Persuasive Speech Topic Guide
How to Choose Unique, Fun Topics for Your Public Speaking Class
Are you feeling daunted by the task of choosing a topic for your persuasive speech? Here are some tips and topics to help you out.
In high school and college public speaking classes, students are almost always asked to complete at least one persuasive speech. The goal of this speech is to convince the audience to change their opinion or behavior in regards to an important issue. But what issue should you choose for such a speech?
For a surprising number of students, one of the most difficult parts of a persuasive speech is thinking of an appropriate topic. Here are some tips and topic ideas to make your assignment a little easier!
How to Choose a Topic
When searching for a topic, you want to make sure you choose something that will be of interest to your audience. Otherwise, it's pretty unlikely that you'll be able to persuade them effectively. You'll want to choose something at least a little controversial, but you should avoid topics that you feel so strongly about that it's hard for you to understand the other side of the issue. Need some more tips? Here are some ideas to assist you in choosing a persuasive speaking topic.
Great Topic Ideas
Need some specific ideas for your topic? Here's a long list of great persuasive speaking topics that you might consider for your next speech, courtesy of Matt Dunn, a seasoned public speaking instructor.
Fun Topic Ideas
Some students dread the persuasive speaking assignment because they think it's going to be boring. Not everyone is a fan of politics and controversial issues, and those are the kind of topics people usually associate with persuasive speaking. But persuasive speeches can be quite a bit of fun if you choose a topic that interests you and the audience. To help get you thinking about creative and interesting topics, here's a list of fun persuasive speaking topics related to popular culture and sports.
Student Topic Ideas
When choosing a topic, relevancy is an important criteria. That is, you want to choose something that relates directly to the people in your audience, because that will encourage them to pay attention. One of the best ways to establish relevancy is to choose a topic about students and issues that relate to college life. You can choose an issue that's hot right now on your campus, or just one that impacts students in general. Here are some student persuasive speaking topics to consider.
Tired Topics
When choosing a topic, be original. There are certain 'tired topics" that have been chosen by public speaking students ad nauseum. Your teacher and probably everyone else in the room is sick of hearing these topics and may tune you out. Here are a list of tired persuasive speaking topics to avoid.
