure that what you are saying contributes to this argument. Be focused and disciplined and don't ramble.

Also, don't rely on personal experiences to make your argument. This holds for any argument you might make, not just about drugs. Relying on personal experiences is essentially an argument from authority, where you are telling your audience "I know something you don't, and so you'll have to believe me because I know better than you." That isn't a good argument and it will come across as holier than thou. Make sure you stick to logic, reason, and evidence. Make sure all of the things you bring up to make your argument are directly related to what you want to say.

I also am not sure about wanting to argue for responsible drug use. Do you mean you think everyone in the world should use drugs? I don't think you should argue this, it comes across as "this is how you should live your life (like me)". Maybe something more nuanced about how drugs are not the blanket horrible thing many people make them out to be would be more appropriate, or something policy focused about the futility of endless, unwinnable, wars on drugs or something like that. You shouldn't give speeches telling people how to live, you should address substantive social issues that you can have a position on which is based on reason and evidence rather than personal experiences.

 

[ChronicHD]

This is good advice. The most important thing is to have one contention or argument and make sure that what you are saying contributes to this argument. Be focused and disciplined and don't ramble.

Also, don't rely on personal experiences to make your argument. This holds for any argument you might make, not just about drugs. Relying on personal experiences is essentially an argument from authority, where you are telling your audience "I know something you don't, and so you'll have to believe me because I know better than you." That isn't a good argument and it will come across as holier than thou. Make sure you stick to logic, reason, and evidence. Make sure all of the things you bring up to make your argument are directly related to what you want to say.

I also am not sure about wanting to argue for responsible drug use. Do you mean you think everyone in the world should use drugs? I don't think you should argue this, it comes across as "this is how you should live your life (like me)". Maybe something more nuanced about how drugs are not the blanket horrible thing many people make them out to be would be more appropriate, or something policy focused about the futility of endless, unwinnable, wars on drugs or something like that. You shouldn't give speeches telling people how to live, you should address substantive social issues that you can have a position on which is based on reason and evidence rather than personal experiences.

I agree with what you said. The part that struck me as best was "Don't rely on personal experiences" because that was definitely something I was going to do. Our professor wants us to use Ethos, Pathos, and Logos to appeal to the audience.

All those words are Greek I believe, and I was going to use Ethos (emotion) to appeal to everyone because I have been to rehab and had a friend die. I wasn't going to really try to play a "holier than thou" argument, I was just going to say that drugs are NOT bad, but if you choose to use them, do your research beforehand and be very safe with them. Basically I was going to talk about everything Bluelight as a community stands for.

But your point about how the drug war is essentially un-winnable and in the end everyone loses is also a great topic to talk about. I might have to do some research into that as well. Maybe I could talk about that and then go into the therapeutic uses of Marijuana, MDMA and psychedelics?

 

[satricion]

Sure, you could do that. I think the story about your friend might come across as trite in a university setting, and might not be appropriate given your audience. This could also potentially upset you, since meaningful personal experiences like that often don't translate well into academic environments. Give it a miss.

This is the advice I give all of my students (at least, the ones who bother to ask about how to approach university writing):

First of all you need to decide exactly what you're going to talk about. You should be able to summarise your topic in one sentence. Then, decide exactly what you are going to argue with regards to this topic. You should be able to summarise that in one, two, or at the most three sentences. Ie, you should be able to tell the audience exactly what you are going to argue in a couple of sentences. You should do this in the introduction to your speech. You should be able to say "In this speech I will argue XYZ." If you can't do this, it means your work is not focused enough and you are going to ramble and say irrelevant things.

Of course, before you decide exactly what you are going to argue, you need to have done some research. If you feel that you have done enough research, then you can start building your presentation. When you're writing the speech, make sure you write in a disciplined way. This means that everything you write is contributing to your argument. To make sure it is relevant, at the end of every paragraph ask yourself why this is relevant to your topic, and how exactly it contributes to your argument XYZ, which you spelled out at the beginning of the presentation. If what you have written doesn't contribute to XYZ, either get rid of it or change what you are arguing. You can change your argument as you write, since writing is a process of discovery in itself, so you need to be flexible in this. But at the end you should have a tight, disciplined piece of work which does not ramble, bullshit, or wander off into territory which isn't relevant.

Also, make sure you listen to what your prof is telling you. If they want you to use certain ideas, use them. Keep in mind that they are assessing your understanding of the course. They want you to show them that you have understood the concepts that they are giving you. Your knowledge of these concepts is as important as your knowledge of the topic. They're not assessing what you know about drugs or whatever, they're assessing the course. Make sure you're on top of the course content and how it relates to your topic, rather than just focusing on the topic itself.

 

[Binge Artist]

I have experience in lsd, coke, marijuana, tobacco, alcohol, shrooms, benzos, amphetimines, and a few RC's.

L. O. L.

The way you said that, it's like you're giving a god damned resume or something. My advice, keep what's left of your mind and get the hell out of college.

 

[ChronicHD]

It's alright. I fucking pussed out anyways. I went blazed to class and just settled on giving my persuasive speech about "Why you should floss". A kid in my fraternity did the speech last semester and convinced me it would be easy.
Lame.

 

[ChronicHD]

L. O. L.
My advice, keep what's left of your mind and get the hell out of college.

Is that a diss or something. I don't see why you'd make fun of me over me asking a simple question.

 

[Chainer]

I went blazed to class and just settled on giving my persuasive speech about "Why you should floss". A kid in my fraternity did the speech last semester and convinced me it would be easy.
Lame.

And now you know the trick to graduating college: Bullshit.

 

[ChronicHD]

And now you know the trick to graduating college: Bullshit.

Hah it's worked this far. It's sad that teachers are more interested in having us crank out standard paper topics and tests rather than teaching us to think individually and research things that interest us.

It's sad that I've only had a few teachers in my life who allowed their students to be creative and challenge conventional ideas.

 

[jam uh weezy]

study social psychology, marketing tactics, how language is used in persuasion, etc. etc.