When you're trying to convince someone using a rhetorical speech, you have very little time to accomplish your goal—usually less than 15 minutes before your audience is likely to become distracted by other thoughts. In those few minutes, you must grab your audience's attention, hold it, and get your listeners thinking or feeling the way you do about the topic.
Like an essay, a speech needs three essential parts to be successful. You can think of these sections as the beginning, middle, and end; but they generally go by these names: hook, body, and clincher. As you can probably tell, the part of a speech designed to "grab" listeners' attention is the hook. The clincher, of course, "clinches" the deal, appearing at the very end of a speech. The body is everything in between and includes all of the reasoning and rhetoric used to persuade listeners.
Listen to these examples from each section of Trevor's speech.
| The Hook | |
| The Body | |
| The Clincher |
Question
What rhetorical device does Trevor use to start his speech?
a rhetorical question
Question
Does the excerpt from the body of the speech represent rhetoric, reasoning, or both?
This excerpt appeals strongly to listeners' emotions using provocative, dramatic language. It's an example of rhetoric, not reasoning.
