7.3 Assessing Arguments and Credibility

Learning Objectives

1. Clarify why it is important to use support for every claim made within a speech.
2. Describe how to assess if your claim is properly supported.
3. Explain how you can avoid errors in reasoning.
4. Apply techniques to establish credibility while giving your speech.

In the final phase of your research and reasoning, you must assess your arguments and solidify your audience-centric credibility.

Assessing Your Argument

Support Claims

It may seem obvious to say it, but you have to support your claims. Each point that you have decided to make that is critical to achieving your specific purpose requires valid, relevant, and accurate support.

Ethical Consideration

Ethical considerations are practical tools in creating strong arguments. Especially for a topic you are incredibly passionate about, you may find yourself leaning toward evidence that supports your claims – and ignoring those that reject it. Support manipulation occurs when a speaker goes out of their way to mislead an audience, despite the overwhelming majority of evidence indicating the exact opposite of their desired outcome. If you must, honestly represent the whole landscape of proof, even when some of it complicates your position.

Review your arguments to confirm they will not mislead the audience.

Table 7.4: Ethical considerations when creating strong arguments

Evidence Selection	Evidence Quality	Logical Connection	Transparency
Do not overlook significant factors or individuals related to your topic. Do not ignore evidence that does not support your speech’s specific purpose.	Do not use out-of-date evidence that is no longer supported. Do not knowingly use evidence from a source that is clearly biased. Do not use evidence out of its original context.	Do not jump to conclusions that are not justified based on the supporting evidence you have. Do not use evidence to support faulty logic. Do not use a disjointed reasoning pattern.	Make sure you can clearly cite all your supporting evidence.

Try It! AI Debate: Comparing Arguments For and Against Your Topic 

Wrap-Up: AI is persuasive, but not impartial. Strong communicators use it to brainstorm, not blindly trust it. Always ask:

• What perspectives are missing?
• Who benefits from this argument?
• How can I make this reasoning more ethical, inclusive, and evidence-based?

Avoiding Errors in Reasoning – Six Questions

In general, problems in reasoning are referred to as fallacies. An inference is correct at first, but when you inspect, you discover a significant flaw. It could be broad – the audience simply disagrees with your claim – or it could be very specific to a logical point. In most cases, a fallacy is an inference regarded as “unreasonable by a broad and diverse audience of listeners exercising their best critical judgment” (Zarefsky & Engels, 2019)

1. Does your claim follow the supporting material? That is, could a careful Google search confirm the connection? Probably not. In the example below, both the claim and the supporting material are correct, but no reasoning bridges the gap.

“Because our city’s population has grown by 15% in the past decade, we should switch to renewable energy sources.”

2. Does your supporting material simply restate your claim? Are you saying the same thing, only in different words? That’s called making a circular argument.

“We should ban cell phones in classrooms because mobile devices shouldn’t be allowed during instruction time.”

3. Does your claim even relate to your speech topic? While some information is interesting, it could actually be distracting and take your audience down the wrong path. That’s commonly referred to as a red herring – technically ignoring the question, not a good use of anyone’s time and energy!

“Our government should invest in building a public transportation system because citizens in many other countries enjoyed theirs.”

4. Does your reasoning have multiple meanings? If your language is unequivocal, your speech is in the clear. If your supporting material includes a testimony from a local politician claiming “no tax increases,” the potential for questioning begins. Which taxes? Whose taxes?

“Merging the four elementary schools into one central location will eliminate operational and maintenance costs in several small towns, therefore balance the budget of the school district without increasing property taxes or lowering the educational experiences our children receive.”

5. Does your argument treat probability as certainty? Overstating your case by presenting debatable claims as absolute facts from beginning to end risks losing the audience’s buy-in.

“Raising the minimum wage will definitely eliminate poverty”

6. Does your cited support come from experts on your speech topic or famous people who got your attention? Your topic is free and reduced meals for elementary students. A quote from your favorite actor Andrew Garfield is enticing, but is considered a false authority. In comparison, Governor of Pennsylvania Josh Shapiro stated:

“We can’t expect our kids to pay attention in class, learn, and succeed if they haven’t eaten all day – and that’s why I want to give free breakfast to every child in our schools.”

Assess Your Argument

Go through a checklist with your supported claims to ensure you’ve developed arguments that are credible, relevant, and accurate.

• Arguments clearly state a claim
• Arguments clearly use supporting material
• Arguments clearly state inference/reasoning
• Arguments use a reasoning pattern
• Arguments are ethically valid
• Arguments do not have any fallacies

Now, answer this question…

Put yourself in the shoes of a skeptical audience member – would you regard your reasoning as sound?

Giving Your Speech

After you have selected support material, connected it to your claim, and built an argument with sound reasoning, you’re ready for the final step. It’s time to prepare to give your speech to an audience, establishing credibility for your content and your character, your ethos. Ensure your reasoning efforts connect to your audience and your strategic purpose is achieved.

Oral Citation

When using support during your speech, provide an oral citation telling the audience where your information came from. Simply giving the website isn’t enough.

Depending on the source, you should include the author’s name, their expertise (if relevant), the title, the publication or platform, and the date.

Start with the author and source. If it’s part of a larger work, like an article in a magazine, mention both. Give the full date if possible.

Explain the author’s credibility when it helps the audience understand why this person should be trusted. If the author is widely known, you don’t need to explain. For instance, if you cite President Barack Obama or President George W. Bush in a speech about U.S. politics, you can assume the audience knows who they are. But if your source is less familiar and you don’t explain their background, your audience might question the reliability of your support.

Audience Connection

After presenting your evidence, now it’s time to connect with your audience. Like we covered in section 7.2, you build your arguments through the process of connecting your claim and your support through reasoning. It’s time to explain to your listeners how your support proves your point, and finally draw the conclusion that ties everything together. To make sure this moves through each claim smoothly, keep your audience’s perspective in mind throughout the entire speech delivery. You can prepare for audience connection while building your argument.

Here are a few tips:

Know your broad audience, but don’t assume. There are some audience details you will know for sure (demographic), but others are behind a curtain (psychographic). You have choices to make about the claims you choose to move forward with and the supporting material you select to support that claim. The more insight you have on who you’ll be presenting to, the more flexibility you have to practice motivated reasoning.

Be explicit. You’ve got your claim → support → reasoning down pat, and your speech seems complete to you. But you might be covering some of your claims with unclear support connections or obscure reasoning. Be wary; if you rely on the audience’s knowledge and expectations to establish the inference, they may not align with your goals. Do not assume that your audience is doing the mental leap. Explicitly state the argument from beginning to end.

Bring your audience to the table. When audience members can relate to your evidence through personal experience, they become more engaged, even if they initially disagreed with your position. You may be supporting one side of the aisle; they may be on the other side. But it is an open door to swap support, experiences, and boost engagement.

Relationships and values motivate. Your reasoning can align with or challenge your audience’s core relationships and values. When your argument conflicts with what your audience believes, you have two strategic options: adjust your reasoning to better connect with their existing values or appeal to a higher shared value that transcends the disagreement. For example, if arguing for a policy that challenges local traditions, you might appeal to broader values like fairness or community wellbeing that your audience also holds dear.

The biggest tip: fill your toolbox! As you grow as a researcher, reasoner, and argument builder, you will find that you will learn the most from direct interaction with your audience. Do audience analysis, keep going back to your sources for trusted support, brainstorm when you’re motivated, and gather different types of support to plug and play depending on your location and audience.