analyze two speeches 250 to 280 words total

describe the speeches you chose and whether or not they are informative or persuasive in nature. Explain why you believe the speeches you chose are informative or persuasive. Don’t forget t use concepts from Lesson 5.

After discussing your chosen speeches, share with us if you think it’s possible to present a purely informative speech without any bias or without using elements of persuasion? Why or why not?

I attached the two speeches I want you to study and it could be found online as mp4

example of one student analysis for different speeches.

For my week 4 assignment, One of the speeches I chose to listen to and analyze Ronald Reagan’s 40th Anniversary of D Day speech. In my opinion this was an informative speech. I believe it was an informative speech because it was explanatory in nature, it was organized by using chronological and casual processes. The reasons i think it was organized “casually” was because at one point President Reagan explained why we entered into WW2 (i.e. protecting and defending democracy). To also support the casual organization he uses some logic by showing support for the USA and allied forces as they were doing the right thing by fighting tyranny. Throughout different portions of the body of the speech it was explained in chronological order (i.e. the Rangers story). It also seems like this speech would be a “Special Occasion Speech” as the President is honoring our heroes of WW2, he was sincere and maybe the goal wasn’t to invoke an emotional response, but he did. These points are the reasons why I think the speech is organized as a Informative speech.

In my opinion, you could not make this a persuasive speech. The President is not trying to persuade anything in this speech (except maybe our WW2 heroes were more brave and courageous than we think.) His audience is already on the same side of the topic as he is, otherwise they probably would not have attended. Of course this speech was heavily invoked with bias, what kind of president wouldn’t root for his own team. The speech definitely invoked an emotional response from me. It must be stressful speaking in front of the world’s leaders and not even be able to use notecards hahaha.

The Other speech i chose to analyze was President Nixons Resignation Address to the Nation. This was a tricky one. It is an informative speech, but a lot of it is persuasive. But the overall thesis statement leads me to believe it is an informative speech. The first portion of the speech is him giving a brief preview of what is happening, he is resigning due to the watergate investigation, and the Vice President will be sworn in. However towards the end of the speech he begins to tell the people of America “he has never been a quitter” and try to persuade the audience that he has served his duty as President honorably (which is logos), and of course he was bias. In my opinion, this speech should have been a bit shorter and got the point across that he was resigning and the official business, then have a personal speech for defending himself for a separate time.

Overall both speeches were good reads. It was nice being able to connect all the different speech techniques from lesson 5 to the speeches.