Question

"To persuade my audience to volunteer regularly in their community and to join the Peace Corps after college" is a poorly phrased specific purpose statement for a classroom speech because it__________________________.

Answer 1

Answer:

"To persuade my audience to volunteer regularly in their community and to join the Peace Corps after college" is a poorly phrased specific purpose statement for a classroom speech because it contains more than one specific idea.

Explanation:

In speech writing, we must determine both the general and the specific purpose of our speech before even commencing to write it. A speech can have three types of general purpose: to inform, to persuade/motivate, and to entertain. After deciding on that, we must move on to our specific purpose by taking into consideration our audience, the topic we wish to convey, why we wish to convey it, how we wish etc. Even though we should take all those things into consideration, the specific purpose statement should be concise and focus on one idea. If you double up on ideas, you are probably having a hard time truly deciding what your speech is about. Making a speech too broad is an almost sure way to not get the attention and the results desired.

That is the mistake in the statement, "To persuade my audience to volunteer regularly in their community and to join the Peace Corps after college." The speaker's general purpose is clearly to persuade. But it would be best if he focused on one of those two specific ideas. His speech will have better chances to accomplish its purpose. For instance, an improved option would be simply:

- To persuade my audience to volunteer regularly in their community.