Johanna was in the midst of preparing her speech. She’d done the research and found a number of great sources for her speech. The specific purpose of her speech was to persuade a group of wildlife experts to step up their help for saving the water channel between the islands of Maui and Lanai, an area where humpback whales migrate during the winter to give birth. Johanna had a very strong first point and a strong third point, but she just couldn’t shake the fact that her middle point really was underdeveloped and not as strong as the other two. In fact, the middle point was originally going to be her last point, but when her research went bust she ultimately downgraded the point and sandwiched it in between the other two. Now that she looked at her second point, she realized that the sources weren’t credible and the point should probably be dropped. In the back of Johanna’s head, she heard that small voice reminding her of the fact that most audiences don’t remember the middle of the speech, so it really won’t matter anyway.
1. Is it unethical to use the main point that you know is underdeveloped?
2. Should a speaker ever purposefully put less credible information in the middle of a speech, knowing that people are less likely to remember that information?
3. If you were Johanna, what would you do?
