Six Minutes Speaking and Presentation Skills

Your guide to be a condent and effective speaker

Article Category: Speechwriting

17 Easy Ways to Be a More Persuasive Speaker

by Andrew Dlugan

The previous article in the Ethos, Pathos, and Logos series

dened logos and described why logical arguments are so
important for your presentations.

Okay, thats all very good in theory, but do we need to be

logical masters to build high logos?

No, not at all.

In this article, we examine simple techniques you can use in

your presentations to be more persuasive by improving your
logos.

General Strategies for Improving

Your Logos
In the last article, we identied, three general principles that
you can adopt to improve your logos:

1. Make it Understandable
Can your audience understand you? Or have they only
absorbed half of your points?
2. Make it Logical
Do your arguments make sense? Or do you require
your audience to make an extreme leap of faith? How easy is it Three Pillars of Public Speaking
for your audience to connect the dots?
3. Make it Real 1. Ethos, Pathos, Logos -
Introduction
Concrete and specic tends to win over abstract and general. 2. Ethos - Speaker Credibility
What is Ethos?
Well now look at 17 specic techniques derived from these three How to Establish Ethos
general strategies. 3. Pathos - Emotional Connection
You may wish to compare to techniques in previous articles: What is Pathos?
How to Develop Pathos
15 ways to improve ethos 4. Logos - Logical Argument
18 ways to improve pathos What is Logos?
How to Convey Logos

Make it Understandable
If your audience doesnt understand you, they cant be persuaded by you. To be an effective
communicator, youve rst got to be a clear communicator. To be a clear communicator, you must use
words, phrases, examples, and visuals that are understandable, and youve got to deliver them at a pace
that the audience can absorb.

How can you do this? Let us count some ways

#1: Use plain language.

Use words that your audience uses. Avoid technical jargon that your audience (or a portion of your
audience) isnt familiar with.

Favor short words and phrases over long and convoluted counterparts. Dont imitate the language you
might nd in a legal transcript or an academic paper. Technical language is necessary for those contexts,
but it isnt helpful in a conversation or presentation.

Note that plain language doesnt mean boring language. Use vivid and descriptive language where
appropriate.

#2: Be explicit.
Your audience should not need a decoder ring to
gure out your message. It should be obvious. Spell To be an effective communicator, youve rst
it out if necessary. Make sure you are not got to be a clear communicator.
misinterpreted.

It is particularly important to make the connection

between premises and conclusions explicit. Because is a magic word for this purpose: Because premise
A and premise B, we can see that conclusion must be true.

If your arguments involve more than a couple premises, be sure your audience sees the relationship
between them. And these ve advantages capital costs, scheduling, inventory control, marketing, and
employee satisfaction together make this a winning proposal.

#3: Trace sequences or processes in order.

To help your audience understand a sequence or process, march through the steps or phases in a
meaningful order, usually sequential. If you jump around the steps out of order, your audience will be
confused.

As the number of steps increases, so does the need to use a diagram for clarity.

#4: Use diagrams.

Carefully crafted and focused diagrams almost always enhance the understandability of your arguments.
It doesnt matter if you draw in PowerPoint, on a white board, or on the back of a napkin it only matters
that you clarify concepts for your audience.

But, be careful not to introduce an unnecessarily complex diagram. In the worst case, a busy diagram or
one with lots of irrelevant details will frustrate your audience and diminish your understandability.

#5: Use charts.

Like diagrams, a carefully crafted chart or graph will speak volumes and clarify a previously fuzzy
relationship.

Remember the warning about unnecessary complexity applies to charts too.

#6: Use progressive disclosure.

Suppose the diagram (or chart) which best explains the concepts is a complex one. What then?

In nearly all cases, it should be possible to use

progressive disclosure. This means that you build up
It doesnt matter if you draw in PowerPoint,
the entire diagram (or chart) progressively as a
on a white board, or on the back of a napkin
series of chunks, revealing only a part of the overall
it only matters that you clarify concepts for
diagram at a time. If you are drawing the diagram as
your audience.
you speak, you are inherently using progressive
disclosure. (You draw a few lines, explain what
youve drawn, draw a few more, explain again, and
repeat.) This is easy to do with PowerPoint too.

#7: Use comparisons, analogies, and metaphors.

Whenever you introduce new concepts, search for an appropriate analogy which helps the audience
understand the new concept in terms of how they already understand the old one.

Make it Logical
Okay, your audience understands what you are saying, but does what you are saying make sense?

Does it pass the logical tests which your audience will be applying subconsciously?
#8: Leverage audience commonplaces.
Commonplaces often provide the most stable foundation for your argument. Its a good ideas to start
with these because your audience already believes them and build the remainder of your argument
outward.

In a similar manner, framing the issue from your audiences perspective is a great way to be more
persuasive.

#9: Ask questions, and get your audience thinking.

Questions engage your audience and make them active participants in the
conversation. Rather than passively waiting for you to provide answers, theyll be
contributing to the answers as you go. As a result, they will collectively feel
ownership when you move toward conclusions. In the best case, they will feel that
they came to the conclusions themselves a sure way to guarantee your
persuasiveness.

#10: Address the opposing point of view, and refute it.

On the surface, it seems foolish to bring up the opposing arguments. What if your audience didnt think of
that? Now youve just planted a seed of doubt!

On the contrary, bringing up opposing arguments makes you seem unbiased and boosts your ethos.
(You must be trustworthy; you are pointing out your opposition!) Further, and more importantly, it allows
you to directly refute the opposing arguments with logical arguments of your own.

#11: Emphasize the points of most value to audience

Unless you are using only perfect, irrefutable facts as premises, and making a purely deductive argument
(where the conclusions follow immediately from premises), there are going to be holes in your inductive
argument. (This doesnt mean youve done a poor job. Inductive arguments have uncertainties by
denition.)

Since your presentation has a nite length, you must make choices how to best spend your time. You will
be most effective if you devote the majority of your presentation to discuss the issues of primary interest
to your audience.

Make it Real
Concrete and specic details improve the strength of your arguments, and thus make your overall
message more persuasive.
Explaining the theory behind why your new solution will raise prots is a good start; sharing a story about
a company which raised prots 17% by adopting your solution is much stronger.

#12. Use props or photographs.

Talking about something in abstract terms is good, but using real objects or photographs carries more
logos. Visual evidence is very hard to refute.

#13: Use vivid details.

Personal stories and anecdotes carry more
In lieu of photographs, you can make your claims logos than stories or anecdotes which
more real by supplying vivid details. happened to a friend of mine.

#14: Use facts and statistics.

Assigning numbers adds to the impact.

Compare the following statements:

Every year, many people die of cancer.

Every year, 3000 people in our community die of cancer.
Which one of these statements is more likely to persuade your audience to contribute money to cancer
research?

#15: Cite your sources.

A statistic may be accurate, but without citing a source, your audience may dismiss it. By citing a source,
you tip the scale towards believability.

(The credibility of your source is also important, but that is more closely related to ethos.)

#16: Use real examples and case studies.

You can construct convincing arguments about theories and ideas, but your audience will be left to
wonder whether the theory holds in reality. Real examples and case studies show that the theory works
in the real world.

#17: Use personal stories and anecdotes.

A personal story combines the power of a real example with that of a Three Pillars of Public Speaking
cited source. Assuming you are a credible source, personal stories and
1. Ethos, Pathos, Logos -
anecdotes carry more logos than stories or anecdotes which Introduction
2. Ethos - Speaker Credibility
happened to a friend of mine. What is Ethos?
How to Establish Ethos
 3. Pathos - Emotional Connection
What do you think? What is Pathos?
How to Develop Pathos
The techniques listed here are far from complete. There are other ways 4. Logos - Logical Argument
What is Logos?
to improve your logical arguments and your persuasive effectiveness.
How to Convey Logos
What other techniques do you use?

When you are in the audience, what qualities of the presentation make you more likely to judge it to be a
sound argument?

Please share your ideas in the comments.

Please share this...

5

This is one of many public speaking articles featured on Six Minutes.

Subscribe to Six Minutes for free to receive future articles.

Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads
seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an
award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband
who resides in British Columbia, Canada.
Google+: Andrew Dlugan
Twitter: @6minutes

Image credit: Temple of Castor and Pollux by Brian Jeffery Beggerly (CC BY 2.0)

Six Minutes Copyright 2007-2017 All Rights Reserved.

Read our permissions policy, privacy policy, or disclosure policy.

Comments? Questions? Contact us.