Persuasive Speech Description

(EEOs  1-6; CCICs 1-6)         Levels on Bloom’s Taxonomy:  Application, Synthesis, Evaluation

The Persuasive Speech assignment is an opportunity for you to select an area of interest, which you feel the class should be knowledgeable of and will to create change on your topic.   Your goal with this assignment is to educate and Persuade your audience to help reduce the impacts of the problem area you are addressing.     The following is a checklist for the objectives of the assignment, and you will want to use the second page a guide to developing your typed outline.    Time Limit:  6-7  Minutes

Checklist:

_____  Write a Thesis Statement, and clearly define your purpose and audience.

_____   Make sure you can locate at least 5 Credible, Academic Level Sources

             You will orally state these sources during the delivery of your speech, this helps to build your Ethos (Credibility).

_____   Present the idea to your Professor for Topic Approval

_____  Follow the Persuasive Outline Format Exactly –Writing Center A409 or use the NLOWL (North Lake On-Line Writing Lab).   Your goal is to get the audience to Take 3 to 5 Action Steps (To Create Change)

_____  You are required to have a  visual aid; it must add to the effectiveness of your    speech.

_____  Write the Body of the speech first, then write the Introduction and Conclusion

_____  Your delivery will need to be practiced, and well polished.   You should have a “full dress rehearsal” practice where you go through your speech 6 to 8 times prior to delivering your speech for a grade in class.   Have a friend listen, or schedule with your instructor during their office hours.

______You must have a live audience of AT LEAST 3 adults,  they must be seen in your          video taping of your speech; however, the video of you and your demo needs to       be clearly presented.  Think about your “Recording Studio” space, needs to be clean/tidy.

Persuasive Speech Outline

(Use this Sheet Like a Workbook Page and Fill In your Information)

INTRODUCTION

I.       Attention Device:  (Creative approach to get the audiences attention—Poem, Quote, Song Lyrics, etc)

II.      State Qualifications (Establish Credibility, Tell us where you learned your demonstration topic)

III.     Relate Topic to Audience (Purpose, To Inform and Demonstrate how a process is completed)

IV.    State Proposition (Thesis) & Preview Points

A.     Preview Main Point I  (Problem)

B.

     Preview Main Point II (Causes Optional)

C.

     Preview Main Point III (Solution and Call to Action)

BODY

I.                    Problem

A.      

 
B.
 
C.
 

(TRANSITION:    Connects thoughts and Ideas     TYPE out your transitional statement)

    II.        Solutions and Call to Action (Consists of 3 to 5 Specific Steps)

               A.

               B.

               C. 

CONCLUSION

I.                    Provide Closure (Review Main Points)

II.                 Closing Thought (Clincher or Bow Tie)

Persuasive Speech Outline
“So Why Should We Recycle?”

Slide 1
INTRODUCTION
Slide 2
I. Attention Device: Joke
“We need to save the Earth… Mother Earth is billions of years old
and getting pretty fragile.” All of this plastic we throw away is just
to much for the old lady to digest and we don’t have enough
Metamusil to flush her out. So we need to stop making so much
garbage and give the old lady a break. Don’t get me wrong, I think
everyone has a God given right to generate garbage, it might even be
in the Constitution along with life, liberty and all that stuff. I mean, if
it wasn’t for garbage, a lot of my relatives would be gainfully
unemployed.

II. State Qualifications: “Seriously, I am just a critical thinking student
like all of you and would like to share a little research I did on
recycling with you today. Perhaps we need additional information
prior to taking action.”

III. Relate Topic to Audience: I believe all of you out there are civic
minded and are mindful of conservation. However I don’t think all of
you want to be duped by a huge propaganda machine? I know I don’t.

IV. State Proposition ( Thesis) & Preview Points: I don’t believe we need
to recycle plastic and the arguments for it are bogus. I am going to
cover the following three point of my argument.
Slide 3
A. The beginnings of recycling and it’s self propagation
B. Recycling does not solve environmental problems.
C. Recycling Programs are expensive and Landfills are not
problematic.
1:30
BODY

I. First Main Point: Beginnings of Recycling
A. Overview of recycling
Slide 4
1. “Waste and Want” by Susan Strasser addresses the topic of
Mainstreaming recycling. Like garage sales, the beginnings
of recycling lie partly in the counterculture of the late
1960’s and early 1970’s. In the beginning it was not the
province of municipalities and big waste companies but an
activity of counterculture environmentalists. Hippie

activists organized voluntary recycling centers to which
individuals brought their glass and paper. These centers
were not small businesses so much as offshoots of social
and cultural movements. About 3,000 voluntary recycling
centers were organized during the months before and after
Earth Day on April 22, 1970.
Slide 5
2. Everyone who recycled was and activist since it involved
commitment to sort and haul the materials to recycling
centers. By the late 1980’s. municipal solid waste
businesses once done by 10 to 12,000 was now dominated
by 4 big firms.

B. And now recycling’s self propagation
1. The Environmental activists prodded, and in some cases
went to work for the sanitary engineers and politicians who
oversaw municipal trash collection, the federal
Environmental Protection Agency, and businesses whose
managers were sensitive to environmental issues. In 1970
two cities operated municipal recycling programs, by 1982
more than two hundred were recycling.
Slide 6
2. So we know that counterculture environmentalists can
take a hot movement of the late 60’s and evolve into
mainstream governmental policy over a 12 year period. All
they need to do was cut their hair, trade in their VW bugs
for minivans and get a corporate job or work for the right
lobbyists.

(Transition: Now that we know recycling began in the counter-culture of the
60’s and evolved into nice jobs for the environmentalist, where are we
today? )

II. Second Main Point: We are out of focus. In an article called
“Recycling Does Not Solve Environmental Problems” the authors
Robert Lilienfeld and William Rathje claim that …
A. It’s a matter of priority.
1. The Authors states: ”A handful of major issues have been
singled out by scientists, environmentalists, policy
planners, and the general public as the most serious
environmental problems we currently face. These are the
problems that seem most likely to lead to a significant
degradation, or even collapse, of our late twentieth-
century lifestyles of comfort and convenience, thanks to

unwelcome and possibly unforeseen changes in global
ecosystems. They are as Follows:

Slide 7
Overpopulation
Global warming
Ozone depletion
Habitat destruction
Loss of biodiversity
Depletion of nonrenewable natural resources
Increased pollution and waste generation

2. These are huge problems compared to those faced in past
societies. What’s more, these problems are global, rather
than regional or local. “
Further on they write, “Ironically, there is little or no
debate over the solution to environmental woes. Virtually
everyone’s first action of choice is —- recycling. Is the
recycling response aimed at the target’s bull’s-eye?
Unfortunately, the answer is no.”

B. Does recycling impact these issues?
Slide 8
1. Overpopulation – NO. Unless you possibly want to count
recycling latex gloves into condoms.
Global Warming –NO
Ozone Depletion – NO.
Slide 9
Habitat destruction, Loss of biodiversity and
Depletion of nonrenewable natural resources –
Recycling only delays the impact of consumption it
does not decrease it. And eventually all that is
recycled is degraded or carelessly thrown away.

2. The real problem is consumption. We need to consume
less and be logical about our consumption decisions. Don’t
drive 5 miles in your SUV that eats $1.85 gas to the
recycling center to turn in a few cents of newspapers.
Buy in bulk and fill reusable storage containers, save
money and reduce packaging wastes. Get your favorite
college to print on both sides of class handouts instead of
one, 50% paper savings. Get the idea, conserving is a
bigger payback than recycling.

(Transition: So what is the cost of recycling? )
III. Third Main Point: Recycling Programs are expensive and wastes
resources.

A. Recycling costs more, a little for some a lot for
others, but always more.
Slide 10
1. In Clark Wiseman’s article “Current Recycling Programs Are
Too Expensive” He talks about how the State of
Washington did a study and found that the per-ton
recycling costs were less than disposal costs for four major
cities. The author then states “Even if one accepts the
study’s cost figures at face value, the study made a
fundamental and common mistake. It assumed that
recycling does not avoid disposal collection costs. It adds
to them. Trucks must still make the same number of stops
and cover the same routes but this time it is additional
trucks.
2. In a notorious, (with pro-recyclers) article in the New York
Times Magazine article called “Recycling is Garbage”, John
Tierney he gives an example of how New York City’s
mandatory program spends $200 more per ton to collect
recyclables than it would caost to bury them, and another
$40 per ton to pay a company to process them. Tierney
figures the value of the private labor wasted complying
with the rules ( Rising, taking of labels, sorting) to be
literally hundreds of dollars more per ton.

B. Landfills are not problematic.
Slide 11
1. Wiseman states that a great majority of landfills are small and
designed for only abut ten years of operation, so that
about half of them close in every 5 year period. Most new
landfill are now large to reduce the number of landfill
required.
2. Doug Bandow in his article “Mandatory Recycling Wastes
Resources” wrote about Clark Wiseman of Spokane’s
Gonzaga University study that states “ at the current rate,
Americans could put all of the trash generated over the
next 1,000 years into a landfill 100 yards high and 35
miles square. Or dig a similar-size hole and plant grass
on top after it was filled.”

CONCLUSION

I. Review of Main Points: I hope that the next time someone starts
rambling on with the typical, “we must recycle to save the earth” you
will be able to lead into the argument with some ammunition from the
side of reality. Today I have discussed:
A. The beginnings of recycling and it’s self propagation
B. Recycling does not solve environmental problems.
C. Recycling Programs are expensive and Landfills are not
problematic.

II. Call To Action:

A. As a taxpayer I plan on visiting City Hall to find out what my City is
wasting on recycling, I encourage you to do the same.

B. Read the article, in the New York Times Magazine article called
“Recycling is Garbage”, by John Tierney.

C. Reduce your consumption of goods, it will help reduce waste.
D. Contact your City representatives, and work to educate others.

Slide 12
III. Closing Thought: And don’t worry, we don’t need to save the Earth.
We only need to save ourselves, Mother Earth has been here for
millenniums, will be here for millenniums more, and we are just a
little biological parasite that she can wash away with some major
earthquakes and some volcano. Hey; It worked for those pesky
dinosaurs.