Locating Supporting Materials

 Identifying Types of Supporting Materials

Purpose:  To increase your familiarity with different types of supporting materials.

Instructions:  Go to the American Rhetoric website (americanrhetoric.com) and choose a speech from the Speech Bank. After checking out the speech, answer the following questions.

Questions:

1. What speech did you choose? List the speaker, title, location, and date of the speech.
2. List each type of supporting material—narratives, examples, definitions, testimony, facts and statistics—and indicate whether or not the speaker used that time. Give an example of each type of supporting material the speaker used.
3. How effective were the supporting materials the speaker uses? Explain your answer.
4. How did the supporting materials help the speaker achieve her or his specific purpose?
5. What have you learned about supporting materials that you’ll apply to your speeches in the future?