Informative Speech: Are We Too Persuasive?

Overall, I believe my informative speech was a success and the same is true about my group’s presentation. During the peer review session, people doubted my group’s ability to stay informative and not include persuasive statements, especially since Jamie’s speech informed the group of pros for raising minimum wage and Fayth shared the cons. Luckily, they were both able to stick to the facts and not include their own opinions. Since I spoke on the history of minimum wage, it was difficult to do anything but inform, so I do not believe I have to worry about my speech becoming too persuasive. Our group spoke on a question of policy, “a question about whether a specific course of action should or should not be taken” (Lucas 315). Questions of policy
These types of speeches should be presented in topical order, which almost every group succeeded at; I would have rearranged the order in which some group members presented. With informative speeches, it is imperative to underestimate what the audience knows. While obvious to the speaker, some listeners may not understand acronyms or technical terms used. Some speeches under-informed, so I zoned out, as I was unable to follow, since I had no background knowledge of some of the more intricate details. One speech stuck with me as it included lots of pathos, also known as, “emotional appeals” (349). While pathos is usually reserved for persuasive speeches, the speaker attacked a topic other than the one he was informing the audience on. He bent the parameters of the speech guidelines to gain the audience’s attention, but overall was better able to inform because of it. I am interested to see what the persuasive speeches bring, as I saw lots of persuasion in the informative speeches; statements such as “I believe that…” and “I think…” found their way into speeches that were not supposed to have any bias. Overall, we gave informative speeches but we have room to