Chapter 8: Presentations to Persuade
56 Conclusion
After reading this chapter, and returning to Dhavit’s challenge related to creating a persuasive presentation, how might Dhavit plan and deliver his information to help persuade some of his colleagues to stop smoking?
Check Your Understanding
Additional Resources
Justthink.org promotes critical thinking skills and awareness of the impact of images in the media among young people. http://www.change.org/organizations/just_think_foundation
Visit this site for a video and other resources about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. http://www.abraham-maslow.com/m_motivation/Hierarchy_of_Needs.asp
Read an informative article on negotiating face-to-face across cultures by Stella Ting-Toomey, https://www.sfu.ca/davidlamcentre/forum/past_PRF/PRF_1999/intercultural-conflict-competence-eastern-and-western-lenses.html
Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab (OWL) provides a guide to persuasive speaking strategies. http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/588/04
Visit the CBC Podcasts page and assess the persuasive message of various programs. http://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcasts/
Glossary
Adoption – means the speaker wants to persuade the audience to take on a new way of thinking, or adopt a new idea.
Authority – involves referencing experts and expertise.
Bribery – involves the giving of something in return for an expected favour, consideration, or privilege.
Call to action – you want your listeners to do something, to change their behaviour in some way.
Claim – your statement of belief or truth when making an evidence-based argument.
Coercion – the use of power to compel action.
Commitment and Consistency – means ensuring that you follow through on what you say you will do.
Consensus – is the tendency of the individual to follow the lead of the group or peers.
Continuance – the speaker aims to persuade the audience to continue doing what they have been doing, such as keep buying a product, or staying in school to get an education.
Data – your supporting reasons for a claim when you are making an evidence-based argument.
Deception – involves the use of lies, partial truths, or the omission of relevant information to deceive your audience.
Deterrence – call to action that focuses on persuading audience not to start something if they haven’t already started.
Discontinuance – involves the speaker persuading the audience to stop doing something they have been doing.
Fallacies – another way of saying false logic. These tricks deceive your audience with their style, drama, or pattern, but add little to your speech in terms of substance and can actually detract from your effectiveness.
Goals of action (solutions) – include adoption, discontinuance, deterrence, and continuance.
Liking – involves the perception of safety and belonging in communication.
Manipulation – involves the management of facts, ideas or points of view to play upon inherent insecurities or emotional appeals to one’s own advantage.
Motivation – different from persuasion in that it involves the force, stimulus, or influence to bring about change.
Persuasion – an act or process of presenting arguments to move, motivate, or change your audience.
Reciprocity – is the mutual expectation for exchange of value or service.
Scarcity – is the perception of inadequate supply or a limited resource.
Stimulation – reinforce existing beliefs, intensify them, and bring them to the forefront.
Warrant – you create the connection between a claim and supporting reasons when making an evidence-based argument.
References
Babooram, A., & Wang, J. (2007). Recycling in Canada [Statscan report]. Retrieved from http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/16-002-x/2007001/article/10174-eng.htm
Cialdini, R. (2006). Influence: The psychology of persuasion. New York, NY: William Morrow and Company.
DeVito, J. (2003). Messages: Building interpersonal skills. Boston, MA: Allyn Bacon.
Johannesen, R. (1996). Ethics in human communication (4th ed.). Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press.
Toulmin, S. (1958). The uses of argument. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.