How to Give a Persuasive Speech with Emotional Appeal

When it comes to giving a persuasive speech, students, or speakers in general, need to understand the importance of ethos, pathos and logos. Pathos is the emotional appeal, and in today's society probably the most important characteristic to use when trying to be persuasive. Still, many speakers do not understand what pathos are, or how they should be used.

We often do things based not on logic or rationale but rather on emotion. If you know how to tap into that, your speech will become much more effective and persuasive. Fear, anger, love and friendship are some of the strongest emotions you can tap into.

It is important, however, to realize that the persuasive appeal should go hand in hand with the logical appeal, or logos. This is something that is not stressed nearly enough and something that speakers often forget. The truth is, while you can get someone to do something solely on emotion, without a logical appeal, it will probably come back to haunt you, especially if you are trying to get someone to do something unethical. You may win the battle but you will probably lose the war.

To make this point to my students, I like to show my class a clip from Disney's The Lion King. I show the scene where Scar convinces Simba to run away, following the death of Mufasa (Simba's father and Scar's brother). Simba, a lion cub, has just watched his father die. His father is trying to save Simba. The cub tells Scar he did not mean for this to happen. Scar responds by saying no one ever means for these things to happen but the fact is the King is dead and that if it were not for Simba (who is in the wrong place at the wrong time), he would still be alive.

I point out to my class that this statement is actually true. If Simba's life was not in danger, his father would not have been trying to save him and he would not have died. Therefore, Scar never lies, even though he is unethical. Scar has manipulated the situation to have Simba exactly where he wants him. Scar has manipulated the situation to have a stampede all ready to happen. Scar even has the ability to save his brother but does not do so. As a result, Simba is not told the whole truth. Still, in terms of persuasion, Scar is successful in getting what he wants.

Scar's unethical practices do come back to bite him in the end and cost him his life. This is the potential disaster we face when we are unethical in our emotional appeals, especially if not combined with the logical argument. Still, the scene shows how effective emotional appeals can be. Therefore, if giving a persuasive speech, use them, but use them correctly.