Persuasive speech outline: [Title]
Replace the blue placeholders with your own words and delete the grey notes as you go. Write the ask first: every step below exists to make it easy to say yes to.
Speaker | [Your name] |
Audience | [Who is listening, and where they start: unaware, undecided, opposed, or agreeing but not acting] |
Time limit | [Minutes, and the date you speak] |
The ask | [Who should do what, and by when, in one sentence] |
Claim type | [Fact, value or policy] |
Purpose and claim
General purpose: To persuade
Specific purpose: To persuade my audience to [believe or do one specific thing]
Claim: [Your position in one sentence, with the main reason]
One ask, worded the same every time. Use identical wording in the preview, the action step and the closing line. A vague ask such as “get involved” gives the five steps nothing to aim at.
Step 1: Attention
About 10% of your time. The listener is asking: why should I listen?
I. Hook: [A fact, a story or a question that touches this audience]
II. Credibility: [Who you are, and why you can speak on this]
III. Preview: [The problem, your solution and what changes, in one sentence]
Transition: [A question the need step answers]
Step 2: Need
About 30% of your time. The listener is asking: is this really my problem?
I. [The problem, as one full sentence]
A. [Evidence: a figure or a fact] ([Source, year])
B. [Example: one person, place or moment that shows it]
II. [How the problem reaches the people in this room]
A. [What it costs them: time, money, safety or fairness]
B. [What happens if nothing changes]
Transition: [Turn from the problem to the fix]
Step 3: Satisfaction
About 30% of your time. The listener is asking: what's the fix, and will it work?
I. [Your proposal, as one full sentence]
A. [How it works: who, what, where, when and what it costs]
B. [Evidence it works: a precedent, a pilot or an expert] ([Source, year])
II. Objection: “[The main objection, in the audience's own words]”
A. Concede: [What is true in it]
B. Answer: [Why the proposal still holds, ideally with a number]
Transition: [Invite the audience to picture it]
Step 4: Visualization
About 15% of your time. The listener is asking: what changes if I say yes?
I. With the proposal: [A concrete picture, with a time, a place or a person]
II. Without it: [The same picture if nothing changes]
Transition: [Lead into the ask]
Step 5: Action
About 15% of your time. The listener is asking: what exactly do I do?
I. The ask: [One specific act, worded as in the preview]
II. Make it easy: [Where, when, how long and what to bring]
III. Closing line: [A last line that calls back to the hook]
See a filled-in action step
I. The ask: Pick a Thursday slot before you leave this room: sign the sheet by the door or scan the code on this slide.
II. Make it easy: Slots run from 10 to 4 in the student union ballroom; bring a friend and an ID. If you can't give, write a friend's name in the sheet's second column and bring them instead.
III. Closing line: In the five minutes I've been talking, about 150 people in this country needed blood. Pick a Thursday slot before you leave this room, and let's be the reason some of them get it.
From a five-minute class speech asking classmates to give blood at a campus drive. The drive is invented; “every two seconds someone in the U.S. needs blood” is the American Red Cross's figure.
Short on time? Problem–solution version
For a two- or three-minute slot, or an audience that doesn't see the problem yet, use these three parts instead of the five steps, and delete the steps you don't use.
I. Problem | [The problem, with one sourced figure and one example] |
II. Solution | [Your proposal, its cost, and the main objection answered] |
III. Action | [The ask, and by when, then a closing line] |
Fact or value claim? Swap the middle
Keep Step 1 and Step 5, turn the ask into a request for belief, and replace Steps 2–4 with one of these.
Fact (is it true?): [Reason 1 · reason 2 · reason 3, strongest last, each with evidence]
Value (is it good or right?): [The criteria for good · how your subject meets each one]
Sources
Every source you cite, in the style your class uses. Name each one aloud the first time you use it.
[Author or organization. (Year). Title. Site or publisher. URL]
[Author or organization. (Year). Title. Site or publisher. URL]
Before you give it
The ask is one sentence: who, what and by when
The ask is worded the same in the preview, the action step and the closing line
Every figure in the need has a source you will name aloud
The main objection is in the audience's words, with a concession and an answer
Visualization shows both futures, with a time, a place or a person
The action step says where, when and how
The closing line calls back to the hook
A timed read-aloud comes in under the limit