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PART 4 CITING SOURCES IN SPEECHES
When you use ideas generated and facts gathered by others in a speech, you are obligated to credit your sources.
Acknowledging appropriate sources properly demonstrates the depth and quality of your research to your audience, which in turn bolsters your own credibility as a speaker who avoids plagiarism. Citing sources also allows your listeners to check your sources and do their own research.
A verbal acknowledgment of a source within a speech is an oral citation. You should briefly offer the following information when orally citing a source:
The author or origin of the source (“New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman . . .” or “According to the National Education Association website . . .”)
The type of source (TV interview, blog post, book, magazine, video, etc.)
The title or a description of the source (“In the book The Rise of Drones at Home . . .” or “In an acclaimed memoir about overcoming substance abuse . . .”)
The date of the source (“An article published on May 1st, 2011 . . .” or “According to an updated report about the Ebola outbreak posted by the CDC on July 12, 2012 . . .”)
Keep oral citations as brief as possible to avoid disrupting the flow of your speech. However, you should maintain a formal written bibliography of all your sources.
A skeptical audience will accept your supporting materials—
Source reliability refers to how trustworthy we consider a source to be, and it is often based in large part on the source’s history of providing factual information. However, even reliable sources can be inaccurate. For example, a nurse might spot inaccuracies in a New York Times article about health care due to his or her expertise, even though one might generally consider the New York Time reliable. Because no source is infallible, a claim supported by multiple sources will always seem more credible than a claim with only one source for support. The more controversial the claim, the more important it is to support that claim with a variety of sources.
Offering a source qualifier, or briefly noting why the source is qualified to address the topic, will bolster its credibility among skeptical listeners. For example, while making a claim about video games, one might introduce a source thusly: “Former video games editor for Wired . . .”
Oral citation doesn’t have to interrupt the flow of your speech.
Varying the wording of your citations can make your delivery natural and keep audiences tuned in. For example, if you introduce one source with the phrase “According to . . . ,” use another phrase for the next. “As reported by . . .”; “In the opinion of . . .”; and “Wired journalist Emily Dreyfuss writes that . . .” are just a few examples.
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Leading with your claim places the most interesting information up front, and helps keep your speech organized in such a way that the audience can easily follow your logic. For example, you might begin a sentence with a claim that “Alcohol abuse can lead to colon cancer . . .” before revealing your source: “according to a new report by scientists at Carnegie Mellon University.”
Presentation aids that contain information drawn from research must also be labeled on the aid. If you reproduce copyrighted material such as photographs or infographics, put a copyright symbol (©) next to your citation(s). Use both oral and written citation in conjunction when the audience would benefit from both. For example, while pointing to a photograph labeled properly in its caption, you might also say, “This photo from Life magazine shows . . .”