The Winning Minds and Hearts Persuasive Presentation Assignment 

The Winning Minds and Hearts Persuasive Presentation Assignment

Purpose Statement:

The ability to share ideas that change the minds and hearts of others, particularly in the organization, is what most communication activities strive for.  In Chapter One, Woodward and Denton (2019), highlight the three types of primary motivations of communication, namely communication as pure information, pure expressions, and pure persuasion, with the hardest to accomplish being pure persuasion.  This is because for us to know that we have accomplished our persuasive goals, there is often confirmation that we need from our target audience, which goes beyond their understanding as in the case of pure information, or just voicing opinions as in the case of pure expression.  In persuasion, in addition to providing understanding and an opportunity to express ourselves, we have the additional task of changing the position of our audience on an issue, and this can be their behaviors, political opinions, behavior, or values.  Yet the ability to change other people’s minds or hearts is a vital skill that is useful in most jobs in most fields.  Even when our jobs are not persuasion-focused, we find ourselves using this skill when we need to present proposals to our supervisors and colleagues. In short, it is essential to be able to articulate and express our ideas to others in a way that elicits a desired response from them.

Overview of this assignment:

1.      Select any persuasion goal of your choice and come up with the name of the persuasion topic, objective, and target audience for your persuasive presentation. (Please Select the familiar goal for me.)

2. Develop a formal speaking outline written in.  Your speaking outline is a guide that you will use when you make your presentation.  The speaking outline is submitted on Moodle together with the topic in the Week Seven Module, due November 1

3. Use the outline to create your PowerPoint presentation. (8-10 Min with speaking notes)

A. The focus of the assignment:

A persuasive presentation by nature is designed to move audiences; therefore, your topic and its contents should present the organization with an opportunity for them to want to yield to your proposal.

Presentation organization: You will include a Welcome, Introduction, Need/Problem, Solution, Visualization, and Call to Action. Your outline will have enough information for you to speak for 8-10 minutes.

Presentation length:  

8-10 minutes.  We will adhere to time limits for persuasive presentations.  In the real world, for example, it is disrespectful to an audience for a speaker to violate time expectations.  Please practice your presentation to see if you fall below or above the 8-10-minute threshold and to know if you need to provide more facts and/or information about your topic.

Presentation content

The content of your presentation should reflect your thorough knowledge of your topic and also your awareness of your specific audience.  You need to use language which you know appeals to your audience.  As our textbook explains, one way of drawing our audience’s attention is by using words and phrases that our audience holds in high esteem.  For example, if my audience is a class of American students, I would be aware that words such as fairness and grading fairly are phrases that they hold in high esteem.  Think of your specific audience and think of words that that specific audience holds in high esteem.

Reference 

Woodward, GC. & Denton, RE., Jr. (2019). Persuasion and Influence in American Life. (8th ed.). Long Grove: Waveland Press.

Eisenberg, EM., Trethewey, A., LeGreco, M., & Goodall Jr., HL. (2017). Organizational Communication: Balancing Creativity and Constraint. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin