Speeches, Research and Citations

Two important considerations when a delivering a speech are to consider the audience’s needs for expertise and ethics. The audience judges your message by your qualification(s) on the topic and the ethics that you exhibit. Avoiding oral plagiarism and illustrating your qualifications can both be achieved in a speech by orally and visually citing your research and expertise. I encourage your research effort and even, occasionally using the free web but it must not be overlooked the audience’s need to trust you and believe your message. Achieving this trust and believability in the message can be achieved by utilizing credible, (academic) sources and sharing orally and visually (powerpoint) with the audience the “pertinent” information on the research utilized in the speech information. Ask yourself the following questions in your audience's mind: Who said so? Where did this come from? How do I know this is true? These questions will direct you in two ways; whether to cite and then, exactly what information is needed in the cite. Check out the following sites: Information Ethics: Citing and Fair Use for further direction in citing your speech research. So, remember don’t just “say it”, you have got to “cite it” too!