Every day we are bombarded by persuasive messages. Some messages are mediated and designed to get us to purchase specific products or vote for political candidates, while others might come from our loved ones and are designed to get us to do things: help around the house, join them for a night out, or agree with them. Whatever the message being sent, we are constantly being persuaded and endeavoring to persuade others. In this course, we will focus on persuasive speaking: what is it? How can we recognize persuasive speeches/essays/texts from other types of texts? How is it structured? What are the organizational patters for making a successful or a failing persuasive case? For this reason, we will revisit the types of claims, the types of proof including ethos, pathos, and logos in more detail and consider several common flaws in reasoning, called argumentative fallacies The nature of persuasion has changed over the last fifty years as a result of the influx of new communication technology. People are inundated by persuasive messages in today’s world, so thinking about how to create persuasive messages effectively is very important for modern public speakers. Conversely, by learning how to make effective persuasive arguments, we become better auditors of others’ persuasive appeals.