What is an evaluative speech?

Answer 1

Here's how Stephen Lucas, a well known and respected author of Public Speaking texts, explains it: What is the best movie of all time? Is the cloning of human beings morally justifiable? What are the ethical responsibilities of journalists? Such questions not only involve matters of fact, but they also demand value judgments based on a person's beliefs about what is right or wrong, good or bad, moral or immoral, proper or improper, fair or unfair. If you say, "Bicycle riding is the ideal form of land transportation," you are no longer making a statement about your personal enjoyment of biking. Now you are making a statement about a question of value. To defend the statement, you cannot say, "Bicycle riding is the ideal form of land transportation because I like it." Instead, you must justify your claim. The first step is to define what you mean by an "ideal form of land transportation." Do you mean a mode of transportation that gets people where they want to go as fast as possible? That is relatively inexpensive? That is fun? Non-polluting? Beneficial for the user? In other words, you must establish your standards for an "ideal form of land transportation." Then you can show how bicycle riding measures up against those standards.

Whenever you give a speech on a question of value, be sure to give special thought to the standards for your value judgment