Doreen is delivering a speech on the topic of donating money to help feed the children of AIDS victims in Africa. She set up her speech using Monroe’s motivated sequence. She sails through attention, needs, and satisfaction. She starts delivering her visualization step, and she goes a little crazy. She claims that if more people would donate to this cause, the world would be devoid of hunger, children in Africa could all get an education, and we could establish world peace. She then makes claims that not feeding the children of AIDS victims in Africa could lead to world chaos and nuclear war.

1. Is it ethical to create unrealistic expectations during the visualization step?

2. Should you try to exaggerate the visualization stage if you know, realistically, that the possible outcomes are not that impressive?

3. If Doreen was your friend, how would you respond to this section of her speech? Should you point out that her argument is unethical?

Virginia is asked to roast one of her bosses at the annual company meeting. Virginia collects a range of stories from people about her boss and a few of them are definitely quite embarrassing. She finds out about her boss ex-husband and some of the marital difficulties they had that are quite funny. She also finds out that when her boss broke her leg, it actually happened while sliding down a slide and not on a ski trip as she had told her office. As Virginia prepares her speech, she starts questioning what information she should use and what information is going too far.

1. How should a roaster ethically go about collecting funny stories for his or her roast?

2. What type of information would be ethical for a roaster to use? What type of information would be unethical for a roaster to use?

3. At what point does a roast go from being good-natured to being meanspirited?