How to Use Evidence in Persuasive Speeches
You can never persuade an audience based upon your opinion alone; rather, you must collect evidence that supports your beliefs in order to sway or change their minds. Read on for the correct way to use evidence in persuasive speeches.
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Instructions
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Using Evidence in Persuasive Speeches
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Every claim you make in your speech must be supported by expert opinions, and those experts must be credible.
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You can find expert sources in the pages of respected magazines such as Time, Reader’s Digest, Newsweek, etc. and books. Official government websites are other places to find expert, and credible, source material.
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Make sure your expert sources are credible. Generally, a person with a professional title (Doctor, Director, Attorney, etc) is more persuasive than a person without one; a well-known magazine or newspaper (Time, People, The Washington Post) is more persuasive than an unknown one.
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Make sure that any “expert” information that you get online is credible. Many websites are just forums for personal opinions and are not factually reliable. To be on the safe side, try to use only “official” websites as evidence as much as possible.
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Make sure your evidence is relevant to your subject. You do not want to use information about sleep apnea, for instance, if your subject is about acne (unless sleep apnea somehow causes acne.)
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Make sure your evidence is recent. It is much more reliable, and persuasive, to use information from 2005 than it is to use something from 1956.
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