Credibility is a highly important and essential aspect of a persuasive speech, which is aimed to convince an audience to agree with a certain statement or opinion. One of the most critical special considerations is the authority of a speaker, which can be substantiated by the trust of the audience and the confidence of a persuader. In other words, listeners need to respect a speaker in order for a speech being persuasive. For example, some individuals might already have established trust through their previous credentials and reputation, which means that they only need to worry about the speech itself. However, for fairly unknown presenters, where an audience is not aware or familiar with a speaker, the latter needs to earn the listeners’ respect and trust by being confident and exhibiting authority over the subject matter. Such confidence can be derived from a speech’s introduction and organization and a clear problem statement outlining. In addition, a person can also establish authority and earn an audience’s respect by revealing his or her credentials and qualifications.
Therefore, there are two major elements of persuasive speaking, which are a speech and the speaker himself or herself. It is evident that a speech needs to be well-organized with a proper flow of ideas and identification of the problems as well as potential solutions. For example, a person with high levels of authority might lose his or her initial credibility if a speech is disorganized with logical loopholes or unclear statements, which means that there are no “logos.” In addition, a speaker himself or herself needs to exhibit some form of confidence and authority to an audience by either stating his or her credentials or by expressing self-confidence. A person without confidence might appear and be perceived as untrustworthy, but overconfidence can also be damaging and hinder the persuasiveness of a speech.