PRESENTING EVIDENCE IN YOUR SPEECHES

• Thoroughly document all your sources. Be sure to provide a complete citation for each source in your speech outline. Check with your instructor to determine what format is required.
• Present evidence in claim-source-support order. Begin by stating the point you are making. Next, fully cite your source, presenting the author, his or her credentials, the publication, and the date. Finally, quote or paraphrase the evidence. See the following example:

  Family farms are thriving. [claim] An example is provided by Chrystia Freeland, global editor-at-large for Reuters News Agency, in the Atlantic, July/August 2012 [source]: “Urbanites may picture farmers as hip heritage-pig breeders returning to the land, or a struggling rural underclass waging a doomed battle to hang on to their patrimony as agribusiness moves in. But these stereotypes are misleading. In 2010, of all the farms in the United States with at least $1 million in revenues, 88% were family farms.” [evidence]

• Use evidence in a supporting role. Evidence should support the points in your speech, which should be your creation. Do not copy large chunks of information from your sources and paste them into your speech.
• Paraphrase responsibly. If you are paraphrasing evidence (stating it in your own words rather than word-for-word from your source), be sure to accurately represent the author’s intent. It is unethical to present evidence using power wording—that is, to reword evidence in a way that better supports your claim but misrepresents the source’s point of view.