Are you struggling to write your assignment for speech class?
Writing good persuasive speech topics will be necessary for the argument of your assignment, but this is not an easy feat.
This article is an ultimate guide on how to write the best persuasive speech topics! We will provide you with some ideas for your speech assignment. By the end of this article, you will have an extensive list of topics for speech in school, 20 opinion topics, and persuasive speech topics with call to action.
Ready to get started?
What is a Persuasive Speech?
Let’s start with basic details—what exactly is a persuasive speech?
A persuasive speech is a type of speech that is solely designed to convince audience members to accept the speaker’s point of view.
So, if you were given a topic on chocolate ice-cream, a persuasive speech would attempt to convince all your audience members that chocolate ice-cream is indeed the best flavor in the world.
Other examples of persuasive speeches include sales pitches, debates, legal proceedings, etc. Many persuasive speeches are a call to action, which tends to make these speeches exciting, engaging, and suspenseful.
Persuasive speeches can be formal or informal but must be arranged to have audience members convinced of the speaker’s perspective.
The components of a persuasive speech usually entail of logical and emotional appeals. The rational aspect of persuasive speeches presents a cohesive argument supporting the opinion or perspective of an issue; whereas, the emotional aspect of persuasive speeches seeks reactions from audiences to accept or reject a notion.
We would like to consider one more component because—why should people even believe your persuasive speech? According to the Greek philosopher, Aristotle, another additional component to speech that is important for influencing others is credibility. People must perceive you as knowledgeable, in control of your ideas, and demonstrate that you have critically constructed this perspective with consideration to all other insight and context.
In a way, persuasive speeches are getting the best of your audience members by pulling strings on their logic and on their emotions, all while conveying your credibility. Thus, to convince others through persuasive speeches is really a masterpiece of art.
Some say that the masterful art of persuasion is inherited at birth; while others need to acquire it through schooling, practice, and training. You will find that many budding politicians, students, and business entrepreneurs went through some degree of training to strive to master this skill because of its benefits, power, and practicality in applied settings.
If you are not someone who was “born” with the art of persuasion, do not fret! Practicing persuasive speeches is what makes this skill considerably strong in application, particularly if you are using this with a diverse set of audiences and across a variety of topics.
We will make sure to start you off right with our list of persuasive speech topics for speech in school in the section, 51 Examples of Good Persuasive Speech Topics.
What Types of Persuasive Speeches are There?
In the realm of persuasive speeches, there are three different types of speeches that serve different purposes. These include (1) policy persuasive speeches, (2) value persuasive speeches, and (3) factual persuasive speeches.
Let’s go into more detail about what each one is used for and what makes it distinct from the other.
1. Policy persuasive speeches are specific to policies, rules, or political candidates. Your purpose is to persuade the audience of your argument to support or reject an idea in this context.
For example, let’s say you’ve been given the topic of presidential policies since 2016. Your policy persuasive speech could point out all the policies and expectations that haven’t been delivered from 2016 to now, convincing your audience members of candidates who may fit the role to carry out such responsibilities better.
Other examples may include federal evaluators who present evidence to support for new policies. One evaluator in particular presented disparities in Medicaid data, which then led to new policies to present data on health disparities and ongoing quality control measures. The important thing to remember in policy persuasive speeches within this context is to stick to your evidence.
Here is another example of a policy persuasive speech portrayed in video.
2. Value persuasive speeches are considered more value driven than any form of evidence. With value persuasive speeches, you are focusing on the moral aspect of a particular issue, convincing your audience members about why something is wrong or right.
Value persuasive speeches can be tricky because these tend to be controversial since you are navigating a variety of people’s longstanding ethics and morality, which aren’t at all as consistent as we expect. For these types of arguments, it’s important to know your audience, but also maintain your value perspective from a moral stance.
Here is an example of a value persuasive speech portrayed in video.
3. Factual persuasive speeches refer to speeches that are simply based on facts. These speeches are typically based on a specific thesis or theory that explains how something happened or exists (or the complete opposite). As a speaker, you are presenting evidence to support your thesis rather than presenting values or opinions.
Factual persuasive speech usually includes persuasive speech topics with call to action. Factual persuasive speech is different from policy persuasive speech because there is no emotional appeal to the argument here. You are applying inductive reasoning to have audience members agree or come to the same point.
Here is an example of a factual persuasive speeches on the importance of laughter.
What Makes an Effective Persuasive Speech?
Now that we know about the variety of types of persuasive speeches, let’s discuss the effectiveness of persuasive speeches.
What makes an effective persuasive speech?
We’ve already talked about the importance of the logical and emotional appeal of your argument, along with your credibility as a speaker. However, the effectiveness of a persuasive speech also depends on various other factors that go beyond the words and topic of the speech.
Consider your audience. Every audience member has a particular set of values, way of thinking, and presumed assumptions or beliefs that have been reinforced throughout their childhood and perhaps even up to their adult life, regardless of whether these assumptions are true or false. In a persuasive speech, you must alter the perspectives of all these audience members.
Thus, the effectiveness of a persuasive speech can be deeply impacted by how willing people are to accept a new worldview.
Additionally, your credibility as a speaker moves beyond your words and appearing knowledgeable. Body language, voice, confidence level are all important factors driving effectiveness of persuasive speeches.
How to Write a Strong Persuasive Speech: 5 Tips
Based on the three essential components of a persuasive speech (logical appeal, emotional appeal, and credibility), we have made a brief list on 5 tips to help you write a strong persuasive speech.
1. Choose a topic that interests you or your passions so that you can be fully committed to researching this topic. This will increase the likelihood of writing a speech that is meaningful and successful.
2. While you are developing your speech, make it personal, connect to your life, provide real-world examples to personalize and reinforce the argument that is being communicated
3. Incorporate the perspective of your audiences. You will need to strategize your arguments around how the audience thinks, so make sure to be attentive to their experiences when writing your speech.
4. Know your topic inside and out. Research as much as you can about your topic, identifying both the pros and cons to understand the various perspectives of the issue. Consider practicing arguments for both sides of the issue to strengthen your knowledge about the topic; this will prepare you for any questions and heighten your critical assessment.
5. Identify a topic that is engaging, interesting, and aligns with current times. Strong persuasive speeches should be innovative and insightful, not done to death. Choosing an innovative topic will evoke more interest and thought-provoking reactions.
In terms of preparing to write a strong persuasive speech, we also wanted to provide you with the following set of questions to guide the structure.
What is the goal?
First, you want to identify your goals. What is your purpose? What function does this speech serve? Is it a persuasive speech topic with call to action? Or is it simply a factual persuasive speech?
Remember that each type of speech varies, so you’ll need to first identify your goals before initiating anything else.
What is the main idea or argument being made?
This question may seem obvious, but it’s important that you build around your main ideas or your main argument. You should have supporting details that either justify your argument or present alternate perspectives that tie back to the pros/cons of the idea. Make sure that your details are connected to the overarching point you are trying to communicate.
Where is the emotional appeal of the topic?
Recall that there needs to be an emotional appeal to persuasive speeches. As a speaker, you should consider how you have made the topic relevant to your audiences. Why should anyone care about what you’re talking about?
Make sure to establish that personal connection to create a strong and effective persuasive speech.
Where does evidence fit?
A strong persuasive speech uses evidence to support the basis of its argument. While you are welcome to pull strings on the emotional aspects of this evidence, we are strongly against the use of statements that are not grounded in evidence.
What sources are you using?
Good research uses plurality of sources to obtain diverse perspectives of the phenomenon being studied. In that same vein, consider using a diverse array of sources to support your persuasive speech.
Make sure to pull personal narratives, narratives that you asked other people about, academic journals, newsletters, community members, academic communities, etc. Collect as much as you can about the issue with diverse sources to really capture the essence of your issue/topic. This will definitely make for an effective persuasive speech.
139 Examples of Good Persuasive Speech Topics
Middle School Persuasive Speech Topic Examples
1. Why you should continue studying during the summer
2. Healthier lunch options for better students
3. Why hobbies outside of school are important
4. Using planners to do well in your homework
5. Keeping the community clean is important for our future
6. Girls should be allowed to play on the boys’ baseball teams
7. Video games should be used in classrooms
8. Reasons why taking good notes in class will improve your grades
10. Books are better than kindles
High School Persuasive Speech Topic Examples
1. Community service is important for college preparation
2. Reasons you should take Advanced Placement (AP) courses
3. Reasons why elective courses should be more flexible
4. Your grade point average (GPA) is more important than volunteering
5. The inequities in standardized testing in the U.S. school system
6. Reasons why civic engagement (voting) is important for our future
7. We should have green gardens in our high schools
8. Vegetarian diets better sources of protein
9. We should have anti-bullying campaigns every semester
10. Reasons why classes on anti-racism is important for high school students
College Persuasive Speech Topic Examples
1. How freedom of speech is connected to power and status
2. How culture plays a role in beliefs of vaccinations
3. Global warming impacts our entire well-being
4. Reasons why you should recycle
5. Going against the grain – why you should say no to more work
6. Women deserve equal pay rates
7. Should free college tuition be provided to low-income students?
8. Is online learning better than in-person classes?
9. Access to contraceptives on campus will decrease risks to sexual diseases
10. College institutions should be held more accountable for any discriminatory acts on campus
11. Smaller classes are more helpful than large classes
Arts Persuasive Speech Topic Examples
1. Music therapy can treat symptoms from anxiety
2. Paper books are better than electronic kindles
3. Diversity in arts is an ongoing issue
4. Graffiti is influential in urban settings
5. Tattoos are related to forms of self-expression
6. Music can help delay symptoms related to Alzheimer’s
7. How art can bring communities together
8. Local artists are the best artists for murals and commissioned art
9. Art influences all types of design from engineering to fashion
10. History of art should begin with products from indigenous people
11. Listening to classical music can enhance your cognitive abilities
12. How art can improve your mental health
Cultural Persuasive Speech Topic Examples
1. Cultural beliefs: Haiti’s perception of mental illness
2. The cultural practice of female genital mutilation: Reasons why it should be stopped
3. How cultural appropriation can erase cultural origins
4. The benefits of learning about diverse cultures outside of your own
5. The value of cultural responsiveness in school and the workplace
6. Subcultures are deviant
Education Persuasive Speech Topic Examples
1. Hispanic serving institutes should receive more funding to support minority students
2. Reasons why it is important to stop the school to prison pipeline
3. Universal curriculums in education ignore cultural context
4. Diversity in teachers is crucial for minority student success
5. There are more positive than negative effects from affirmative action
6. Community college is as good as any college
7. Everyone should go to college
8. School curriculums should not include religion
Law Persuasive Speech Topic Examples
1. The narratives supporting immigration policies are harmful
2. Puerto Rico should become a state
3. Presidents should not be allowed to serve two terms in a row
4. Legalized prostitution can improve the economy
5. Prisoners with no recidivism should have their voting rights reinstated
6. There is a strong need to deliver evidence-based mental health services in the prison system
7. Some laws are antiquated and should be dispelled from our policies
8. There should be free health services for all people
9. Gun policies are integral in gun violence
10. Transgender people should have legal protection against discrimination
11. Addressing homelessness from a policy perspective
12. There is discrimination in housing policies
13. Reasons why we should get rid of the death penalty
Literary Persuasive Speech Topic Examples
1. Learning language through classical literature is important
2. Some of the greatest literary pieces reflect racist ideals
3. The challenges in censoring literature
4. Why we should read beyond Shakespeare
5. Reading is good for your overall health
Medicine Persuasive Speech Topic Examples
1. Holistic approaches in medicine are better for your overall well-being
2. There are inequities in how the medical system benefits some groups over others
3. Lack of access to health information increases health disparities
4. Doctors should be trained in cultural responsiveness
5. The importance of funding for the World Health Organization during pandemics
6. Instances when assisted suicide is appropriate
7. Vegetarian diets are better for your health
8. Diabetes can impact your work performance
9. You can overcome illness without medication
10. Healthy food products are too expensive
Political Science Persuasive Speech Topic Examples
1. Cultural norms can influence politics in different ways across countries
2. The pros of political scandals
3. How revolutionary movements create social change
4. No one should own nuclear weapons
5. Reasons why democratic parties have more minority voters
6. How capitalism can harm a country
7. How Brexit can help the UK’s economy
8. The pros of raising taxes to stimulate an economy
9. Why student loans should be forgiven
10. How non-profit organizations have more legislative responsibility in impoverished communities
Psychology Persuasive Speech Topic Examples
1. Mental health inequities can be minimized if community-based organizations collaborated
2. Taking a strengths-based approach to underserved communities
3. DSMV is not inclusive of context
4. Why positive psychology and meditation is better than punishment
5. Freud had it wrong all along
6. Why we should consider intersectionality in psychology
7. Genetics over culture—explaining origin of psychological disorders
8. There is unfair treatment in our healthcare system
9. Experimenting with animals is unethical
10. Youth perspectives should be integrated into treatment
11. Therapy is not the only answer—alternative forms of psychological treatment
Religion Persuasive Speech Topic Examples
1. Spiritual capital can be a source of resilience
2. Missionary visions are modern-day colonialism
3. Prayer should be practiced freely in schools
4. Trans-people should be allowed to be priests
5. Religious slaughter of animals is inhumane
6. Church should be separate from state in all policies
7. The immorality of “superchurches”
8. Religion is politicized in presidential elections as a means for control
9. Reasons why we should challenge traditional roles to support women’s spirituality
10. Religions should change their practices to reflect current times
11. There is no superior religion
Sociology Persuasive Speech Topic Examples
1. There are significant gender differences in spatial awareness
2. Social norms can share your self-esteem
3. Gender stereotypes: A woman‘s independence is not determined by her caretaking qualities
4. Working women are better mothers
5. Deviant behavior can be rehabilitated
6. Why groupthink behaviors are dangerous for democracy
Technology and Innovation Persuasive Speech Topic Examples
1. Technology plays a critical role in social distancing
2. Without technology, innovations would no longer exist
3. Current medical technology is exceedingly replacing human body parts
4. Virtual reality technology should be used in patients with dementia
5. How technology is diminishing writing classes
6. The dangers of social media for young children
7. Using social media for good
8. Environmental benefits from electric cars
9. Net Neutrality threatens our freedom of speech
10. There are more lucrative careers in technology than any other field
World History Persuasive Speech Topic Examples
1. Indigenous histories should be voiced not ignored
2. Some holidays are more harmful than others
3. Reasons why you should not celebrate Columbus Day
4. Laws in Nigeria need to value women more
5. Plagues and hygiene: Why we should implement best hygienic practices to prevent history from happening again
6. Wars are ongoing hangovers of the colonial mind
Wrapping Things Up: The Best Persuasive Speech Topics
Phew! That was an extensive list! We hope that we’ve persuaded you to use our guide to develop the best persuasive speech topics for school and beyond. At this point, you should have a firm grasp on what persuasive speeches entail, how to write effective topics for speech in school and have options to select from to write persuasive speech topics with call to action.
The important thing to remember is that logic, emotion, and credibility are critical components of your persuasive speech, taking into consideration the speech topic, your overall appearance and behavior, and your audience’s interpretation of it all. Stay attentive and engaged to your environment to create effective speeches for impact.
If you enjoyed this post, you may like our post on good research paper topics here.
