Monroe's Motivated Sequence

1. Attention

· Gain favorable attention for yourself and the general topic.

· You want to recognize, acknowledge, and validate concerns of your audience, and significant issues presented by the situation or occasion.

2. Establish Need / Problem

· State the problem or need. You can use various lines of argument to establish the significance of the problem.

· Provide examples, or sample incidents to illustrate existence and significance of the problem, and relation to your audience.

· Deploy evidence and support to convince audience of the need/problem.

· Use examples, testimony, statistics, definitions, comparison/contrast, to explain the ramifications of the problem.

· Relate problems, needs, and solutions to audience.

3. Solution or Satisfaction

· Present possible solutions, problems with current solutions.

· Present your solution, use various lines of argument to establish the efficacy of your plan.

· Address and refute possible objections that might be presented against your solution, but concentrate on positive aspects of your plan.

4. Visualization

· Help audience picture the results of your solution and contrast this with the unfavorable consequences of not taking action.

· Use examples, illustrations, models, and other visualization techniques.

· Remember to help them visualize themselves benefiting from taking the action you desire.

5. Motivation to Action

· Urge the audience to enact your proposal and list specific actions they can take: sign petitions, write to governmental leaders, buy a product or service.

· Make it easy for them to act, and focus on the benefits of their taking action.