From Source to Speech: Demonstrating Your Sources’ Reliability and Credibility

Demonstrating Your Sources’ Reliability and Credibility

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From Source to Speech

Demonstrating Your Sources’ Reliability and Credibility

How Can I Lead the Audience to Accept My Sources as Reliable and Credible?

  • If a source has relevant credentials that would inspire trust, note the credentials.
  • If citing a source or study linked to a reputable institution, identify the institution.
  • If citing statistics, reveal how they were derived (mention method and scope of research) and put them into context (make them meaningful).

In the following excerpt from a speech on the social consequences of texting among young cell phone users, the speaker leaves out information that would help convince the audience that the sources of her evidence are trustworthy:

Below we see a much more convincing use of the same sources.