A persuasive speech is intended to convince an audience to believe or do something. It discusses characteristics of effective persuasive speeches, including attention-getting introductions, establishing the speaker's authority or credibility, presenting information in a logical structure, maintaining a smart pacing, and providing a stirring conclusion that reviews main points and calls the audience to action. The document also lists some famous persuasive speeches that have become well-known and discusses prosodic features used in speech like stress, volume, pitch, and intonation.