Jill

In my Fundamentals of Oral Communication class we were taught these exact methods in giving speeches. To fully relate this to Aristotle's tactics, I will tell of my persuasion speech. I gave a speech on eating disorders and how the media encourages eating disorders in women. In my invention or construction of my argument, I showed how statistics of eating disorders had risen from the past to now. I also showed examples of advertisements with skinny models which the youth of our day and women of our day expect themselves to look like. With these examples, I failed to show a contrast of advertisements of the past or possible advertisements of the future. I did show that through using perfect bodies in advertisements, we had glorified this part of our nature over other more important things. In my arrangement, I gave an interesting story to catch the audience's attention, then I shared that I had credibility because I had struggled with an eating disorder and so had my sister and best friend. I stated my purpose to make my audience aware of the effect of the media and to stop the glorification of perfect bodies. I did not reveal my main point at the end, rather I ended with examples of what we could do. My style contained vivid examples with the actual advertisements and stories of those who had suffered. I spoke in everyday language, but failed to create fresh metaphors. I spoke candidly, which was easier by not memorizing my speech--this contrasts with Aristotle's encouragement of memory. It's amazing that Aristotle's speech techniques are still being taught in classrooms today.