A Starter List of Persuasive Speech Topics

You have considered your audience, evaluated your objectives, and you know what you want to persuade them to do/think/or feel with you speech. But what topic do you choose that would best suit your purposes and their needs? What will appeal to them? I can't answer that question for you, because it is entirely dependent on the specific group that you will be addressing. I can, however, give you a short starter list to get the ideas flowing. So without further ado, here is a short list of possible persuasive speech topics.

• Abused Women
• Acid Rain
• Adoption
• Age Discrimination
• Anorexia Nervosa
• Ballot Initiatives/Electronic Voting
• Bermuda Triangle
• Biodiversity
• Body Piercings
• Censorship
• Cloning
• Curfews
• Creationism vs. Evolution (Choose one side to argue)
• Depression
• Espionage and Intelligence Gathering
• Gambling
• Home Schooling
• Homelessness
• Inner City Poverty
• Internet Chatrooms
• Islamic fundamentalism
• Legal System
• Media Violence
• Medicine Abuse
• Nuclear Technology
• Physician-Assisted Suicide
• Racial Profiling
• Reproductive Technologies
• School Uniforms
• Single Parent Families
• Space Exploration
• Transportation
• Urban Terrorism
• War on Drugs
• Women in the Military
• World Trade

There you go: 36 suggestions for your consideration as you go about choosing your speech topic. Use one of them, or let the ideas presented here be a springboard to choosing a persuasive speech topic better suited to your presentation.