Q What makes a great persuasive speech topic? 1. How many people does it affect? The more people your topic harms or influences, the more impact it will have on your audience. 2. What is the impact? If your topic has been shown to affect people in a profound way (death or injury, for example) then it will have a greater impact on your audience. 3. Is the problem ongoing? Audiences are less likely to care for something that hasn’t hurt anyone lately. Try to choose a topic that is having an impact on your audience right now. Great Persuasive Topics in Speech Class History Vaccinations for Human Pappiloma Virus Nail-biting Toothbrush sanitation Danger at the nail salon Dog fighting Nail biting Soda Drinking Year-round school Safety helmets Music education Evolution Read! Don’t Call 911! Persuasive Speech Topics to Avoid Smoking Seatbelts Drunk Driving Abortion Skin Cancer Exercise Organ Donation Capital Punishment Safer sex/STDS Obesity Blood Donation Recycling Cell phone usage in cars Road Rage Soda Global Warming Puppy mills/animal cruelty Gambling Breakfast Steroids THE FULL CONTENT OUTLINE 1. FORMATTING. a. All outlines will be typewritten. b. All tabs need to be set to ½ inch. c. All outlines will be single-spaced. d. All outlines will be spaced with one-inch margins all around. e. All out lines will be numbered on each page. (Any other header or footer information is not necessary). f. No outline will include a cover page. g. Name in the upper right hand corner. h. Title centered on the next line. 2. USE SYMBOLS AND INDENTATION CONSISTENTLY. a. Main points are Roman numerals (I., II., III., etc.). b. Sub-points are capital letters (A., B., C., etc.). c. Sub-sub-points are numbers (1., 2., 3.) d. Sub-sub-sub-points (a., b., c., etc.). e. Always use the tab key to indent, so that all of your spacing is consistent. This applies to main points, sub-points, sub-sub-points, etc. f. Your tab key should be set to ½ inch. g. You will never have an “A” without “B”, “1” without “2”, “a” without “b” or “I” without “II”. 3. PHRASING IDEAS. a. Always use complete sentences. b. Write in third person “This tragedy can be prevented…”, not first person “My tragedy could have been prevented…” Only write in third person when telling a personal story or transitioning from one idea to the next. c. Do not include source citations in your thesis or main ideas. Sources are always used to support main ideas, so make them subordinate to your sub-points. d. Thesis should be one sentence. Main ideas should be one sentence. Sub-ideas should be one sentence. All of these should be written in your own words. Do not include a source citation in your thesis, main point statements, or your sub-areas. Citations can go in the following places: justification statement, attention getter, transitions, and sub-sub-areas in your main points. e. Your sub-areas should express an idea in your own words in one sentence. 4. LABELING. a. Always give your speech a title. b. Your introduction will be labeled “Introduction.” You will also label each part of the introduction (attention getter, thesis, justification and preview.) Your introduction is not part of the body of your speech; do not assign it a Roman numeral. c. Your conclusion will be labeled “Conclusion.” You will also label each part of the conclusion (review, tie-in with attention getter.) Your conclusion is not part of the body of your speech; do not assign it a Roman numeral. d. Always label your transitions. e. Each source citation in the speech will be so indicated by being underlined. For example, “According to the February 14, 2005 issue of the Los Angeles Times, owners of the Toyota Prius have not been achieving the EPA-estimated fuel economy for the vehicle, missing the target by as much as 30%.” 5. BIBLIOGRAPHY. a. Your bibliography (for informative and persuasion speeches) should be written in APA style. The library has APA style guides and offers tutorials in APA style. Please take advantage of these resources. b. You will have 7 sources listed in your bibliography (which means you will have 7 sources used throughout your outline). Every source that appears in your bibliography will also appear somewhere in the outline. c. The bibliography should be titled, “Bibliography” and must begin on a separate page from the rest of the outline. In other words, it should not appear on the last page of the outline with the conclusion of the speech.