Effective public speaking, even on familiar topics, requires thorough research to elevate content beyond personal knowledge, add credibility, and genuinely inform and engage the audience.
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you will talk about finding and using
sometimes students will say really I
have to do research but I already know
about this topic and I would say you
don't know everything and there's a lot
you don't know and that you should learn
more about you've picked a topic that in
fact is interesting to you so finding
research will be fun so yeah you have to
do research in fact you have to do
research for all presentations in class
because you're always speaking to an
audience and you're elevating them and
that means that you're more than just
telling this what's at the top here off
the top of your head about something I
had a student for example last semester
who did a speech on raising chickens and
he said but I don't need to do research
because I raised the chickens and I
would say said but you don't know
everything there is to know about them
and I don't know you might actually
learn more too which is always course
good learning is good so yes research is
required the informative speech is less
rigorous you can do Google search
generally speaking and you'll be okay
for future speeches that will be
different for the argumentative
presentation for example that's quite
different and you will need to do more
more rigorous research and you'll be
doing sources and insights that you've
not used before probably using
government documents and other kinds of
sources like that more substantial and
more credible for the informative
speaking assignment though you're
talking about something that you have
experience with or that you're
interested with interested in about and
so this will be a fun experience so why
do I have to do research well because
your experience is not exhaustive and
it's not the only knowledge that's out
there so even if you are for example the
leading expert in the area on this topic
you need to do additional research to
support your expertise my guess though
is given your position in life you're
not the leading expert in the area and
and so you will always need additional
support because your
not the only person who knows about this
lots of other people have done things
related to the topic so even if you are
the leading expert which you aren't you
need to realize that you're not I know a
lot about Aristotle I teach Aristotle
every semester if I was doing an
informative speech about Aristotle I
would not go based on what's in my head
about Aristotle I would do additional
research to complement what I know in
order to bolster what I have say about
Aristotle I've been reading about whales
my whole life I would not just take what
I have here now I would go back and
refresh what I know and build into it
additional information and knowledge
I've been baking a certain cake mine for
years that was my grandmother's recipe I
would still go and find information
about that recipe or about baking that
would complement what I know so no
matter what you're doing a speech on you
always find additional information on
the speech none of the qualities of
experience or your interest suffice or
substitute for doing research for your
speech research is an opportunity to
grow and to learn and that's what this
is all about
remember our topics are informing our
audience by creating news right and
worthiness and elevating them okay and
so you'll need to use additional
substantive information to help elevate
the topic beyond your personal
it will add credibility to what you have
to say it adds versatility to what you
have to say and it will help to
illustrate or exemplify and otherwise
support your ideas so you always need
supporting information to support your claims
claims
always always always so what do I quote
and when do I quote it in my speech
that's what we'll talk about here okay
so the general rule is that you support
ideas that aren't common knowledge and
that can get tricky because what's
common knowledge and you should err on
the side of it's probably not common
knowledge because you know more about
your topic then the audience likely does
so research should always strengthen
what it is that you want to say that you
aren't sure about or that the audience
doesn't know about it can also be used
obviously to illustrate or you can find
an example of an idea and you will need
to cite your sources in the outline
called in-text citations and orally in
the presentation it's very important for
you to remember that no one's reading
your outline and certainly your
instructors not reading your outline
while you're giving your speech so that
outline is something that might be
viewed before or after your speech but
never during so you always need to
during the speech tell us where this
information came from and cite it orally
as well there is a separate lecture and
separate readings on citing sources in
your outline as well as your
presentation and you need to review that
information so listen to the lecture and
do that reading so the question now is
how do I research well I know that
you've been doing this a long time and
I'm not going to spend a long time on
this there's a separate section there's
reading on doing research and finding
different kinds of sources and we're
going to expand this with your
annotation lecture but it means that you
look at a variety of sources for your
topic so you're reading a couple of
different areas so you might read if I'm
I'm gonna do whales I might read about
maybe the life habits right the patterns
of whales I might read about their
physical makeup right so I'm
might be doing encyclopedia research I
might go to the Smithsonian website
right whale watching sites so I'm doing
a variety of information to compile
what's the what do I really want to
focus on so you need to look at a number
of sources the minimum requirement for
sources for the informative speech is
three okay so you can look at the
library and I know that people don't
really go to the library anymore which
is unfortunate but you can go to the
library online and is use online website
is quite easy to use and it's good and
you should use it and we'll have a
special workshop for doing that later in
the semester
obviously internet sources are fine
Google search is generally okay you can
do personal interviews but you should
you should limit these you should do one
if you're going to do a personal
interview your whole speech should not
be personal interviews so if for example
you're doing the your grandmother's
greatest chocolate cake recipe you can
interview your grandmother and talk
about sort of where it came from and
tips that she has or making the
chocolate cake but then interviewing you
know your aunt and your uncle about how
delicious it is it's not really
additional research so you need to then
research you know allrecipes.com
or Epicurious comm or food or blogs or
the the food network to find out why is
a cake made at 350 degrees and why do I
have to use parchment paper in the
bottom of a pan I just always do it your
grandmother might not know why it's made
it bakes at 350 degrees but you could
find out by doing some research about
this is why it's the best temperature so
personal interviews are fine as a start
one is okay but you should also not use
personal interviews to the exclusion of
reading about your topic so you should
spend you know two hours reading about
your topic and you'll find interesting
information and it will be well used so
if it's a topic that you care a lot
about for example you'd be like cool I
get to go research about whales for two hours
hours
so your job is to enlighten and to
elevate and sometimes tips or unique
information or stuff that you didn't
know even though you've known about
Aristotle for 25 years right and now I
read this additional thing it's like
that's cool I didn't know that so it can
enlighten and elevate you which then you
can pass on to your audience so reading
about a topic that you care about is good
so you'll need to collect your research
so keep track of your sources it's very
important that you always know where the
information came from you need a work
cited page but also you need to
correctly credit it so keep track of
that you can use note cards you can use
a note card system on your computer you
can use a collection or research website
like Zotero that keeps track of all the
information whatever filing system that
you end up using is fine just a word
document with the source at the top and
then your collected information
underneath that however it is you need
to combine it right and compile the
information in a way that's easy to sort
through and that you can keep track of
it's important that you always keep the
information with the correct source so
you need some sort of a filing system I
know you've learned about that in other
classes so do what what pleases you or
what works best for you you always need
to record the source so that you could
go back and find it so if it's a website
just writing cooking networker or a
network foodnetwork.com isn't going to
be good enough you need the slash and
the specific information on it you need
to include a paraphrase of the
information that you included from it
and then direct quotations that you
might use from that website most of your
information should be paraphrase you
should keep direct quotations to the
bare minimum because you're doing a
presentation where you're explaining
information to us and we don't want to
hear whole paragraphs from the
smithsonian website that's we could go
read that so we are interested in your
paraphrase of that right that your
summary of that information as you're
explaining it to us you're not reading
the website to us so you should use most
information that is paraphrased in your
own words but keep track of the
information that you use verbatim and
use quotation marks around it both in
your speech when you will change your
pace or your vocal intonation rate or
your emphasis with your vocals
not to indicate that you are quoting verbatim
verbatim
and also like this if you're using a
phrase a short phrase in your outline to
so keeping all of your sources separate
will help compiling your work cited page
at the end you should always be able to
reproduce your research if you're asked
to or if I say oh man I love that topic
I want to go read more about it I should
be able to find what you cite in your
work cited page and actually one of the
coolest things about teaching this class
is I do that all the time because you
have such interesting ideas and so I
learn from you and then I want to go
read more about it so it's very
important that you are accountable for
those sources so you'll make sure that
your paraphrasing information I know
that this is a skill you've learned in
other places and in other classes we're
gonna repeat the idea here just to make
sure that it's clear to you that you
should always put the information that
you're reading in your own words right
and so that you take and you compile
from a series of places a series of
sources this information and you've read
for sources about whales and and about
whale songs then you might talk about
you know you might use three of those
sources in your outline to say oh
there's this trade of a whale song and
oh they do this too and oh babies do
this so that you have a variety of
sources about whale songs you don't take
all the information from the Smithsonian
website about whale songs and present it
in your speech because I could just read
the Smithsonian website so you're
compiling a variety of types of
information from different sources into
your own idea so you need your own
phrasing so you need to make sure to use
your own words in the outline you should
never ever put long blocks of quotes in
an outline an outline is full sentences
not long sentences from sources copying
and pasting is not a thing you do for an
outline you don't do that so you instead
paraphrase what you've just copied and
pasted put it in your own words and then
make that into one sentence it's a process
we'll talk more about that with citing
sources in the outline and orally in the
speech in a separate reading and lecture
review this image though the five steps
of paraphrasing read the original until
you fully understand it read that
paragraph then paraphrase it without
looking at the original then compare
what you wrote with the original and say
oh gosh I took these whole words they
aren't mine I look like I memorized it
more than paraphrasing so I'm going to
use quotation marks around what I just
copied and then make sure that you
credit the source right at that time you
don't go back and do it all later you do
it at the same time this also helps you
process the information so you become
more familiar with it and it becomes
yours rather than somebody else's that
you're just citing
okay so paraphrasing is critical your
own ideas are critical your organization
of the ideas not taking somebody's three
things elsewhere you take your own and
you compile it from your unique
perspective so verbatim quotes are
something that are maintained just for a
couple of free a couple of words
together one small phrase very very
here's an example of how I would
integrate my research into a speech and
I like foodstuff as you may have
gathered so I might do this topic I mean
my topic is Chicago food okay Taste of
Chicago have you ever been to that it's
a really kind of fun food festival so
that would be my topic Chicago food my
general purpose is what I left that
blank for you because you know what it
is to inform my specific purpose
statement right focus is on the audience
so it says I want my audience to
understand the three types of food that
Chicago is known for I might also say
instead I want to inform my audience
about three types of Chicago food
okay then my specific purpose statement
so what three am I going to focus on
this would be a topical structure
because Chicago is known for more than
three but I'm just going to talk about
three because three is the magic number
so my central idea statement or my
thesis statement I've decided is three
types of food Chicago is known for our
first pizza second hotdogs and third
Italian beef sandwiches so that's the
body of my speech now how do i integrate
research into that well I've gone to
Chicago a bunch I've eaten all those
things at Chicago so do why do I need to
do research um see a book
so here's how I might research cite my
sources in the outline itself this is
what the outline looks like second my
second main point Chicago is known for
hot dogs a the Chicago style hot dog
became famous during the Depression
Chicago each calm told me that be the
ingredients of the Chicago style hot dog
include three main parts I got that from
pampered chef okay first a Vienna beef
hot dog second the sesame seed bun third
six special toppings which must be put
on in order
that would be how I've included my
resources in the outline I have two
sources there Chicago eats and pampered
chef and I've integrated them because
that's where that information came from
okay I have to have a work cited page or
a reference page which would include all
of those there's a correct way to do
that it would not be Chicago each com
how do I know what it is you use APA or
MLA you use a Jenner speech I'm sorry a
citation machine where it generates APA
or MLA listings online this is also in
your reading and in another lecture but
just go to Google and say how do I cite
things correctly using MLA style and
it'll take you to a site you plug in the
information it generates a site for you
don't ever use URLs in your outline
that's not a site
so how do I take this information second
Chicago's known for hot dogs and make it
into a speech outline well that's here
this is what my speaking outline looks
like here
second Chicago style hot dog a famous
during depression Schick eats I have
quotation mark street vendors sold for a
nickel so affordable be champ pampered
chef calm three parts okay say that
doesn't make sense exactly because it's
just melts that trigger what you're
going to say so this is what it might
sound like if I was going to speak
what's what this is if I say it out loud
I wouldn't say this second Chicago style
hot dog what it might sound like is the
second type of food that Chicago is
known for is hot dogs or more
specifically the Chicago style hot dog
I'll explain why these are so famous and
what exactly the Chicago style hot dog
is made of these Chicago hot dogs became
famous during the Depression when
according to Chicago eats street vendors
sold these hot dogs for a nickel which
made them popular and affordable so what
is a Chicago style hot dog
well according to pampered chef calm it
contains three important parts first the
hotdog which should be a Vienna beef hot
dog as they were the creators of the
Chicago style hot dog second you need a
hot dog bun should be with sesame seeds
on the outside and finally there are six
toppings that go on top of that hotdog
and the order matters
so that's what I might say in my speech
using this as my speaking outline you
heard Chicago style hot dogs right you
heard me say two sources right because I
cited the sources of where the
so that's how you would use research in
your speech and it's important that you
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