Giving a persuasive speech can be a difficult task, and one of the most challenging components is getting started. Selecting a persuasive speech topic requires consideration of your assignment requirements, audience and interests. Fortunately, there are a variety of subject areas from which you can choose.
Policy Topics
Police is one type of topic for a persuasive speech. These speeches attempt to persuade an audience that a policy needs to be implemented, repealed or changed...policies associated with the federal, state, county or city government, as well as various organizations and government-associated bodies, like school boards. Examples of topics might include immigration reform, sexual orientation discrimination laws, decreasing taxes, gun control, education funding, community service graduation requirements, adoption restrictions, trade regulation, healthcare reform, allowing women to serve on the frontlines of combat in the military, renewable energy requirements, or decreasing the drinking age. These arguments usually rely on hard data and expert opinions for support.
Lifestyle Topics
Another realm of persuasive speech topics includes anything related to lifestyle. A lifestyle-related topic aims to persuade audience members that they should adopt a certain change to their lifestyle based on personal, health, or societal benefits. Lifestyle topic ideas include recycling more frequently, quitting smoking, using suncreen, donating to Goodwill, boycotting an environmentally irresponsible company, carpooling, smiling more often, being a foster parent, volunteering, conserving water, eating right, exercising, printing responsibly, washing your hands, buying locally grown produce, joining a club, adopting pets, or investing in energy-efficient appliances. These are arguments that also usually rely on hard data or expert opinions for support.
Value Topics
A final area of persuasive speech topics is value. A values-based persuasion topic attempts to get people to sway their beliefs on a subject. Usually, these are ideas that cannot be proven or disproved, so it is challenging to actually cause a shift in opinion. Be careful when selecting value-based topics, as you may end up offending someone in your audience. Examples of topics that are values based or perceived as such include abortion, religion, ethics, good and evil, beauty, parenting, patriotism, or honor. Value-based topics are usually supported with testimony and limited expert opinions.
