Choosing the right persuasive speech topics is not that easy. It requires a lot of research, data, evidence, and, of course, persuasion skills.
Since your main goal is to convince your audience with your speech, you need to choose a topic you can work with, a topic you are comfortable and knowledgeable about.
So with that in mind, we have created this guide to help you pick the right persuasive speech topics.
Table of Contents
What are the best persuasive speech topics?
Thanks to the internet, choosing the right persuasive speech topics has never been easier. There are a lot of subjects to choose from given that vast information is now accessible for everyone.
With just a quick search on the internet, you can access information and data from hundreds of years ago up to the present. In that case, we have listed a few topics that might be worth considering.
Education
- Why English should not be the medium of instruction for non-native English speaking countries
- Should sex education be taught differently in Catholic schools?
- Why filing taxes and financial literacy should be taught in school
- Should the curriculum for elementary students be geared more about learning morals, values, and ethics?
- Why online learning should be promoted
- Is it time to rethink the standardized testing
- Why home economics should be a mandatory class
- Should we abolish private schools?
- Why school lunch should be free
- Should we get rid of school uniforms?
- Why remedial classes should be free
Business and economy
- Why interns should get paid
- Should working from home be the new standard?
- Why you should buy local products more
- Should we tax the rich more?
- Why minimum wage should be increased
- Should the retirement age be lowered?
- Why insurance should not be tied with employment
- Should transportation benefits be included in an employee’s payroll?
- Why outsourcing IT is the best choice
- Tax should be included in the price before check out
Arts and culture
- Why classical music appreciate should be promoted in school
- Should traditions be preserved and continued?
- Why museums should not be privatized
- Graffiti is art, not vandalism
- Should all students learn a musical instrument in school
- Appealing to kids and teens through the counterculture
- Why superstitions are part of our culture
Food
- GMOs are not bad for health
- Why you should rinse rice before cooking
- MSG myth
- Should fast-food chains be calorie capped?
- Juice is as bad as soda
- Why you should buy your vegetable on your local market instead of the grocery store
- Not all processed foods are unhealthy
- Why you should not avoid fat altogether?
- Rethink your source of vitamins: choose food over pills
- Is carbonated water bad for you?
Science
- Rethinking our source of energy with nuclear
- Why we should not bring extinct species back
- How recycling and using green products makes a big difference
- Why fracking is bad for the environment
- Should we put an end to ocean noise pollution altogether?
- Why space stations should handle their waste more effectively
- Humans are the major cause of global warming
- Why we should switch to organic fertilizer
- Gene editing is not all bad
- Why we should fund more research
Politics
- Why the electoral college should be abolished
- Assimilation should be stop
- Why every politician should have a grassroots campaign
- Data transparency in the government
- Why plurality voting is bad
- Immunity for politicians should be abolished
- Why political parties should not be affiliated with big corporations or enterprise
- Death penalty should be abolish
- Why we should legalize abortion
- Jury duties should not be mandatory
Sports
- Why professional wrestlers should have better insurance
- NCAA should pay college athletes
- Why female athletes should be paid the same as male athletes
- Should female athletes be allowed to compete against male athletes?
- Why college athletes should also have insurance
- Olympics should just be held in one location every time
- Why taxpayers should not have to fund hosting the Olympics
Technology
- Why it is impossible to build a 100% efficient machine
- Should all schools replace books with tablets
- Why governments should regulate AI
- Should social media profile be considered in the hiring process
- Why electric cars should be more affordable
- Internet access should be free
- Why we should switch to digital payments
- All keyboards should have braille
- Why internet addiction is real
- Bio-inspired machines and engineering should be promoted
Animals
- Why great white sharks should not be put in an aquarium
- Should pets be allowed in school
- Why we should not flush or dump your pet fish
- Elephants should not be in zoos
- Why it is better to adopt a pet from an animal shelter
- Pets should not be a surprise birthday present
- Why we should not domesticate animals
- Justifying clinical trials on animals
- Why hunting for sport is unethical
- Trophy hunting is not conservation
Medicine and health
- Why euthanasia should be legal
- Should we continue to use placebos in clinical trials?
- Why we should legalize marijuana
- Obesity is a disease, not a behavior or cosmetic concern
- Why vaccination should be mandatory
- Insulin should be affordable
- Why everyone should learn CPR
- Micronutrient deficiencies can be alleviated by food education
- Why all hospitals should have helicopter ambulances
- Dietician/nutritionist’s visit should be treated equally important as a doctor’s visit
Religion
- Separation of Church and state
- Religious traditions are part of our culture
- Why religious organization should pay taxes
- Should women be allowed to become priests?
- Religious wear should not be banned by any institution or organization
- Why religious holiday should be honored at the workplace
- Anyone can become a saint
- Why children should choose their own religion
- Banning certain religious practice is a human rights violation
- Why work with religious communities
Others
- Is it time to ditch the daylight saving time?
- Why the stock market is similar to gambling
- Should the government have access to our data?
- Why should we abolish beauty pageants?
- Prisoners should be allowed to vote
- Why the age of criminal responsibility must be raised
- Should assisted suicide be legalized?
- Why the wealthy should give back to society
- Should it be mandatory for immigrants to learn the country’s language?
- Why the media should be independent?
How do you choose a topic?
Every time I pick a speech topic, I always think about the topic that I really care about.
Like the time I wrote my speech on lessening ocean noise pollution, I was interested in the marine ecosystem during that time.
Aside from that, I also pick this topic out of convenience. I figured, since I already read several books and watched many documentaries about the marine ecosystem, the research and writing process would be a walk in the park.
With that, my best suggestion is to identify several topics you cared about and then pick the best persuasive speech topics out of all of them.
Turning your topic into persuasive speech
Once you single out the best persuasive speech topics, the next best thing to do is to assess your knowledge on the subject.
By doing this, you would be able to narrow down your topic and, oftentimes, even find a subtopic that would make your persuasive speech more specific and relevant.
Most of the time, the topics you initially laid out are not specific enough or not fitted with the type of speech that you want to write.
In my case, lessening ocean noise pollution is not the first thing that came to my mind.
Initially, I just listed marine ecosystems as one of the plausible persuasive speech topics that I want to write about. After I assessed all the knowledge I know about the marine ecosystem, I figured lessening ocean noise pollution is the perfect persuasive speech topic for me.
When I listed down the plausible persuasive speech topics about the marine ecosystem, I noticed that lessening ocean noise pollution has a lot of research-backed data readily available.
For that reason, I choose it as the main subject for my persuasive speech.
Writing the speech
Do your research
Once you picked a specific topic for your persuasive speech, you now need to do a lot of research about it. It is important to get the latest and most updated facts first so that you would know the topic from inside out.
A few things I learned when I studied journalism is to gather information based on the 5 W’s and 1 H questions.
In order to have a better overview as well as an understanding of the topic, I try to establish and build a foundation on my topic by answering the Who, What, When Where, Why, and How questions about it.
Provide anecdotes
Given that it is a persuasive speech, there is no better way to convince and make your audience more trusting of you than providing anecdotes they can relate to.
By doing this, you would be able to elicit an emotional or sympathetic response from them. This, in turn, materializes your claims and puts your topic into perspective.
For example, if your persuasive speech topic is about quitting smoking, then you can provide an anecdote about a close relative who died from second-hand smoke.
This would make your speech more memorable. At the same time, the audience would be more convinced and inclined to follow your advice to quit smoking.
Resonate with the audience
Resonance is one of the surefire ways to strike a chord and build a connection with your audience.
So when you are writing your speech, you should take into account who your audience is. This way, you would be able to tune and tailor-fit your speech to them.
One of the things I liked to check whenever I write my speech is how specific it is, how useful it is, and how my audience can relate to it.
This way, my audience can understand the importance of my topic and, at the same time, I have a better chance of convincing them with my speech.
End with a recommendation
Given that it is a persuasive speech, you should close it with a call to action or recommendation.
A great persuasive speaker explains and tells his audience their role.
When you write your speech, you should clearly state your audience’s responsibility and how they can contribute and make a difference.
The call to action does not have to be specific, but you have to give your audience something to work with. It can be some information, inspiration, or just a guide that they can use in order to really make a difference.
A good rule of thumb when writing a persuasive speech is to establish a problem first and then make recommendations towards the end on how the problem can be fixed.
Conclusion
Hopefully, we managed to provide you with some killer persuasive speech topics. Apart from the ones we suggested above, there are several topics that you can work on and write a persuasive speech about.
To backtrack a bit, we have listed and discussed the following:
- What are the best persuasive speech topics?
- How do you choose a topic?
- Turning your topic into persuasive speech
- Writing the speech
Remember that picking the right topic could make or break your speech.
Todd VanDuzer
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