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THE ART OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

Author Stephen Lucas 11th edition

Chapter 7

Gathering Materials

Using Your Own Knowledge and Experience

Doing Library Research

Searching the Internet

Interviewing

Tips for Doing Research

Suppose you are planning a trip to India. You want to know the major sites so you can work out an itinerary. You also need to know what things will cost, where the hostels are located, and how the train and bus systems work. How do you go about gathering all this information?

You can talk to people who have traveled in India and get ideas from them. You can consult guidebooks. You can search the Internet for information. If you have traveled to South Asia before, you can draw on that experience. Since you want your trip to be a success, you gather as much information as you can before you leave.

Gathering materials for a speech is like gathering information for any project. There are many resources available if you take advantage of them. You can interview people with specialized knowledge. You can do research on the Internet or in the library. Sometimes you can use yourself as a resource—whenever you have personal experience or above-average knowledge about a subject. Let's turn first to the resource of your own experience.

Using Your Own Knowledge and Experience

Page 120Everybody is an expert on something, whether it is video games, child care, or backpacking. As we saw in Chapter 5, we often speak best about subjects with which we are familiar. This is why many teachers encourage students to capitalize on their own knowledge and experience in developing speech topics.

When you choose a topic from your own experience, you may be tempted to depersonalize it by relying solely on facts and figures from books and the Internet. Such outside information is almost always necessary. But supplementing it with the personal touch can really bring your speeches to life.

One student, afflicted with diabetes, chose to explain how a person can live with the disease on a daily basis. He cited statistics on the incidence of diabetes in the United States, identified symptoms of the disease, and explained how it is treated. Along the way, he illustrated his points by talking about his personal experiences. Here is part of what he said:

Being a diabetic presents a challenge one cannot afford to lose. On a personal note, I have tried not to let my diabetes affect my lifestyle. Last year, I spent nine months traveling in Central and South America. The trip was very memorable, but I had one particularly frightening experience that quickly makes you realize just how vulnerable a diabetic is. On the fifth day of a two-week excursion down the Amazon River, our canoe tipped, dumping everything into the water.

Although I recovered my pack, part of its contents—including my insulin—were swallowed up by the river. Without insulin, I could not eat any food, for if I did, my blood sugar level would become too high and I could eventually go into convulsions, slip into a coma, and die. We returned back up the Amazon and traveled three days until we reached the first village and I could radio for more medicine. I was hot and hungry, but alive.

This speech has color and emotion. By drawing on his own experience, the speaker conveyed his point more meaningfully than he could have in any other way.

Even if your life stories are not that dramatic, you can still put them to work for you. By thinking over your past experiences—gathering material from yourself—you can find many supporting materials for your speeches.

Doing Library Research

Even in this age of the Internet, you will get some of the information for your speeches from the library. It contains many resources to help you find what you need, including librarians, the catalogue, reference works, and databases. We'll look at each in turn.

LIBRARIANS

Too often students waste their time wandering aimlessly in the library because they are afraid to ask for assistance. They don't want to appear stupid or toPage 121“bother” anyone. But would you be as sensitive about asking a doctor for help with a medical problem? Librarians are experts in their own field, trained in library use and research methods. If you have a question, don't hesitate to ask a librarian. He or she can help you find your way, locate sources, even track down a specific piece of information.

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FIGURE 7.1 Sample Catalogue Entry for a Book

catalogue

A listing of all the books, periodicals, and other resources owned by a library.

THE CATALOGUE

The catalogue lists all the books, periodicals, and other resources owned by the library. Although there are many different computer systems for library catalogues, most allow you to search for books by author, title, subject, or keyword. The catalogue also tells you whether the book you want is available or is already checked out.

Figure 7.1 above shows a sample catalogue entry for a book. The key to finding the book on the shelves is the call number. Once you have the call number, all you have to do is find the right section of the shelves (or stacks, as they are called in some libraries) and retrieve your book.

call number

A number used in libraries to classify books and periodicals and to indicate where they can be found on the shelves.

REFERENCE WORKS

Reference works are usually kept in a part of the library called the reference section. The right reference work can save you hours of time by putting at your fingertips a wealth of information that might be difficult to locate through the library catalogue. The major kinds of reference works you are likely to use for your speeches are encyclopedias, yearbooks, quotation books, and biographical aids.

reference work

A work that synthesizes a large amount of related information for easy access by researchers.

Encyclopedias

We are all familiar with general encyclopedias such as the Encyclopaedia Britannica. But there are also special encyclopedias that cover their fields in more depth than do general encyclopedias. Some of the most frequently Page 122used special encyclopedias are the African American Encyclopedia, the Encyclopedia of Religion, and the McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology.

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Library research is vital for most speeches. Knowing the resources available in your library and how to use them efficiently will make the research process much more productive.

Yearbooks

As the name implies, yearbooks are published annually. They contain an amazing amount of current information that would otherwise be all but impossible to track down. Two of the most valuable yearbooks are Facts on File and World Almanac and Book of Facts.

Quotation Books

The best-known collection of quotations is Bartlett's Familiar Quotations. With more than 25,000 quotations from historical and contemporary figures, it has long been regarded as an indispensable source for speakers and writers alike. Other excellent quotation books include the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, The New Quotable Woman, and Ancient Echoes: Native American Words of Wisdom.

Biographical Aids

newspaper and periodical database

A research aid that catalogues articles from a large number of magazines, journals, and newspapers.

When you need information about people in the news, you can turn to one of the many reference works that contain brief life and career facts about contemporary men and women. The most popular biographical aids are published by Who's Who, which produces such titles as International Who's Who and Who's Who in America. More specialized biographical aids include Contemporary Black Biography, Dictionary of Hispanic Biography, and Who's Who Among Asian Americans.

NEWSPAPER AND PERIODICAL DATABASES

Newspaper and periodical databases allow you to locate articles in thousands of publications, including Time, Atlantic, the New York Times, and the Wall Page 123Street Journal. Type a subject in your database's search box, and citations for articles on your subject will appear on screen.

In some cases, you may get an abstract of the article in addition to—or instead of—the full article. Keep in mind that the abstract is only a summary of the article. You should never cite an article in your speech on the basis of the abstract alone. Always consult the full article.

abstract

A summary of a magazine or journal article, written by someone other than the original author.

The exact databases you can use will depend on what is available through your library. Here are three major databases; odds are that your library will have at least one of them.

ProQuest. An excellent database that indexes thousands of periodicals and newspapers. Figure 7.2 below shows a sample screen from ProQuest with a magazine citation and abstract.

LexisNexis Academic. This database provides full-text access to more than 45,000 information sources, including magazines, legal documents, and television broadcast transcripts. LexisNexis also furnishes articles from more than 500 U.S. and international newspapers.

World News Connection. Provides full-text articles from more than 2,000 international sources, including newspapers, speeches, broadcasts, books, and reports.

ACADEMIC DATABASES

At colleges and universities around the world, experts are researching almost every aspect of the natural world and human society. Their work appears in respected, peer-reviewed journals. Academic databases make those journals available to you.

academic database

A database that catalogues articles from scholarly journals.

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FIGURE 7.2 Sample Periodical Entry from ProQuest

Page 124The best place to find scholarly research is in one of the following academic databases. Because each searches across different academic disciplines, you should be able to find what you need in one of the databases.

InfoTrac OneFile. Provides access to more than 100 million scholarly articles in areas from economics and sociology to science and medicine.

JSTOR. In addition to cataloguing more than 1,000 academic journals in various disciplines, JSTOR allows you to search images, letters, and other primary documents.

Google Scholar. A fast and easy way to search a broad range of scholarly literature. Advanced search tools let you narrow your search by author, publication, date, and subject matter.

Searching the Internet

The Internet has been called the world's biggest library. But unlike a library, the Internet has no central information desk, no librarians, no catalogue, and no reference section. Nor does it have a person or department in charge of determining whether materials are of high quality. You can unearth a great deal of information on the Internet, but you cannot always find the same range and depth as in a good library. This is why experts advise that you use the Internet to supplement, not to replace, library research.

In this section, we will look at ways you can go beyond browsing the Web and turn it into a powerful research tool for your speeches. After discussing search engines and other resources for conducting efficient, focused inquiries, we'll explain how to evaluate the reliability and objectivity of the research materials you find on the Web.

SEARCH ENGINES

Search engines are the key to finding materials on the Internet. There are numerous search engines, but the most widely used by far is Google. In addition to providing access to billions of Web pages, it has specialized search tools devoted to images, video, news, blogs, and finance.

The question is: How can you use Google and other search engines systematically to find what you need? The answer is: Develop a search strategy that will allow you to zero in precisely on the information required for your speech.

Suppose you are using Google to look for information about sports injuries among college cheerleaders. If you simply enter the word cheerleading in the search box, you will get a list of every document catalogued by Google that contains the word cheerleading—more than 45 million. Some will deal with sports injuries among college cheerleaders, but the vast majority will not. Scanning through everything to find what you need would be impossible.

How do you limit your search to get manageable results? If you type college cheerleading in Google's search box, you will still come up with 2.5 million citations. However, if you type “college cheerleading” in quotation marks, you will get only documents that contain the exact phrase “college cheerleading”—312,000 in all.

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Research gives speakers facts and figures to support their ideas. Gary Locke, U.S. Ambassador to China, uses a wide range of supporting materials in his addresses to domestic and international audiences alike.

This is much better, but it's still too many to go through one by one. So you narrow your search still further. This time you type the following entry into Google's search box:

“college cheerleading” + “sports injury”

The + sign limits the search to items that contain both sets of keywords, “college cheerleading” and “sports injury.” This time you get a list of 1,360 documents, all of which deal specifically with sports injuries among college cheerleaders. You won't be able to look through all 1,360, but usually you don't need to go past the first few pages of results. After that, you will run into lots of repetition and lower-quality sites.

Google also allows you to narrow your search by the kind of research source that will serve you best. Once your search terms are in the Google search box, you can click on news at the top of the page to explore recent news stories that mention “college cheerleading” and “sports injury.” You can also click on images, videos, blogs, scholar, or books to search those kinds of resources. If nothing appears for “college cheerleading” and “sports injury” in these specialized categories, try removing the quotation marks and see what happens.

Of course, you will have to adjust your search terms depending on the kind of material you're looking for, but once you learn the basic principles for doing precise, pinpointed searches, you will greatly increase your odds of finding exactly what you need for your speeches.

SPECIALIZED RESEARCH RESOURCES

Search engines are extremely helpful, but they are not the only vehicles for finding information. The following specialized resources concentrate on sites that are most likely to be helpful as you work on your speeches.1

Virtual Libraries

Page 126Search engines help you find what's on the Internet, but they don't evaluate the quality of the sources they retrieve. Librarians and other information specialists are working to make it easier to locate reliable, high-quality Web resources. One result of their efforts is virtual libraries—search engines that combine Internet technology with traditional library methods of assessing data.

virtual library

A search engine that combines Internet technology with traditional library methods of cataloguing and assessing data.

The best virtual library on the Internet is a merger of two previous virtual libraries—Librarians' Internet Index and Internet Public Library. Now called ipl2 (www.ipl.org), this site has more than 20,000 entries organized into 12 main topics, including arts and humanities, education, and health and medical sciences (see Figure 7.3 below). In addition, ipl2 links to a large number of reference sites, as well as to a wide range of constantly evolving special collections.

Government Resources

One of the great strengths of the Internet as a research tool is the access it provides to government documents and publications. Whether you are looking for information from the federal government or from a state or local agency, chances are you can find it by starting your search at one of these Web sites:

USA.gov (www.usa.gov). One-stop shopping for all U.S. government information on the Internet. Provides links to more than 250 million Web pages from federal, state, local, and tribal governments.

Statistical Abstract (www.census.gov/compendia/statab). The standard reference source for numerical information on social, political, and economic aspects of American life. Compiled by the Census Bureau, its incredible array of facts are organized in table form.

World Factbook (www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook). Published annually by the Central Intelligence Agency, the World Factbook is a rich compendium of information on every country in the world. Topics include people, government, economy, communication, transportation, and transnational issues.

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FIGURE 7.3 Subject Screen from ipl2

The Special Case of Wikipedia

Page 127With more than 18 million articles, Wikipedia is the biggest encyclopedia in human history. Each month, some 400 million people access one or more of its articles, making it the seventh most visited Web site in the world.

But is Wikipedia a reliable source of information? Several years ago, it was not. Today, however, its reliability ratings are as high as those for print ency-clopedias.2 Major articles have been edited and refined over time to improve currency and accuracy. Articles still in development are flagged so readers know not to take their information at face value.

The most important thing to know about Wikipedia is that it can be a good place to start learning about a topic, but it is not a good place to end. Because of its convenience, Wikipedia is used by many people—including teachers and journalists—as a source of basic information. But experienced researchers know not to rely on it as their sole source of information.

One benefit of Wikipedia is that its major articles are followed by an extensive set of additional resources. Those resources include footnotes, a list of references, external links, and, in some cases, video and/or still images. If you take advantage of these resources, they will lead you to a vast amount of information beyond that in Wikipedia.

EVALUATING INTERNET DOCUMENTS

When you do research in a library, everything you find has been evaluated in one way or another before it gets to you. Books, magazines, and journals have editorial procedures to determine whether a given work should or should not be published. Once a work is published, it has to be approved by the acquisitions staff for inclusion in the library.

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Page 128The Internet, of course, is a very different story. Anyone with a computer and access to the Internet can share his or her opinions with a discussion group, publish an electronic newsletter, or create a personal Web page. Never has the adage been more true than when applied to the Internet: “Don't believe everything you read.”

In Chapter 8, we will discuss how to judge the soundness of supporting materials in general. Here we look at three criteria you can use to help distinguish between the jewels and the junk on the Internet.3

Authorship

Is the author of the Web document you are assessing clearly identified? If so, what are his or her qualifications? Is the author an expert on the topic? Can her or his data and opinions be accepted as objective and unbiased? Just as you should not cite a book or magazine article without identifying the author and his or her credentials, so you should not cite an electronic work in the absence of this information.

In a book or magazine article, information about the author is usually fairly easy to find. Too often, this is not true on the Internet. If you can't find information about the author in the document itself, look for a link to the author's homepage or to another site that explains the author's credentials.

Often you can learn about an author by typing his or her name in the Google search box. If the author is an accepted authority on the subject, there's a good chance Google will turn up information about his or her credentials, publications, and affiliation.

Sponsorship

sponsoring organization

An organization that, in the absence of a clearly identified author, is responsible for the content of a document on the Internet.

Many Web documents are published by businesses, government agencies, public-interest groups, and the like rather than by individual authors. In such cases, you must judge whether the sponsoring organization is impartial enough to cite in your speech. Is the organization objective in its research and fair-minded in its statements? Is it economically unbiased with regard to the issue under discussion? Does it have a history of accuracy and nonpartisanship?

Over the years, some organizations have developed strong reputations for their expertise and objectivity. Many of these are public-interest groups such as Consumers Union, Common Cause, and the American Cancer Society. Others include the National Archives, Centers for Disease Control, and similar government agencies. Private think tanks such as RAND, the Cato Institute, and the Brookings Institution often have definite political leanings but are usually well respected for the quality and substance of their research.

One way to gauge the credibility of an organization is to type its name into Google. If commentators have raised serious questions about an organization, those questions will usually surface in the first few pages of search results.

You can also check the About link on the organization's homepage. Often the resulting screen will identify the site's founders, purpose, or philosophy. If the homepage does not contain an About link, this may be a sign that the sponsoring organization is less than forthright and does not meet the necessary standards of objectivity and expertise.

What if you can't verify the credentials of an author or identify a credible sponsoring organization for an Internet document? The answer is easy: Don't use the document in your speech!

Using public speaking in your     CAREER

Page 129After receiving your master's degree in education administration, you took a job at the state department of education. At the request of the governor, your section of the department has developed a new early childhood intervention program for children from impoverished households.

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Now you have been asked to help publicize the program and to build support for it. You will be speaking to church groups, teachers' associations, family advocacy groups, and others with an interest in children's welfare. You want to prepare a talk that makes good use of statistics and expert testimony to demonstrate the value of early childhood education programs, especially for poor children.

As part of your research, you decide to look on the Web for supporting materials. List three reputable Web sites that provide useful statistics or testimony on the value of early childhood education. Explain why each Web site is reputable and list one statistic or expert quotation you obtain from each source.

Recency

One of the advantages of using the Internet for research is that it often has more recent information than you can find in print sources. But just because a document is on the Internet does not mean its facts and figures are up-to-the-minute.

The best way to determine the recency of an Internet document is to look for a copyright date, publication date, or date of last revision at the top or bottom of the document. If you are using a source located through a virtual library, you can usually be confident of its currency, as well as its objectivity and reliability. News, government, and academic sites also usually include the date on which a document was last updated.

Once you know the date of the document, you can determine whether it is current enough to use in your speech. This is especially important with regard to statistics, which you should never cite from an undated source, whether in print or on the Internet.

Of course, the date of a Web page is easy to change, so someone who wants to make information appear up-to-date can easily do so. But if you have already verified the credibility of the author and the sponsoring organization, you can usually assume that the date of the information is valid. If you can't find the date on which a Web document was created or last modified, search for another work whose recency you can verify.

Interviewing

Most people think of interviewing in terms of job interviews or conversations with celebrities. But there is another kind of interview—the research (or investigative) interview. Among journalists, it is a time-honored way to collect information. It is also an excellent way to gather materials for speeches.

Page 130When done well, interviewing (like many things) looks deceptively easy. In practice, it is a complex and demanding art. The principles of effective interviewing fall into three groups—what to do before the interview, what to do during the interview, and what to do after the interview.

To illustrate, we'll follow the entire interview process for a hypothetical speech about current issues in college athletics.

BEFORE THE INTERVIEW

research interview

An interview conducted to gather information for a speech.

The outcome of most interviews is decided by how well the interviewer prepares. Here are five steps you should take ahead of time to ensure a successful outcome.

Define the Purpose of the Interview

You have done Internet and library research about current issues in college athletics and have a good grasp of the major points of view. But you still have many questions about the situation at your school. You decide that the only way to get answers is to interview someone associated with the athletic program. In that decision you have begun to formulate a purpose for the interview.

Decide Whom to Interview

There are several possibilities, but you elect to start at the top—with the athletic director. That may seem a bit presumptuous, but in dealing with administrative organizations, it is usually best to go to the leaders first. They are likely to have a broad understanding of the issues. And if you need more specific information, they can get it for you or put you in touch with the right person.

Arrange the Interview

Because the athletic director is a busy person, you work out a plan for setting up the interview. Knowing that it's easier to brush off someone over e-mail or the telephone than in person, you go to the athletic office to request the interview. The athletic director agrees, and you set up the interview for three days later.

Decide Whether to Record the Interview

The major advantage of recording an interview is that it gives you an exact record you can check later for direct quotes and important facts. Even if you record the interview, however, you should still take notes by hand in case of technical malfunctions.

If the athletic director does not want the interview recorded, you will need to rely solely on your handwritten notes. Whatever you do, never record a conversation without the knowledge or consent of the person being interviewed. Not only is it unethical to do so, but the interviewee is bound to find out and you will only cause yourself trouble.

Prepare Your Questions

You now face the most important of your preinterview tasks—working out the questions you will ask. You should devise questions that are sensible, intelligent, and meaningful. Here are some types of questions to avoid:

Questions you can answer without the interview. (How many sports does your school offer? What is the size of its athletic budget?) Queries like these Page 131just waste the subject's time and make you look foolish. Research this information before the interview.

Leading questions. (Opinion polls show that most Americans believe athletics today have little relation to the academic purposes of a college education. You do think it's a problem, too, don't you?).

Hostile, loaded questions. (I think it's disgraceful that many schools spend gobs of money on salaries for football and basketball coaches. Don't you think good teachers for all students are more important than coaches for a few athletes? What do you say to that, hmmm?)

You need not shy away from tough questions; just phrase them as neutrally as possible and save them until near the end of the interview. That way, if your interviewee becomes irritated or uncooperative, you'll still get most of the information you want.

Although some experienced journalists conduct interviews with only a few key-word notes on the areas to be covered, you want to be sure not to forget anything during the interview. So you arrange your questions in the order you want to ask them and take the list with you to the interview.

DURING THE INTERVIEW

Every interview is unique. Because the session will seldom go exactly as you plan, you need to be alert and flexible. Here are several steps you can take to make things proceed smoothly.

Dress Appropriately and Be on Time

The athletic director has a busy schedule and is doing you a favor by agreeing to an interview, so you show up on time. Since the interview is a special occasion, you dress appropriately. This is one way of confirming that you regard the interview as serious business.

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Interviewing people with expertise on your speech topic can provide valuable information. When conducting an interview, be sure to listen attentively and to take accurate notes.

Repeat the Purpose of the Interview

Page 132The athletic director invites you into the office; you exchange a few introductory remarks. Now, before you plunge into your questions, you take a moment to restate the purpose of the interview. You are more likely to get clear, helpful answers if your subject knows why you are following a certain line of questioning.

Set Up the Recorder, if You Are Using One

If your subject has agreed to being recorded, keep one principle in mind: The recorder should be as casual and inconspicuous as possible. Most cell phones now offer applications for audio recording, giving you an easy way to capture the interview.

Keep the Interview on Track

Your goal in the interview is to get answers to the questions you have prepared. Suppose, however, that in answering one of your questions, the athletic director brings up an important point that is not covered on your list of questions. Rather than ignoring the point, you decide to pursue the new issue. You pose a couple questions about it, get helpful answers, then return to your prepared questions.

Throughout the interview, you pursue new leads when they appear, improvise follow-up questions when called for, then move on again in an orderly fashion. When the interview is over, you have answers to all your prepared questions—and a lot more.

Listen Carefully

During the interview, you listen attentively to the athletic director's answers. When you don't understand something, you ask for clarification. Chances are the athletic director will have been misquoted more than once in the press, so he or she will be happy to oblige.

Don't Overstay Your Welcome

Keep within the stipulated time period for the interview, unless your subject clearly wants to prolong the session. When the interview is over, you thank the athletic director for taking the time to talk with you.

AFTER THE INTERVIEW

Although the interview is over, the interviewing process is not. You must now review and transcribe your notes.

Review Your Notes as Soon as Possible

When you leave the athletic director's office, the interview is fresh in your mind. You know what the cryptic comments and scrawls in your notes mean. But as time passes, the details will become hazy. Don't let something like this true story happen to you:

Years ago, a prominent woman—writer and diplomat—was being interviewed by a young reporter. Among other things, the reporter asked about hobbies and leisure activities. The woman replied that she enjoyed skeet shooting and raised Siamese cats. The reporter scribbled in her notes “shoots” and “cats”—but didn't Page 133bother to put a comma or a dash between the words. The interview was published. And ever since, that prominent woman has been trying to live down the reputation that she “shoots cats.”

In reviewing your notes, try to concentrate on two things—discovering the main points that emerged during the interview and pulling out specific information that might be useful in your speech.

Transcribe Your Notes

Once you settle on the most important ideas and information from the interview, you should transcribe that material so it is in the same format as the rest of your research notes (see pages 134–136). By putting all your research notes in a consistent format, you can arrange and rearrange them easily when you start to organize your speech.4

Tips for Doing Research

Few people regard doing research as one of life's great joys. But there are ways to make it less tedious and more productive. Here are four ways that are guaranteed to help.

START EARLY

The biggest mistake students make when faced with a research project is waiting too long to begin. The longer you wait, the more problems you will encounter. You may find that a vital book has been checked out of the library or that you no longer have time to arrange a crucial interview. No matter what kind of research you do, you can be sure of one thing: It will always take longer than you expect.

Starting early also gives you plenty of time to think about what you find. In researching, you will collect much more material than you will actually use. Preparing a speech is a little like constructing a jigsaw puzzle. Once you gather the pieces, you have to decide how they fit together. The more time you give yourself, the more likely you are to get the pieces to fit just right.

MAKE A PRELIMINARY BIBLIOGRAPHY

In your research, you will run across the titles of books, magazine articles, Internet documents, and so on that look as if they might contain helpful information about your speech topic. Enter each item you find in your preliminary bibliography, even though you don't know whether you will use it in your speech. As a result, you may have 15 or 20 works in your preliminary bibliography. But remember that you have not yet examined all those works. Of the 15 or 20 preliminary sources, only 7 or 8 are likely to be of much use. Those final sources will be listed on the bibliography you turn in with your speech outline (see Chapter 11, page 208).

preliminary bibliography

A list compiled early in the research process of works that look as if they might contain helpful information about a speech topic.

There are two major formats for citing documents in a bibliography. One comes from the Modern Language Association (MLA), the other from the Page 134American Psychological Association (APA). Both are widely used by communication scholars; ask your instructor which he or she prefers.

Whichever format you adopt, make sure your bibliography is clear, accurate, and consistent. Figure 7.4 (page 135) lists sample MLA and APA citations for 10 kinds of sources that are cited most frequently in student speeches.

TAKE NOTES EFFICIENTLY

Asia Marshall started her speech preparation with the best of intentions. She was excited about her topic, “Great Women of Jazz,” and she started research on the Internet the same day the assignment was announced. She found several interesting sources and took some notes about them. That evening, she checked out a fascinating book about Billie Holiday and read it straight through. She didn't bother taking notes because she was sure she'd remember it all. The next day, she looked through the Encyclopedia of Jazz and jotted a few notes on the back of her syllabus.

Then Asia remembered that she had a test in another class. Somewhat panicked, she put aside her speech research to study. When she got back to the speech, the deadline was only four days away. She dug out her notes, but what did they mean? One said, “Medford—important!!!” But who or what was Medford? Asia had thought she'd remember all about the Billie Holiday book, but without notes, it was mostly a blur by now. With a sense of doom, she faced up to the fact that she would have to start over—and finish in four days.

Sound familiar? This has happened to almost everyone at least once. But once is enough. There's a better way to take research notes. Here is a method that has worked well for many students:

Take Plenty of Notes

Few things are more aggravating than trying to recall some bit of information you ran across in your research but neglected to record. The moral of Asia Marshall's story is clear: If there is even an outside chance that you may need a piece of information, make a note of it. This will take a little extra time in the short run, but in the long run it can save you much grief.

Record Notes in a Consistent Format

You should use the same format for all your research notes, whether they come from Internet sources, library documents, or personal interviews. In each case, record the note, the source of the note, and a heading indicating the subject of the note (see Figure 7.5 on page 136).

The importance of the subject heading cannot be overemphasized. It is the first step to more efficient note taking. By telling you at a glance what each note is about, it will simplify the task of organizing your notes when you start to compose the speech. Once you start using subject headings, you'll see how helpful they can be.

Make a Separate Entry for Each Note

Many students try to record all the information from one source on a single note. This is not an effective procedure because it makes your notes almost Page 135impossible to review and organize. A better approach is to make a separate note for each quotation or piece of information you record. Although you may end up with several notes from the same document, you will find that this approach allows you to keep better track of your research.

Page 136

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FIGURE 7.4 Sample Bibliography Formats

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FIGURE 7.5 Sample Research Note

Distinguish Among Direct Quotations, Paraphrases, and Your Own Ideas

As we saw in Chapter 2, it's easy to plagiarize accidentally by not taking careful research notes. As you do research for your speeches, be sure to use quotation marks whenever you copy the exact words of a source. If you paraphrase, rather than quote verbatim, don't forget to include the source when you record the note.

By keeping track of quotations and paraphrases, you will be able to separate your own words and ideas from those of other people. This will help you avoid the trap of inadvertent plagiarism when you put your speech together.

THINK ABOUT YOUR MATERIALS AS YOU RESEARCH

Students often approach research as a mechanical routine that simply involves gathering the materials to be used in a speech or paper. But when done properly, research can be extremely creative.

If you think about what you are finding in your research, you will see your topic just a little bit differently with each note you take. You will find new relationships, develop new questions, explore new angles. You will, in short, begin to write the speech in your head even as you do the research. As you learn more about the topic, you will formulate a central idea, begin to sketch out main points and supporting points, experiment with ways of Page 137organizing your thoughts. You may even change your point of view, as did this student:

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To take research notes efficiently, record them in a consistent format; make a separate entry for each note; and distinguish among direct quotations, paraphrases, and your own ideas.

Francesca Lopez began her speech preparation with this central idea in mind: “Wild animals make more interesting pets than dogs and cats.” She went about her research conscientiously, spending many hours online and in the library. In the process, she came upon some disturbing information about the capture of wild animals. She read that young chimpanzees and other apes were literally snatched out of their mothers' arms, and that the mothers were afterward heard to cry almost like humans. Back in her room that night, Francesca couldn't get her mind off the baby chimpanzees.

The next day, Francesca found some more disturbing material. One source told about the extraordinarily high death rate of wild animals during shipment to the United States. Again, that night Francesca brooded about the young animals dying of fear and cold in the cargo holds of airplanes.

By the time she finished her research, Francesca's central idea was completely different. When she spoke, her central idea was “The importation of wild animals for use as pets is inhumane.”

This is an example of creative research—and of critical thinking. Francesca kept her mind open, read everything she could find about her topic, and thought seriously about what she found. Because of this thoughtful approach, she changed her mind.5

Your own speech preparation may not cause you to reverse your position, but it should give you new insights into your topic. If you approach research in this way, you may find that the time you spend researching is the most productive of all the time you devote to preparing your speech.

Summary

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There are many resources you can use when gathering information for a speech. If you have personal experience or above-average knowledge about a topic, you can use yourself as a resource. Most of the time, however, you will need outside information, which you can get in the library, on the Internet, or by interviewing people with specialized information.

Finding what you need in the library is largely a matter of knowing how to search for information. The catalogue lists all the books, periodicals, and other resources owned by the library. Databases help you find articles in magazines, newspapers, and journals. The reference section includes encyclopedias, yearbooks, biographical aids, and books of quotations. If you have trouble finding something, don't hesitate to ask a librarian.

When looking for information online, you need a search strategy that will help you find exactly what you need. Given the lack of editorial review for most documents on the Web, it is especially important to evaluate the authorship, sponsoring organization, and recency of the research materials you find there.

You can also get information by conducting a personal interview. Before the interview, you should define its purpose, decide whom you are going to interview, and prepare the interview questions. Once the interview begins, be sure to listen attentively and to take accurate notes. Afterward, review and transcribe your notes as soon as possible.

No matter what sources you draw upon in gathering information, your research will be more effective if you start early and make a preliminary bibliography to keep track of all the books, articles, and Internet documents that look as if they might be helpful. By learning to take research notes effectively, you will save yourself time and energy every step of the way. And if you think about your materials as you research, you may find that gathering materials is the most creative part of your speech preparation.

Key Terms

catalogue (121)

call number (121)

reference work (121)

newspaper and periodical database (122)

abstract (123)

academic database (123)

virtual library (126)

sponsoring organization (128)

research interview (130)

preliminary bibliography (133)

Review Questions

After reading this chapter, you should be able to answer the following questions:

Why is it important to draw on your own knowledge and experience in gathering materials for your speeches?

What are five resources for finding what you need in the library?

Page 139What are three criteria for evaluating the soundness of research materials that you find on the Internet?

What are the three stages of a research interview? What should you do in each stage to help ensure a successful interview?

Why is it important to start your speech research early?

What is a preliminary bibliography? Why is it helpful to you in researching a speech?

What four things should you do to take research notes efficiently?

connect™

For further review, go to the LearnSmart study module for this chapter.

Exercises for Critical Thinking

Using one of the periodical and newspaper databases discussed on pages 122-123, find three magazine or newspaper articles on the topic of your next speech. Prepare a preliminary bibliography entry for each article. Read the full text of the articles and assess their value for your speech.

Using Google or another search engine, find three high-quality documents on the topic of your next speech. Prepare a preliminary bibliography entry for each document. Read the full text of the documents and assess them in light of the criteria for evaluating Internet documents discussed on pages 127–129.

Plan to conduct an interview for one of your classroom speeches. Be sure to follow the guidelines presented in this chapter for effective interviewing. Afterward, evaluate the interview. Did you prepare for it adequately? Did you get the information you needed? What would you do differently if you could conduct