For tips on using MLA, go to
Academic talks often come from research papers. Typically, you will upload your paper and reference page into a database before the conference. Sometimes, they ask for your slides as well. If that is the case, you should include a final slide to your slideshow that includes your references. You would not actually show that slide during your presentation, but it is available for those who want to download your presentation slides.
If you are giving a poster talk, you will want to have copies of your paper with references to hand out. Make a handout that is a photo of your poster on one side and key references and your name on another. Make sure your name is on it and think of it as a business card that people might keep to remember you and your research.
It is likely those in attendance will want a copy of your slides. You should anticipate this and have a reference page on your slides. You would not show your reference page during your talk, but it is there for those who want a copy of your slides.
Handout. I prefer giving audiences a printed or digital handout instead of giving them my slides. I can customize a handout to give only the information that someone would want to look at after the talk. In that scenario, I only include the references that they would want to look up to gain more information.
(Tip: At the end of the slideshow, add two blank slides before your reference page, that way you don’t accidentally show them during your presentation)
Most companies have a sales brochure that they give a customer. Ideally, they should include references or point to references on a website.
You should be willing to give references if asked. It is a good idea to make a reference page when you prepare your sales presentation and have it in case you need it.
For reference, I have included a sample reference page in APA.
Reference Page Sample APA
I want to make sure that you understand peer review and scholarly sources since it is an area that some struggle to grasp. When someone says they are wanting you to reference scholarly sources, typically they are talking about items that have been through the peer-review process. According to OWL Purdue, “One major character of scholarly sources is that they are peer-reviewed. Here’s how a scholarly source typically goes through the process:
Oftentimes your speech is required to have peer reviewers or scholarly articles, it is important that you are able to understand why peer review articles are different and how to access them. I included this video to help you understand.
What is Peer Review, Scholarly Article?
You may be asked to use peer-reviewed/scholarly/refereed articles for your research. It is important to understand the process in order to understand why this is a more advanced type of research.
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In summary, it is important to know how to research your speech properly and to reference those sources in a way that gives credibility to your topic.
AskUs NCSU Libraries. (2014). Peer Review in 3 Minutes. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOCQZ7QnoN0&t=9s Standard Youtube License.
Houston Community College Libraries. (2021). Evaluating sources: C.R.A.P. Test. https://library.hccs.edu/evaluatingsources/test
Huntress, C. (2017). My favorite quote of all time is a misattribution. https://medium.com/the-mission/my-favourite-quote-of-all-time-is-a-misattribution-66356f22843d
Portland State University Library (2012). The C.R.A.P. Test in action. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhwB4zQD4XA&t=139s
Purdue University. English 106/108: Scholarly Sources and Peer Review. https://guides.lib.purdue.edu/eng106/scholarly-sources-and-peer-review
Sheets, R. (2021, May 18). Personal Interview. (Director of the Business Communication Lab, Walton College of Business. University of Arkansas).
Spencer, J. [https://twitter.com/spencerideas]. (July 3, 2018). Research should be fun. It should feel like geeking out. Twitter. Retrieved May 19, 2021, from https://twitter.com/spencerideas/status/1014178267820118018/photo/1
Taylor, S. R. & Demmig-Adams, B. (2007). To sip or not to sip: The potential health risks and benefits of coffee drinking. Nutrition and Food Science, 37 (6), 406-418. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/00346650710838063
University of Arkansas Library Research Guide. CRAAP Test for evaluating. https://uark.libguides.com/BENG4933/Evaluation
*CRAAP test developed by Meriam Library, California State University, Chico
Advanced Public Speaking Copyright © 2021 by Lynn Meade is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.
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Posted by Stephanie Chandler | Jun 14, 2021 | Blog , BUSINESS - MEMBERS ONLY , Nonfiction Book Marketing | 0
It wasn’t long before I realized that each new piece of content helped to attract and grow my audience. I monitored website traffic statistics and couldn’t argue with facts—traffic numbers grew at a steady pace week after week.
At the time, I was writing articles about small business topics. I had quit my Silicon Valley job, opened a 2,800 square foot bookstore in Sacramento. I was getting hands-on education in marketing, business growth, hiring and firing, managing financials, and so much more, and turning that new-found knowledge into articles.
Eventually, I wondered if my readers would like to see stories about themselves and others just like them. So, I started adding typed interviews to the blog. These became hugely popular for several reasons. It turned out that fellow business owners loved seeing their stories on the site, and they would in turn share their stories with their own audiences, driving even more traffic to my site. And readers enjoyed the content too, so it further cultivated loyalty with the target audience.
Years later, I began interviewing people for our weekly podcast at the Nonfiction Authors Association. I decided to keep the interviews to 30 minutes or less because we’re all so darn busy, and I wanted listeners to know they could learn something with just a brief commitment of precious time. These interviews air every Wednesday and are available for anyone to listen, and then the recordings go into our member archives. The recordings have been one of the most popular membership benefits because interviews are content-rich and succinct. We make good use of every minute of airtime.
Interviewing people for your blog, podcast, or videos is a fun way to cultivate a loyal audience while connecting with new people. Here are some tips on how you can create your own interviews.
How to Conduct Podcast and Video Interviews
The first key to any kind of interview series is consistency. I recommend setting a schedule and sticking to it. You may want to post one interview a week—or five a week. Just be sure to plan ahead. Here are some steps to help you conduct your own podcast and video interviews:
With that said, inviting guests to your program is a fantastic way to connect with peers in your industry. Take the opportunity to chat with your guests after the interview and develop a rapport. You never know where these connections can lead. You might in turn get invited to be a guest on their podcast or speak at one of their events.
By the way, don’t be afraid to interview your competitors. I strongly believe that there is plenty of business to go around. There is no reason to fear or avoid the competition. Isn’t it better to work together?
You may need to do some editing of your recording files. Camtasia is popular software to help you accomplish this. Or you can hire it out to a freelancer on Upwork .
Once the post is published on your site, send the guest a link and invite him/her to share. We take the extra step of asking guests if they would like to contribute a guest blog post on the subject of the interview and most are happy to do so. This gives us all an additional piece of valuable content to promote the event and give value to our audience.
If you remember just one tip from this article, please let it be this: When preparing questions and conducting your interview, put yourself in the shoes of your listeners.
I always consider what I would want to know as an up-and-coming author. I’ve been in this business for a long time and can anticipate 95% of guests’ answers to questions. But my audience members (you!) need to learn something new, and that is what I focus on with every single interview. It’s never about what I care about; it’s about what my audience wants to know.
It all gets back to putting yourself in the shoes of your listener. Don’t be so married to your prepared questions that you avoid asking follow-up or clarification questions. And keep in mind that your guest should be the star. When Jimmy Fallon interviews Beyonce, he doesn’t try to impress her with his own knowledge of the entertainment industry. He makes her the focus.
Ultimately, you don’t want to leave your audience confused or frustrated. And rest assured that conducting interviews gets easier with time. If you want some inspiration, listen to some of the top podcasts on iTunes and see how it’s done. Brené Brown is an excellent interviewer .
A Note on Video Interviews
To interview people by video, you should follow many of the steps outlined in the podcast steps above. The difference is that you will need to be camera-ready. These interviews can be conducted by Zoom or other web conferencing service, or done in person if the opportunity arises.
If you create video interviews, I recommend saving an audio-only version and syndicating that as a podcast. The goal should be to get as much mileage as you can out of every piece of content you create!
How to Conduct Blog Interviews
Blog interviews are easier than podcast interviews for a bunch of reasons. You don’t have to worry about recording equipment, editing software, and all the other details that go into hosting a podcast. For your blog, I recommend simply creating an interview form that guests can fill out.
As I mentioned previously, I have been hosting guest interviews on my blogs for over a decade. Readers love them, as long as they are tailored to the interests of your target audience. When coming up with questions, ask yourself what your visitors would want to know. Or better yet, ask them!
You should also ask the interviewee for a headshot and brief bio to include with the post. Once it’s published on your site, send him or her a link and invite them to share with their networks. Easy peasy!
Did you enjoy this article? You will love the Nonfiction Authors Association!
Learn about joining our thriving community for writers .
Stephanie Chandler is the founder of the Nonfiction Authors Association and Nonfiction Writers Conference , and author of several books including The Nonfiction Book Publishing Plan . A frequent speaker at business events and on the radio, she has been featured in Entrepreneur, BusinessWeek, and Wired magazine. Visit StephanieChandler.com to learn more.
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The popular Book Publicity Master Course with optional professional certification is returning September 24, 2024. Taught by media pro Joanne McCall, this course teaches you how to get media attention for your books. It's also perfect for service providers who want to learn how to help their clients publicize their books. Register here.
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A video interview with author Barry L. Duncan discussing his book On Becoming a Better Therapist, published by APA in February 2010
A video interview with author Clara E. Hill discussing her book Consensual Qualitative Research, published by APA in August 2011
A video interview with author Clara E. Hill discussing her book Helping Skills: Facilitating Exploration, Insight, and Action, Third Edition, published by APA in April 2009
A video interview with author David A. Jobes discussing his book Building a Therapeutic Alliance With the Suicidal Patient, published by APA in November 2010
A video interview with author Fathali M. Moghaddam discussing his book Multiculturalism and Intergroup Relations: Psychological Implications for Democracy in Global Context, published by APA in December 2007
A video interview with author Jane Annunziata discussing her book A Child's First Book About Play Therapy, published by APA's Magination Press in November 1990
A video interview with author Jane Annunziata discussing her book All About Adoption: How Families Are Made & How Kids Feel About It, published by APA in September 2003
A video interview with author Jane Annunziata, PsyD discussing her book Shy Spaghetti and Excited Eggs: A Kid's Menu of Feelings, published by APA in May 2011
A video interview with author Jane Annunziata discussing her book Sometimes I'm Scared, published by APA in May 2009
A video interview with author June Price Tangney discussing her book Shame in the Therapy Hour, published by APA in June 2011
An interview with author Lilian Comas-Diaz discussing her book Multicultural Care
A video interview with author Mark R. McMinn discussing his book Spiritually Oriented Interventions for Counseling and Psychotherapy, published by APA in March 2011
A video interview with author Michael J. Lambert discussing his book Prevention of Treatment Failure, published by APA in May 2010
Video interview with Dr. Robert Enright about his book The Forgiving Life: A Pathway to Overcoming Resentment and Creating a Legacy of Love, published by APA in January 2012
A video interview with author Robert McGrath discussing his book Pharmacotherapy for Psychologists: Prescribing and Collaborative Roles, published by APA in June 2010
A video interview with author Robert E. McGrath discussing his book Quantitative Models in Psychology, published by APA in April 2011
A video interview with author Sandra M. Stith discussing her book Couples Therapy for Domestic Violence, published by APA in June 2011
A video interview with author Scott Browning discussing his book Stepfamily Therapy: A 10-Step Clinical Approach, published by APA in August 2011
A video interview with author William B. Gunn discussing his book The Collaborative Psychotherapist, published by APA in March 2008
What is a database, online research databases, magazines, newspapers, trade journals & academic journals.
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Magazine | Magazines are written for the general public. They feature lots of pictures and advertisements. The authors of the articles are often staff writers. The content includes information on current events, entertainment and special features. |
Newspaper | Information in newspapers is targeted toward the general public. Newspapers usually feature black and white print and photographs. The articles are written by journalists and staff writers. The articles discuss news events and special features. |
Trade Journal | Trade journals contain information for professionals within a specific industry. Usually staff writers or industry professionals write the articles. They feature color photographs and industry specific advertisements. The articles discuss news and special features related to a specific industry. |
Academic Journal | Researchers and scholars are the main audience for academic journals. They do not feature pictures or advertisements. Research articles make-up the content. They are written by researchers/scholars of a particular profession or discipline. |
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The way we interview for jobs is changing. Many interviews are now conducted over video which requires a unique set of skills compared to in-person interviews.
The difference between successfully landing your next job or not could come down to how well you connect with hiring managers and how effectively you can show your capabilities online.
This self-paced, online course is here to help you excel and present your best self. We’ll guide you through with inside tips, videos, examples, and real questions that have been asked at top companies. You’ll learn what hiring managers are looking for, how to set up your tech for maximum impact online, and how to answer tough questions.
Practice anytime, anywhere for your interview and increase your chances of success. The practice exercises mimic video-conferencing tools such as Zoom and Teams, with real-life interview questions and automated feedback.
Practice answering both competency-based and company-specific questions in the mock interview. Receive feedback on how the managers are likely to have perceived you and self-evaluate your performance with video playback.
This Video Interview course will improve your confidence and allow you to become more comfortable with video-based interviews through virtual interview exercises.
To make sure you're thoroughly prepared, you can practice in the exercises as many times as you like.
Course content.
Practice your new skills and techniques with interactive exercises. Accessible straight from your internet browser - no additional downloads required. Practice in these exercises as often as you like.
Practice delivering concise, engaging and effective answers to real interview questions that have been asked at companies like Google, Apple, Dreamworks, P&G and Deloitte.
Build confidence and practice storytelling and proven interview methodologies with our competency-based job interview questions. Select questions from the industry that suits you best.
Improve faster and practice what you learn with these features.
Speech analysis, record the interview, what's included in this course:.
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CPD Credits / Hours: 5
Certificate No: A031338
(per month).
All training in the course catalogue
You can access the classes through the VirtualSpeech website, on any standard web browser such as Chrome, Firefox, or Safari.
The practice exercises can be completed online or in virtual reality (if you have a VR headset).
When you enroll in the course, you'll get 24/7 access to the course (including tutorial videos, case studies, practice exercises, VR, and more) through the VirtualSpeech website and in VR.
Both the online classes and exercises run in your browser, no additional software or download is required.
If you have a VR headset, you can also access the practice exercises in VR. Here's a list of our recommended VR headsets .
The online exercises have been tested across multiple browsers and run smoothly on Google Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Edge.
We accept payment via Credit Card, Debit Card or PayPal directly through the VirtualSpeech site. If you'd like to pay with an Invoice or using another payment method, please contact us.
Yes you can. After pressing the 'Buy Now' button on this page, select the number of users (maximum is 25).
After the payment, you'll be made course admin and can add users to the course from the admin dashboard.
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If the course does not meet your expectations, you can get a full refund within 7 days of purchasing the course.
A PRIMARY SOURCE is a document or physical object which was written or created during the time under study. These sources were present during an experience or time period and offer an inside view of a particular event. Some types of primary sources include:
Examples of primary sources include:
A SECONDARY SOURCE interprets and analyzes primary sources. These sources are one or more steps removed from the event. Secondary sources may have pictures, quotes or graphics of primary sources in them. Some types of secondary sources include:
Examples of secondary sources include:
Information courtesy of Princeton University Libraries - http://www.princeton.edu/~refdesk/primary2.html
This video is licensed by QUT Library under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike International 4.0 License (CC-BY-NC-SA)
General Tips:
Tell the audience your source before you use the information (the opposite of in-text citations).
Do not say, “quote, unquote” when you offer a direct quotation. Use brief pauses instead.
Provide enough information about each source so that your audience could, with a little effort, find them. This should include the author(s) name, a brief explanation of their credentials, the title of the work, and publication date.
“In the 1979 edition of The Elements of Style, renowned grammarians and composition stylists Strunk and White encourage writers to ‘make every word tell.’”
If your source is unknown to your audience, provide enough information about your source for the audience to perceive them as credible. Typically we provide this credentialing of the source by stating the source’s qualifications to discuss the topic.
“Dr. Derek Bok, the President Emeritus of Harvard University and the author of The Politics of Happiness argues that the American government should design policies to enhance the happiness of its citizens.”
Provide a caption citation for all direct quotations and /or relevant images on your PowerPoint slides.
Direct Quotations:
These should be acknowledged in your speech or presentation either as “And I quote…” or “As [the source] put it…”
Include title and author: “According to April Jones, author of Readings on Gender…”
Periodical/Magazine:
Include title and date: “Time, March 28, 2005, explains…” or “The New York Times, June 5, 2006, explained it this way…”
Include journal title, date, and author: “Morgan Smith writes in the Fall 2005 issue of Science…”
For organizational or long-standing website, include title: “The center for Disease Control web site includes information…” For news or magazine websites, include title and date: “CNN.com, on March 28, 2005, states…” (Note: CNN is an exception to the “don’t use the address” rule because the site is known by that name.)
Interviews, lecture notes, or personal communication:
Include name and credentials of source: “Alice Smith, professor of Economics at USM, had this to say about the growth plan…” or “According to junior Speech Communication major, Susan Wallace…”
9.2 researching and supporting your speech, learning objectives.
We live in an age where access to information is more convenient than ever before. The days of photocopying journal articles in the stacks of the library or looking up newspaper articles on microfilm are over for most. Yet, even though we have all this information at our fingertips, research skills are more important than ever. Our challenge now is not accessing information but discerning what information is credible and relevant. Even though it may sound inconvenient to have to physically go to the library, students who did research before the digital revolution did not have to worry as much about discerning. If you found a source in the library, you could be assured of its credibility because a librarian had subscribed to or purchased that content. When you use Internet resources like Google or Wikipedia, you have no guarantees about some of the content that comes up.
As was noted in Section 9.1 “Selecting and Narrowing a Topic” , it’s good to speak about something you are already familiar with. So existing knowledge forms the first step of your research process. Depending on how familiar you are with a topic, you will need to do more or less background research before you actually start incorporating sources to support your speech. Background research is just a review of summaries available for your topic that helps refresh or create your knowledge about the subject. It is not the more focused and academic research that you will actually use to support and verbally cite in your speech. Figure 9.3 “Research Process” illustrates the research process. Note that you may go through some of these steps more than once.
Figure 9.3 Research Process
I will reiterate several times in this chapter that your first step for research in college should be library resources, not Google or Bing or other general search engines. In most cases, you can still do your library research from the comfort of a computer, which makes it as accessible as Google but gives you much better results. Excellent and underutilized resources at college and university libraries are reference librarians. Reference librarians are not like the people who likely staffed your high school library. They are information-retrieval experts. At most colleges and universities, you can find a reference librarian who has at least a master’s degree in library and information sciences, and at some larger or specialized schools, reference librarians have doctoral degrees. I liken research to a maze, and reference librarians can help you navigate the maze. There may be dead ends, but there’s always another way around to reach the end goal. Unfortunately, many students hit their first dead end and give up or assume that there’s not enough research out there to support their speech. Trust me, if you’ve thought of a topic to do your speech on, someone else has thought of it, too, and people have written and published about it. Reference librarians can help you find that information. I recommend that you meet with a reference librarian face-to-face and take your assignment sheet and topic idea with you. In most cases, students report that they came away with more information than they needed, which is good because you can then narrow that down to the best information. If you can’t meet with a reference librarian face-to-face, many schools now offer the option to do a live chat with a reference librarian, and you can also contact them by e-mail or phone.
College and university libraries are often at the cutting edge of information retrieval for academic research.
Andre Vandal – The Morrin College Library – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
Aside from the human resources available in the library, you can also use electronic resources such as library databases. Library databases help you access more credible and scholarly information than what you will find using general Internet searches. These databases are quite expensive, and you can’t access them as a regular citizen without paying for them. Luckily, some of your tuition dollars go to pay for subscriptions to these databases that you can then access as a student. Through these databases, you can access newspapers, magazines, journals, and books from around the world. Of course, libraries also house stores of physical resources like DVDs, books, academic journals, newspapers, and popular magazines. You can usually browse your library’s physical collection through an online catalog search. A trip to the library to browse is especially useful for books. Since most university libraries use the Library of Congress classification system, books are organized by topic. That means if you find a good book using the online catalog and go to the library to get it, you should take a moment to look around that book, because the other books in that area will be topically related. On many occasions, I have used this tip and gone to the library for one book but left with several.
Although Google is not usually the best first stop for conducting college-level research, Google Scholar is a separate search engine that narrows results down to scholarly materials. This version of Google has improved much over the past few years and has served as a good resource for my research, even for this book. A strength of Google Scholar is that you can easily search for and find articles that aren’t confined to a particular library database. Basically, the pool of resources you are searching is much larger than what you would have using a library database. The challenge is that you have no way of knowing if the articles that come up are available to you in full-text format. As noted earlier, most academic journal articles are found in databases that require users to pay subscription fees. So you are often only able to access the abstracts of articles or excerpts from books that come up in a Google Scholar search. You can use that information to check your library to see if the article is available in full-text format, but if it isn’t, you have to go back to the search results. When you access Google Scholar on a campus network that subscribes to academic databases, however, you can sometimes click through directly to full-text articles. Although this resource is still being improved, it may be a useful alternative or backup when other search strategies are leading to dead ends.
There are several different types of sources that may be relevant for your speech topic. Those include periodicals, newspapers, books, reference tools, interviews, and websites. It is important that you know how to evaluate the credibility of each type of source material.
Periodicals include magazines and journals, as they are published periodically. There are many library databases that can access periodicals from around the world and from years past. A common database is Academic Search Premiere (a similar version is Academic Search Complete). Many databases, like this one, allow you to narrow your search terms, which can be very helpful as you try to find good sources that are relevant to your topic. You may start by typing a key word into the first box and searching. Sometimes a general search like this can yield thousands of results, which you obviously wouldn’t have time to look through. In this case you may limit your search to results that have your keyword in the abstract , which is the author-supplied summary of the source. If there are still too many results, you may limit your search to results that have your keyword in the title. At this point, you may have reduced those ten thousand results down to a handful, which is much more manageable.
Within your search results, you will need to distinguish between magazines and academic journals. In general, academic journals are considered more scholarly and credible than magazines because most of the content in them is peer reviewed. The peer-review process is the most rigorous form of review, which takes several months to years and ensures that the information that is published has been vetted and approved by numerous experts on the subject. Academic journals are usually affiliated with professional organizations rather than for-profit corporations, and neither authors nor editors are paid for their contributions. For example, the Quarterly Journal of Speech is one of the oldest journals in communication studies and is published by the National Communication Association.
The National Communication Association publishes several peer-reviewed academic journals.
The National Communication Association’s office in Washington D.C., courtesy of Wikimedia Commons – CC BY-SA 3.0.
Newspapers and books can be excellent sources but must still be evaluated for relevance and credibility. Newspapers are good for topics that are developing quickly, as they are updated daily. While there are well-known newspapers of record like the New York Times , smaller local papers can also be credible and relevant if your speech topic doesn’t have national or international reach. You can access local, national, and international newspapers through electronic databases like LexisNexis. If a search result comes up that doesn’t have a byline with an author’s name or an organization like the Associated Press or Reuters cited, then it might be an editorial. Editorials may also have bylines, which make them look like traditional newspaper articles even though they are opinion based. It is important to distinguish between news articles and editorials because editorials are usually not objective and do not go through the same review process that a news story does before it’s published. It’s also important to know the background of your paper. Some newspapers are more tabloid focused or may be published by a specific interest group that has an agenda and biases. So it’s usually better to go with a newspaper that is recognized as the newspaper of record for a particular area.
Books are good for a variety of subjects and are useful for in-depth research that you can’t get as regularly from newspapers or magazines. Edited books with multiple chapters by different authors can be especially good to get a variety of perspectives on a topic.
Don’t assume that you can’t find a book relevant to a topic that is fairly recent, since books may be published within a year of a major event.
Wikimedia Commons – CC BY 2.0.
To evaluate the credibility of a book, you’ll want to know some things about the author. You can usually find this information at the front or back of the book. If an author is a credentialed and recognized expert in his or her area, the book will be more credible. But just because someone wrote a book on a subject doesn’t mean he or she is the most credible source. For example, a quick search online brings up many books related to public speaking that are written by people who have no formal training in communication or speech. While they may have public speaking experience that can help them get a book deal with a certain publisher, that alone wouldn’t qualify them to write a textbook, as textbook authors are expected to be credentialed experts—that is, people with experience and advanced training/degrees in their area. The publisher of a book can also be an indicator of credibility. Books published by university/academic presses (University of Chicago Press, Duke University Press) are considered more credible than books published by trade presses (Penguin, Random House), because they are often peer reviewed and they are not primarily profit driven.
The transition to college-level research means turning more toward primary sources and away from general reference materials. Primary sources are written by people with firsthand experiences with an event or researchers/scholars who conducted original research. Unfortunately, many college students are reluctant to give up their reliance on reference tools like dictionaries and encyclopedias. While reference tools like dictionaries and encyclopedias are excellent for providing a speaker with a background on a topic, they should not be the foundation of your research unless they are academic and/or specialized.
Dictionaries are handy tools when we aren’t familiar with a particular word. However, citing a dictionary like Webster’s as a source in your speech is often unnecessary. I tell my students that Webster’s Dictionary is useful when you need to challenge a Scrabble word, but it isn’t the best source for college-level research. You will inevitably come upon a word that you don’t know while doing research. Most good authors define the terms they use within the content of their writing. In that case, it’s better to use the author’s definition than a dictionary definition. Also, citing a dictionary doesn’t show deep research skills; it only shows an understanding of alphabetical order. So ideally you would quote or paraphrase the author’s definition rather than turning to a general dictionary like Webster’s . If you must turn to a dictionary, I recommend an academic dictionary like The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) , which is the most comprehensive dictionary in the English language, with more than twenty volumes. You can’t access the OED for free online, but most libraries pay for a subscription that you can access as a student or patron. While the OED is an academic dictionary, it is not specialized, and you may need a specialized dictionary when dealing with very specific or technical terms. The Dictionary of Business and Economics is an example of an academic and specialized dictionary.
Many students have relied on encyclopedias for research in high school, but most encyclopedias, like World Book , Encarta , or Britannica , are not primary sources. Instead, they are examples of secondary sources that aggregate, or compile, research done by others in a condensed summary. As I noted earlier, reference sources like encyclopedias are excellent resources to get you informed about the basics of a topic, but at the college level, primary sources are expected. Many encyclopedias are Internet based, which makes them convenient, but they are still not primary sources, and their credibility should be even more scrutinized.
Wikipedia’s open format also means it doesn’t generally meet the expectations for credible, scholarly research.
Wikipedia – CC BY-SA 3.0.
Wikipedia revolutionized how many people retrieve information and pioneered an open-publishing format that allowed a community of people to post, edit, and debate content. While this is an important contribution to society, Wikipedia is not considered a scholarly or credible source. Like other encyclopedias, Wikipedia should not be used in college-level research, because it is not a primary source. In addition, since its content can be posted and edited by anyone, we cannot be sure of the credibility of the content. Even though there are self-appointed “experts” who monitor and edit some of the information on Wikipedia, we cannot verify their credentials or the review process that information goes through before it’s posted. I’m not one of the college professors who completely dismisses Wikipedia, however. Wikipedia can be a great source for personal research, developing news stories, or trivia. Sometimes you can access primary sources through Wikipedia if you review the footnote citations included in an entry. Moving beyond Wikipedia, as with dictionaries, there are some encyclopedias that are better suited for college research. The Encyclopedia of Black America and the Encyclopedia of Disaster Relief are examples of specialized academic reference sources that will often include, in each entry, an author’s name and credentials and more primary source information.
When conducting an interview for a speech, you should access a person who has expertise in or direct experience with your speech topic. If you follow the suggestions for choosing a topic that were mentioned earlier, you may already know something about your speech topic and may have connections to people who would be good interview subjects. Previous employers, internship supervisors, teachers, community leaders, or even relatives may be appropriate interviewees, given your topic. If you do not have a connection to someone you can interview, you can often find someone via the Internet who would be willing to answer some questions. Many informative and persuasive speech topics relate to current issues, and most current issues have organizations that represent their needs. For an informative speech on ageism or a persuasive speech on lowering the voting age, a quick Internet search for “youth rights” leads you to the webpage for the National Youth Rights Association. Like most organization web pages, you can click on the “Contact Us” link to get information for leaders in the organization. You could also connect to members of the group through Facebook and interview young people who are active in the organization.
Once you have identified a good interviewee, you will want to begin researching and preparing your questions. Open-ended questions cannot be answered with a “yes” or “no” and can provide descriptions and details that will add to your speech. Quotes and paraphrases from your interview can add a personal side to a topic or at least convey potentially complicated information in a more conversational and interpersonal way.
Even if you record an interview, take some handwritten notes and make regular eye contact with the interviewee to show that you are paying attention.
David Davies – Interviews – CC BY-SA 2.0.
Closed questions can be answered with one or two words and can provide a starting point to get to more detailed information if the interviewer has prepared follow-up questions. Unless the guidelines or occasion for your speech suggest otherwise, you should balance your interview data with the other sources in your speech. Don’t let your references to the interview take over your speech.
Tips for Conducting Interviews
We already know that utilizing library resources can help you automatically filter out content that may not be scholarly or credible, since the content in research databases is selected and restricted. However, some information may be better retrieved from websites. Even though both research databases and websites are electronic sources, there are two key differences between them that may impact their credibility. First, most of the content in research databases is or was printed but has been converted to digital formats for easier and broader access. In contrast, most of the content on websites has not been printed. Although not always the case, an exception to this is documents in PDF form found on web pages. You may want to do additional research or consult with your instructor to determine if that can count as a printed source. Second, most of the content on research databases has gone through editorial review, which means a professional editor or a peer editor has reviewed the material to make sure it is credible and worthy of publication. Most content on websites is not subjected to the same review process, as just about anyone with Internet access can self-publish information on a personal website, blog, wiki, or social media page. So what sort of information may be better retrieved from websites, and how can we evaluate the credibility of a website?
Most well-known organizations have official websites where they publish information related to their mission. If you know there is an organization related to your topic, you may want to see if they have an official website. It is almost always better to get information from an official website, because it is then more likely to be considered primary source information. Keep in mind, though, that organizations may have a bias or a political agenda that affects the information they put out. If you do get information from an official website, make sure to include that in your verbal citation to help establish your credibility. Official reports are also often best found on websites, as they rarely appear in their full form in periodicals, books, or newspapers. Government agencies, nonprofits, and other public service organizations often compose detailed and credible reports on a wide variety of topics.
The US Census Bureau’s official website is a great place to find current and credible statistics related to population numbers and demographic statistics.
U.S. Census Bureau – public domain.
A key way to evaluate the credibility of a website is to determine the site’s accountability. By accountability, I mean determining who is ultimately responsible for the content put out and whose interests the content meets. The more information that is included on a website, the better able you will be to determine its accountability. Ideally all or most of the following information would be included: organization/agency name, author’s name and contact information, date the information was posted or published, name and contact information for person in charge of web content (i.e., web editor or webmaster), and a link to information about the organization/agency/business mission. While all this information doesn’t have to be present to warrant the use of the material, the less accountability information is available, the more you should scrutinize the information. You can also begin to judge the credibility of a website by its domain name. Some common domain names are .com , .net , .org , .edu , .mil , and .gov . For each type of domain, there are questions you may ask that will help you evaluate the site’s credibility. You can see a summary of these questions in Table 9.2 “Website Domain Names and Credibility” . Note that some domain names are marked as “restricted” and others aren’t. When a domain is restricted, .mil for example, a person or group wanting to register that domain name has to prove that their content is appropriate for the guidelines of the domain name. Essentially, this limits access to the information published on those domain names, which increases the overall credibility.
Table 9.2 Website Domain Names and Credibility
Domain Name | Purpose | Restricted? | Questions to Ask |
---|---|---|---|
.com, .net | Commercial | No | Is the information posted for profit? Is the information posted influenced by advertisers? |
.org | Mostly noncommercial organizations | No | What is the mission of the organization? Who is responsible for the content? Is the information published to enhance public knowledge or to solicit donations? |
.edu | Higher education | Yes | Who published the information? (the institution or an administrator, faculty member, staff member, or student) |
.mil | US military | Yes | Most information on .mil sites will be credible, since it is not published for profit and only limited people have access to post information. |
.gov | US government | Yes | Most information on .gov sites will be credible, since it is not published for profit and only limited people have access to post information. |
There are several types of supporting material that you can pull from the sources you find during the research process to add to your speech. They include examples, explanations, statistics, analogies, testimony, and visual aids. You will want to have a balance of information, and you will want to include the material that is most relevant to your audience and is most likely to engage them. When determining relevance, utilize some of the strategies mentioned in Section 9.1 “Selecting and Narrowing a Topic” . Thinking about who your audience is and what they know and would like to know will help you tailor your information. Also try to incorporate proxemic information , meaning information that is geographically relevant to your audience. For example, if delivering a speech about prison reform to an audience made up of Californians, citing statistics from North Carolina prisons would not be as proxemic as citing information from California prisons. The closer you can get the information to the audience, the better. I tell my students to make the information so relevant and proxemic that it is in our backyards, in the car with us on the way to school or work, and in the bed with us while we sleep.
An example is a cited case that is representative of a larger whole. Examples are especially beneficial when presenting information that an audience may not be familiar with. They are also useful for repackaging or reviewing information that has already been presented. Examples can be used in many different ways, so you should let your audience, purpose and thesis, and research materials guide your use. You may pull examples directly from your research materials, making sure to cite the source. The following is an example used in a speech about the negative effects of standardized testing: “Standardized testing makes many students anxious, and even ill. On March 14, 2002, the Sacramento Bee reported that some standardized tests now come with instructions indicating what teachers should do with a test booklet if a student throws up on it.” You may also cite examples from your personal experience, if appropriate: “I remember being sick to my stomach while waiting for my SAT to begin.”
You may also use hypothetical examples, which can be useful when you need to provide an example that is extraordinary or goes beyond most people’s direct experience. Capitalize on this opportunity by incorporating vivid description into the example that appeals to the audience’s senses. Always make sure to indicate when you are using a hypothetical example, as it would be unethical to present an example as real when it is not. Including the word imagine or something similar in the first sentence of the example can easily do this.
Whether real or hypothetical, examples used as supporting material can be brief or extended. Brief examples are usually one or two sentences, as you can see in the following hypothetical example: “Imagine that your child, little sister, or nephew has earned good grades for the past few years of elementary school, loves art class, and also plays on the soccer team. You hear the unmistakable sounds of crying when he or she comes home from school and you find out that art and soccer have been eliminated because students did not meet the federal guidelines for performance on standardized tests.” Brief examples are useful when the audience is already familiar with a concept or during a review. Extended examples, sometimes called illustrations, are several sentences long and can be effective in introductions or conclusions to get the audience’s attention or leave a lasting impression. It is important to think about relevance and time limits when considering using an extended illustration. Since most speeches are given within time constraints, you want to make sure the extended illustration is relevant to your speech purpose and thesis and that it doesn’t take up a disproportionate amount of the speech. If a brief example or series of brief examples would convey the same content and create the same tone as the extended example, I suggest you go with brevity.
Explanations clarify ideas by providing information about what something is, why something is the way it is, or how something works or came to be. One of the most common types of explanation is a definition. Definitions do not have to come from the dictionary. Many times, authors will define concepts as they use them in their writing, which is a good alternative to a dictionary definition.
Since quoting a dictionary definition during a speech is difficult, it’s better to put a definition into your own words based on how it is defined in the original source in which it appeared.
Julian Bucknall – Dictionaries – CC BY-NC 2.0.
As you do your research, think about how much your audience likely knows about a given subject. You do not need to provide definitions when information is common knowledge. Anticipate audience confusion and define legal, medical, or other forms of jargon as well as slang and foreign words. Definitions like the following are also useful for words that we are familiar with but may not know specifics: “According to the 2011 book Prohibition: 13 Years That Changed America , what we now know as Prohibition started in 1920 with the passage of the Volstead Act and the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment.” Keep in mind that repeating a definition verbatim from a dictionary often leads to fluency hiccups, because definitions are not written to be read aloud. It’s a good idea to put the definition into your own words (still remembering to cite the original source) to make it easier for you to deliver.
Other explanations focus on the “why” and “how” of a concept. Continuing to inform about Prohibition, a speaker could explain why the movement toward Prohibition began: “The Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution gained support because of the strong political influence of the Anti-Saloon League.” The speaker could go on to explain how the Constitution is amended: “According to the same book, a proposed amendment to the Constitution needs three-fourths of all the states to approve it in order to be ratified.” We use explanations as verbal clarifications to support our claims in daily conversations, perhaps without even noticing it. Consciously incorporating clear explanations into your speech can help you achieve your speech goals.
Statistics are numerical representations of information. They are very credible in our society, as evidenced by their frequent use by news agencies, government offices, politicians, and academics. As a speaker, you can capitalize on the power of statistics if you use them appropriately. Unfortunately, statistics are often misused by speakers who intentionally or unintentionally misconstrue the numbers to support their argument without examining the context from which the statistic emerged. All statistics are contextual, so plucking a number out of a news article or a research study and including it in your speech without taking the time to understand the statistic is unethical.
Although statistics are popular as supporting evidence, they can also be boring. There will inevitably be people in your audience who are not good at processing numbers. Even people who are good with numbers have difficulty processing through a series of statistics presented orally. Remember that we have to adapt our information to listeners who don’t have the luxury of pressing a pause or rewind button. For these reasons, it’s a good idea to avoid using too many statistics and to use startling examples when you do use them. Startling statistics should defy our expectations. When you give the audience a large number that they would expect to be smaller, or vice versa, you will be more likely to engage them, as the following example shows: “Did you know that 1.3 billion people in the world do not have access to electricity? That’s about 20 percent of the world’s population according to a 2009 study on the International Energy Agency’s official website.”
You should also repeat key statistics at least once for emphasis. In the previous example, the first time we hear the statistic 1.3 billion, we don’t have any context for the number. Translating that number into a percentage in the next sentence repeats the key statistic, which the audience now has context for, and repackages the information into a percentage, which some people may better understand. You should also round long numbers up or down to make them easier to speak. Make sure that rounding the number doesn’t distort its significance. Rounding 1,298,791,943 to 1.3 billion, for example, makes the statistic more manageable and doesn’t alter the basic meaning. It is also beneficial to translate numbers into something more concrete for visual or experiential learners by saying, for example, “That’s equal to the population of four Unites States of Americas.” While it may seem easy to throw some numbers in your speech to add to your credibility, it takes more work to make them impactful, memorable, and effective.
Tips for Using Statistics
Analogies involve a comparison of ideas, items, or circumstances. When you compare two things that actually exist, you are using a literal analogy—for example, “Germany and Sweden are both European countries that have had nationalized health care for decades.” Another type of literal comparison is a historical analogy. In Mary Fisher’s now famous 1992 speech to the Republican National Convention, she compared the silence of many US political leaders regarding the HIV/AIDS crisis to that of many European leaders in the years before the Holocaust.
My father has devoted much of his lifetime to guarding against another holocaust. He is part of the generation who heard Pastor Niemöller come out of the Nazi death camps to say, “They came after the Jews and I was not a Jew, so I did not protest. They came after the Trade Unionists, and I was not a Trade Unionist, so I did not protest. They came after the Roman Catholics, and I was not a Roman Catholic, so I did not protest. Then they came after me, and there was no one left to protest.” The lesson history teaches is this: If you believe you are safe, you are at risk.
A figurative analogy compares things that are not normally related, often relying on metaphor, simile, or other figurative language devices. In the following example, wind and revolution are compared: “Just as the wind brings changes in the weather, so does revolution bring change to countries.”
When you compare differences, you are highlighting contrast—for example, “Although the United States is often thought of as the most medically advanced country in the world, other Western countries with nationalized health care have lower infant mortality rates and higher life expectancies.” To use analogies effectively and ethically, you must choose ideas, items, or circumstances to compare that are similar enough to warrant the analogy. The more similar the two things you’re comparing, the stronger your support. If an entire speech on nationalized health care was based on comparing the United States and Sweden, then the analogy isn’t too strong, since Sweden has approximately the same population as the state of North Carolina. Using the analogy without noting this large difference would be misrepresenting your supporting material. You could disclose the discrepancy and use other forms of supporting evidence to show that despite the population difference the two countries are similar in other areas to strengthen your speech.
Testimony is quoted information from people with direct knowledge about a subject or situation. Expert testimony is from people who are credentialed or recognized experts in a given subject. Lay testimony is often a recounting of a person’s experiences, which is more subjective. Both types of testimony are valuable as supporting material. We can see this in the testimonies of people in courtrooms and other types of hearings. Lawyers know that juries want to hear testimony from experts, eyewitnesses, and friends and family. Congressional hearings are similar.
Congressional hearings often draw on expert and lay testimony to provide a detailed understanding of an event or issue.
Wikimedia Commons – public domain.
When Toyota cars were malfunctioning and being recalled in 2010, mechanics and engineers were called to testify about the technical specifications of the car (expert testimony), and car drivers like the soccer mom who recounted the brakes on her Prius suddenly failing while she was driving her kids to practice were also called (lay testimony). When using testimony, make sure you indicate whether it is expert or lay by sharing with the audience the context of the quote. Share the credentials of experts (education background, job title, years of experience, etc.) to add to your credibility or give some personal context for the lay testimony (eyewitness, personal knowledge, etc.).
Choosing the Right Supporting Material
As you sift through your research materials to find supporting material to incorporate into your speech, you will want to include a variety of information types. Choosing supporting material that is relevant to your audience will help make your speech more engaging. As was noted earlier, a speaker should consider the audience throughout the speech-making process. Imagine you were asked to deliver a speech about your college or university. To get some practice adapting supporting material to various audiences, provide an example of each type of supporting material that is tailored to the following specific audiences. Include an example, an explanation, a statistic, an analogy, some testimony, and a visual aid.
Visual aids help a speaker reinforce speech content visually, which helps amplify the speaker’s message. They can be used to present any of the types of supporting materials discussed previously. Speakers rely heavily on an audience’s ability to learn by listening, which may not always be successful if audience members are visual or experiential learners. Even if audience members are good listeners, information overload or external or internal noise can be barriers to a speaker achieving his or her speech goals. Therefore skillfully incorporating visual aids into a speech has many potential benefits:
There are several types of visual aids, and each has its strengths in terms of the type of information it lends itself to presenting. The types of visual aids we will discuss are objects; chalkboards, whiteboards, and flip charts; posters and handouts; pictures; diagrams; charts; graphs; videos; and presentation software. It’s important to remember that supporting materials presented on visual aids should be properly cited. We will discuss proper incorporation of supporting materials into a speech in Section 9.3 “Organizing” . While visual aids can help bring your supporting material to life, they can also add more opportunities for things to go wrong during your speech. Therefore we’ll discuss some tips for effective creation and delivery as we discuss the various types of visual aids.
Three-dimensional objects that represent an idea can be useful as a visual aid for a speech. They offer the audience a direct, concrete way to understand what you are saying. I often have my students do an introductory speech where they bring in three objects that represent their past, present, and future. Students have brought in a drawer from a chest that they were small enough to sleep in as a baby, a package of Ramen noodles to represent their life as a college student, and a stethoscope or other object to represent their career goals, among other things. Models also fall into this category, as they are scaled versions of objects that may be too big (the International Space Station) or too small (a molecule) to actually show to your audience.
Tips for Using Objects Effectively
Chalkboards, whiteboards, and flip charts can be useful for interactive speeches. If you are polling the audience or brainstorming you can write down audience responses easily for everyone to see and for later reference. They can also be helpful for unexpected clarification. If audience members look confused, you can take a moment to expand on a point or concept using the board or flip chart. Since many people are uncomfortable writing on these things due to handwriting or spelling issues, it’s good to anticipate things that you may have to expand on and have prepared extra visual aids or slides that you can include if needed. You can also have audience members write things on boards or flip charts themselves, which helps get them engaged and takes some of the pressure off you as a speaker.
Posters generally include text and graphics and often summarize an entire presentation or select main points. Posters are frequently used to present original research, as they can be broken down into the various steps to show how a process worked. Posters can be useful if you are going to have audience members circulating around the room before or after your presentation, so they can take the time to review the poster and ask questions. Posters are not often good visual aids during a speech, because it’s difficult to make the text and graphics large enough for a room full of people to adequately see. The best posters are those created using computer software and professionally printed on large laminated paper.
Printing/copying businesses are now good at helping produce professional-looking posters. Although they can be costly, they add to the speaker’s credibility.
University of Fraser Valley – UFV – Student Research Day – CC BY 2.0.
These professional posters come at a price, often costing between forty and sixty dollars. If you opt to make your own poster, take care to make it look professional. Use a computer and printer to print out your text; do not handwrite on a poster. Make sure anything you cut by hand has neat, uniform edges. You can then affix the text, photos, and any accent backing to the poster board. Double-sided tape works well for this, as it doesn’t leave humps like those left by rolled tape or the bubbles, smearing, or sticky mess left by glue.
Handouts can be a useful alternative to posters. Think of them as miniposters that audience members can reference and take with them. Audience members will likely appreciate a handout that is limited to one page, is neatly laid out, and includes the speaker’s contact information. It can be appropriate to give handouts to an audience before a long presentation where note taking is expected, complicated information is presented, or the audience will be tested on or have to respond to the information presented. In most regular speeches less than fifteen minutes long, it would not be wise to distribute handouts ahead of time, as they will distract the audience from the speaker. It’s better to distribute the handouts after your speech or at the end of the program if there are others speaking after you.
Photographs, paintings, drawings, and sketches fall into the pictures category of visual aids. Pictures can be useful when you need to show an exact replication of what you’re speaking about. Pictures can also connect to your audience on a personal level, especially if they evoke audience emotions. Think about the use of pictures in television commercials asking for donations or sponsorships. Organizations like Save the Children and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals successfully use pictures of malnourished children or abused animals to pull at the heartstrings of viewers. A series of well-chosen and themed pictures can have a meaningful impact on an audience. Although some pictures can be effectively presented when printed out on standard 8 1/2″ x 11″ printer paper using a black and white printer, others will need to be enlarged and/or printed in color, which will cost some money. You can often avoid this by incorporating a picture into a PowerPoint presentation, as the picture will be projected large enough for people to see. We will discuss PowerPoint in more detail later.
Diagrams are good for showing the inner workings of an object or pointing out the most important or relevant parts of something. Think about diagrams as blueprints that show the inside of something—for example, key bones in the human body in a speech about common skateboarding injuries. Diagrams are good alternatives to pictures when you only need to point out certain things that may be difficult to see in a photograph.
You may even be able to draw a simple diagram yourself if you find it would be useful during your speech. Although not all maps are simple enough to be created by the speaker, many maps can be hand drawn during a speech or ahead of time to indicate different locations or patterns. While I would recommend that you anticipate this ahead of time so you can incorporate a more professional version of the diagram created with computer software or more precise drawing, drawing a diagram on an overhead projector, whiteboard, or smart board can be useful.
Charts and tables are useful for compiling and cross-referencing larger amounts of information. The combination of rows and columns allows you to create headers and then divide them up into units, categories, dates, and so on. Medical information is put into charts so that periods of recorded information, such as vital signs, can be updated and scanned by doctors and nurses. Charts and tables are also good for combining text and numbers, and they are easy to make with word processing software like Microsoft Word or spreadsheet software like Excel. Think of presenting your department’s budget and spending at the end of a business quarter. You could have headers in the columns with the various categories and itemized deductions in the rows ending with a final total for each column.
A pie chart is an alternative representation of textual and numerical data that offers audience members a visual representation of the relative proportions of a whole. In a pie chart, each piece of the pie corresponds to a percentage of the whole, and the size of the pie varies with the size of the percentage. As with other charts and tables, most office software programs now easily make pie charts.
Graphs are representations that point out numerical relationships or trends and include line graphs and bar graphs. Line graphs are useful for showing trends over time. For example, you could track the rising cost of tuition for colleges and universities in a persuasive speech about the need for more merit-based financial aid.
Bar graphs are good for comparing amounts. In the same speech, you could compare the tuition of two-year institutions to that of four-year institutions. Graphs help make numerical data more digestible for your audience and allow you to convey an important numerical trend visually and quickly without having to go into lengthy explanations. Remember to always clearly label your x -axis and y -axis and to explain the basics of your graph to your audience before you go into the specific data. If you use a graph that was created by someone else, make sure it is large and clear enough for the audience to read and that you cite the original source.
Video clips as visual aids can be powerful and engaging for an audience, but they can also be troublesome for speakers. Whether embedded in a PowerPoint presentation, accessed through YouTube, or played from a laptop or DVD player, video clips are notorious for tripping up speakers. They require more than one piece of electronics when they are hooked to a projector and speaker and sometimes also require an Internet connection. The more electronic connection points, the more chances for something to go wrong. Therefore it is very important to test your technology before your speech, have a backup method of delivery if possible, and be prepared to go on without the video if all else fails. Although sometimes tempting, you should not let the video take over your speech. I recommend that my students not have more than 10 percent of their speech be filled with video, meaning there should be no more than one minute of video in a ten-minute speech. Make sure your video is relevant and that it is cued to where it needs to be. One useful strategy for incorporating video is to play a video without audio and speak along with the video, acting as a narrator. This allows the speaker to have more control over the visual aid and to adapt it and make it more relevant to a specific topic and audience. Additionally, video editing software like Final Cut and iMovie are readily available to college students and relatively easy to use. Some simple editing to cut together various clips that are meaningful or adding an introductory title or transitions can go a long way toward making your video look professional.
The prevalence of computers and projectors in most schools, offices, and other presentation facilities has made using computer-generated visual aids more convenient. PowerPoint is the most commonly used presentation software and has functionality ranging from the most simple text-based slide to complicated transitions, timing features, video/sound imbedding, and even functionality with audience response systems like Turning Point that allow data to be collected live from audience members and incorporated quickly into the slideshow. Despite the fact that most college students have viewed and created numerous PowerPoint presentations, I have still seen many poorly executed slideshows that detracted from the speaker’s message. PowerPoint should be viewed as a speech amplifier. Like an amplifier for a guitar, it doesn’t do much without a musician there to play the instrument. The speaker is the musician, the speech is the instrument, and PowerPoint is the amplifier. Just as the amplifier doesn’t dictate what the guitar player does, neither should PowerPoint take over the speaker.
I like to distinguish between using PowerPoint as a presentation aid and as a visual aid. PowerPoint, with all its bells and whistles, is designed as a presentation aid. Presentations are generally longer than speeches, at least fifteen minutes long, and are content heavy. College lectures and many professional conference presentations fall into this category. In these cases, PowerPoint generally runs along with the speaker throughout the presentation, reviewing key points and presenting visual aids such as pictures and graphs. The constant running of the slideshow also facilitates audience note taking, which is also common during presentations.
Speeches, on the other hand, are usually fifteen minutes or less, have repetition and redundancy built in (as they are adapted to a listening audience), and carry less expectation that the audience will take detailed notes. In this case, I believe PowerPoint should be used more as a visual aid, meaning that it should be simpler and amplify particular components of the speech rather than run along with the speaker throughout the speech.
Tips for Using PowerPoint as a Visual Aid
Alternatives to PowerPoint
Although PowerPoint is the most frequently used presentation software, there are alternatives that can also be engaging and effective if the speaker is willing to invest the time in learning something new. Keynote is Apple’s alternative to Microsoft’s PowerPoint and offers some themes and style choices that can set your presentation apart from the familiar look of PowerPoint. Keep in mind that you will need to make sure you have access to Mac-compatible presentation tools, since Keynote won’t run or open on most PCs. Prezi is a new web-based presentation tool that uses Flash animation, zooming, and motion to make a very different-looking computer-generated visual aid. If you have the time to play with Prezi and create a visual aid for your presentation, you will stand out. You can see Prezi in action in Note 9.31 “Video Clip 9.1” . You can also see sample presentations on Prezi’s website: http://prezi.com/explore .
James Geary, Metaphorically Speaking
In this video, James Geary presents on metaphor using Prezi as his visual aid.
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All direct quotes, paraphrasing, summarizing, statistics, and outside opinions count as outside information, and must be cited. If you have never developed a system for keeping track of your citations, the following video provides an easy to use but effective system.
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Hi, everyone! This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today's video, I'll tell you how I use Google Sheets to organize my citations and sources for papers and research projects.
I'm in my first year of graduate school and we do a lot of writing. References and citations are very important, as they are for any discipline. I supposed if I was writing a dissertation with a hundred citations, I would feel the need to pay for and learn a whole complicated citation software, but since I'm not, I prefer to use tools that I already use and know well. AND despite the fact I'm not writing a dissertation, I have written some papers that have had over 25 sources, so I do need SOME kind of system to organize and manage my citations.
I started out, as most people do, with kind of a hodge-podge system of just cutting and pasting URLs from the Internet and sticking them at the bottom of the Word document of the paper. Or, if I'm doing research, I'd just copy and paste URLs with maybe some quotes from the study or article. The problem was, if I had multiple quotes, I couldn't organize them by topic for fear of losing the reference link, or I'd have to duplicate the URL multiple times. Plus, scrolling down to check these references was annoying. I needed a better, less messy system.
Here's what I do now. For each research project or paper, I create a new Google Sheets spreadsheet for references. You could easily do this in any spreadsheet program. I name it something like Class name - Project name - Citations and Quotes. Let's use a research project that I just did for my Policy class as an example. My spreadsheet name is "Policy - Ex-Felon Voting Rights Citations and Quotes." Then -- I make 2 tabs. The first tab is called Quotes, the second is Sources. I'm going to put a sample of this Citation Spreadsheet up on my Google Drive to share with you. To use it, just follow the link that I will provide in the notes section, make a copy into your own Drive, and then use it or modify it as you see fit.
Sample Google Spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PaQbDLrTFptlZAlarTkdj_syYBxs1zUaqqXulF1e11A/edit?usp=sharing
Back to the spreadsheet -- so, now as I'm doing my research and reading a bunch of different articles -- in this case, mostly news articles and opinion pieces -- I starting finding quotes or statistics that help me to understand the issue or that I might want to use in my paper. So, I copy the quote and paste it into this first column. Okay -- the second column is a reference number. I'm going to want to remember where I got this quote from -- so go to the article and copy the URL or website address. I note some basics about the source and what the article is about -- in this case it's an Editorial from The Washington Post Editorial Board. Now I go into the Sources tab paste the URL under website address, note some basics about the article -- more for my own recall ability than anything else, and I number it -- #1. Now, I'm going to have a bunch of other articles to put in here, so I might as well go ahead and fill in these numbers, 1 to 10. Okay, back to the Quotes tab, I'm going to indicate that this quote came from article #1. Now, I can paste several quotes from the same article, I just need to indicate where they came from. So, here is my completed spreadsheet for this research project. I have 13 sources and 38 quotes. I obviously did not use all of those in my paper, but they helped to shape my understanding of the topic and served as a repository for the quotes and statistics that I DID end up using.
Just a quick note -- because of the nature of this research project, most of my sources were articles about current events, but this system also works great for scholarly research since so much is accessible on the Internet these days through your academic institution's research portal. I also use this system to capture quotes from books. Check out my video on exporting quotes from Kindle books into a spreadsheet such as this.
There are two things that I find really helpful about this system:
1) Easy to categorize - Because each quote has its own line, you can tag each quote with a theme or category. For example, in this column, I'm going to put in the main reasoning that states use to disenfranchise ex-offenders. There are a handful: safety, punishment, violation of social contract, political ideology, race etc. Not every quote is going to get a tag, but I can tag all of the ones that apply and then I can sort by this column. That way, if this is how I've decided to structure my paper, in this case -- by state rationale, I have quotes that are all nicely grouped together and ready to use for each topic. The second thing, is that this system makes it
2) Easy to cite while drafting - So, I'm writing my paper and I want to use a good statistic. Here's one: "McAuliffe's order affected 200,000 people in a state where 3.9 million people voted in the 2012 presidential election." So, I go ahead and quote this in my paper. Now, I don't want to slow down my writing process do the whole citation now (for me, that is an entirely different thinking process), so when I'm drafting, I just put the reference number in parenthesis right behind the quote. Like this (4). Then, once I've drafted and edited the paper, I go back in looking for reference numbers and replace them with proper citations. This is easy to do since I have a nice centralized place where I've gathered all of the source website information.
This system has worked well for me. Let me know what you think! Comments are always appreciated and thanks for watching!
You may also choose to organize your notes on sources in a more topical manner. For instance, you may have main points as a heading and include bullet points of quotes, information, and statistics. Be sure to include your sources!
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Now, how do you incorporate those sources into your writing? This wonderful video from ASU and Crash Course covers how you can use paraphrasing, quotations, and explanations without plagiarism.
Ask your professor which style you should use for your class. APA, MLA, and Chicago are the three mostly commonly used citation styles at Santa Fe College, with APA being the most common citation style for speech classes.
To orally cite something, you will need to give sufficient information about the source to your audience. Typically, this is the author, title, and date of a source. By including this information, you allow your listeners to find your original sources, as well as allow them to hear that your sources are recent and are credible.
Orally Citing Information in Your Speech from Andrew Ishak on Vimeo .
Provide the author, title, and date of the book.
Colonel Charles Hoge in his 2010 book Once a Warrior, Always a Warrior coins the term 'rageaholism,' which refers to "persistent rage and hostility."
Provide the author, publication name, and date.
The recent 2013 Law & Human Behavior article by Kahn, Byrd, and Pardini, shows that young men who have high callous-unemotional traits, such as a lack of empathy, are more likely to be arrested for serious crimes.
Provide the website title and date.
In a March 2014 piece on the Blue Review website, anthropologist John Ziker found that college professors spend 17% of their day in meetings.
Provide the name of the interviewer (if not you), the name and credentials of the interviewee, and the date.
In an February 25 interview with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show , Michio Kaku notes that memories can currently be uploaded into mice, and eventually this could be used to help sufferers of Alzheimer's disease.
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The correct answer is A. source. Any book, article, website, video, interview, or speech you research and use in your paper is called a source.A source is any material used in your research. It can be any type of material such as books, articles, websites, videos, interviews, or speeches that you research and use in your paper.
10 Ways to Do Your Best in Virtual Media Interviews. Though the Covid-19 pandemic has certainly prompted many changes in how we communicate and conduct book publicity campaigns, virtual media interviews were happening long before stay-at-home orders forced TV studios to adapt. Replacing the old studio remote interview, we increasingly saw foreign news correspondents reporting via Skype, and it ...
Chicago Style Citation Examples | Website, Book, Article, ...
Advanced Tips on Research. 1. Brainstorm. You should thoroughly brainstorm your topic in writing before you ever begin researching. Make a list of possible words you would look up. Anytime you do this type of brainstorming, your goal should be to have at least 20 words.
I recommend setting a schedule and sticking to it. You may want to post one interview a week—or five a week. Just be sure to plan ahead. Here are some steps to help you conduct your own podcast and video interviews: Plan your airtime schedule in advance. We host ours on Wednesdays at 10am PT / 1pm ET. This never changes.
1st Edition • ISBN: 9780030994166 Rinehart, Winston and Holt. 5,621 solutions. Find step-by-step solutions and your answer to the following textbook question: Any book, article, website, video, interview, or speech you research and use in your paper is called a: a) source b) bibliography c) citation style d) summary.
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Some video apps allow you to hide your own image, if you find it distracting - but make sure it's still visible to your interviewers. 3. Pay Attention to Your Body Language. Positive body language is vital in any interview, and your nonverbal signals can be even more apparent when you're on camera.
A video interview with author Sandra M. Stith discussing her book Couples Therapy for Domestic Violence, published by APA in June 2011. Interview With Scott Browning About Stepfamily Therapy. A video interview with author Scott Browning discussing his book Stepfamily Therapy: A 10-Step Clinical Approach, published by APA in August 2011.
The articles discuss news and special features related to a specific industry. Researchers and scholars are the main audience for academic journals. They do not feature pictures or advertisements. Research articles make-up the content. They are written by researchers/scholars of a particular profession or discipline.
Practice makes perfect. Practice anytime, anywhere for your interview and increase your chances of success. The practice exercises mimic video-conferencing tools such as Zoom and Teams, with real-life interview questions and automated feedback. Practice answering both competency-based and company-specific questions in the mock interview.
Weegy: Listing your ideas in order to generate a topic for your writing project is brainstorming.User: To maintain a new word in your vocabulary, you must _____ it. A. pronounce B. use C. read D. define Weegy: In order for a new word to be maintained in your vocabulary, you must use it.User: Which of the following words best fits the definition of "having a cheap and ugly appearance"?
Any book, article, website, video, interview, or speech you research and use in your paper is called a source. Log in for more information. This answer has been confirmed as correct and helpful. Search for an answer or ask Weegy. There are no new answers.
Any book, article , website , video , interview , or speech you research and use in your paper is called a source. Log in for more information. Added 6/22/2021 8:02:21 PM
The correct answer is 'source (C)'. Any book, article, website, video, interview, or speech used in a paper is considered a source. Explanation: The subject of this question is English. The word 'research' and the mention of a paper indicate that this question is related to academic writing. The correct answer is source (C). When writing a ...
PUBLICATIONS: Textbooks, magazine articles, histories, criticisms, commentaries, encyclopedias ; Examples of secondary sources include: A journal/magazine article which interprets or reviews previous findings; A history textbook; A book about the effects of WWI
Citing Sources: Citing Orally in Speeches
When interviewing on the phone or via video chat, make sure distractions (e.g., barking dogs) are minimized. Whether the interview is conducted face-to-face, over the phone, or via video (e.g., Skype), you must get permission to record. Recording can be useful, as it increases accuracy and the level of detail taken away from the interview.
Final answer: A source, citation, and bibliography play crucial roles in researching and writing papers. Explanation: Source: A source refers to any book, article, website, video, interview, or speech used in a paper or research.It is essential for providing credibility and acknowledging the original authors.
User: Any book, article, website, video, interview, or speech you research and use in your paper is called a Weegy: Any book, article, website, video, interview, or speech you research and use in your paper is called a source. Score 1 User: Which of the following statements about online and word processing citation tools is true Weegy: The following statements about online and word processing ...
User: Any book, article, website, video, interview, or speech you research and use in your paper is called a A. source.B. bibliography. C. citation style. D. summary Weegy: Any book, article, website, video, interview, or speech you research and use in your paper is called a source. Score 1 User: Which of the following parenthetical citations uses punctuation correctly?
APA, MLA, and Chicago are the three mostly commonly used citation styles at Santa Fe College, with APA being the most common citation style for speech classes. APA style is most frequently used in education, social sciences, and health fields. The official book for APA style is the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association.
Any book, article, website, video, interview, or speech you research and use in your paper is called a A. source. B. bibliography. C. citation style. D. summary