Putting Theory Into Practice:

Evidence Exercise Solution

It's easier to find something if you're looking for it. Assume you're doing a speech with the Specific Purpose, "to persuade the audience to quit smoking cigarettes". Create an evidence strategy. Show how you could use each evidence type in your speech. There are several possible correct answers for this exercise. I've written one set of answers. You may have thought of others.

FACTUAL EXAMPLES (true specific instances)
1. a list of cancer causing agents in cigarette smoke
2. a list of famous Americans who died from smoking-related illnesses
3. a list of smoking-related illnesses

EXPANDED FACTUAL EXAMPLES (in-depth true stories)
1. find the true story of a person who died from a smoking-related illness after smoking for most of their life.
2. find the true story of a teenage smoker who contracted a smoking-related illness.
3. find the true story of someone who contracted a smoking-related illness from secondhand smoke
4. find the true story of the daily routine of an emphysema sufferer.

HYPOTHETICAL ILLUSTRATIONS (fictitious stories to prove perfect cases or predict the future)
1. determine how much money a two-pack-a-day smoker would save each year if s/he quit smoking
2. using statistics showing how much each cigarette shortens a person's life determine how much of his/her life a one pack-a-day smoker is losing each year.
3. explain the benefits to an individual if s/he quits smoking.
4. explain the likelihood of a one-pack-a-day smoker getting various smoking-related illnesses.

STATISTICS (facts expressed as numbers)
1. learn the amount of money spent by insurance companies for smoking-related illnesses.
2. learn how many young people begin smoking every day.
3. learn the average age at which a person begins smoking
4. learn how many people try and fail to quit smoking

TESTIMONY (quoting expert opinion)
1. quote an emphysema sufferer explaining how s/he began smoking and how s/he regrets the decision
2. quote the warming label on the side of a cigarette package
3. quote the Surgeon General or a doctor talking about the dangers of cigarette smoking
4. quote a teenager describing what it was like to see his/her parent die from lung cancer

LITERAL ANALOGIES (comparing things from the same class)
1. compare the number of deaths caused by smoking-related illnesses and AIDS.
2. compare average healthcare costs between a nonsmoker and a smoker

FIGURATIVE ANALOGIES (comparing things from different classes)
1. compare cigarette smoking to committing slow-motion suicide
2. divide the passenger occupancy of a fully-loaded Boeing 747 by the number of yearly smoking related illnesses deaths to show how many plane crashes would be necessary to equal a years worth of smoking-related deaths.