What does it mean to use sources ethically?
Avoid Plagiarism
If the idea isn’t yours, cite the information source during your speech. Listing the citation on a bibliography or reference page is only half of the correct citation. You must provide correct citations for all your sources within your speech as well. In a very helpful book called Avoiding Plagiarism: A Student Guide to Writing Your Own Work, Menager-Beeley and Paulos (2009) provide a list of twelve strategies for avoiding plagiarism:
- Do your own work, and use your own words. One of the goals of a public speaking class is to develop skills that you’ll use in the world outside academia. When you are in the workplace and the real world, you’ll be expected to think for yourself, so start learning this skill now.
- Allow yourself enough time to research the assignment. Not having adequate time to prepare is no excuse for plagiarism.
- Keep careful track of your sources. A common mistake people make is that they forget where information came from when they start creating the speech itself. When you log your sources, you’re less likely to inadvertently lose sources and to cite them incorrectly.
- Take careful notes. It doesn’t matter what method you choose for taking research notes, but whatever you do, be systematic to avoid plagiarizing.
- Assemble your thoughts, and make it clear who is speaking. When creating your speech, make sure that you clearly differentiate your voice in the speech from your quoted author’s voice. The easiest way to do this is to create a direct quotation or a paraphrase. Remember, audience members cannot see where the quotation marks are located within your speech text, so clearly articulate with words and vocal tone when you are using someone else’s ideas within your speech.
- If you use an idea, a quotation, paraphrase, or summary, then credit the source. We can’t reiterate it enough—if it is not your idea, tell your audience where the information came from. Giving credit is especially important when your speech includes a statistic, an original theory, or a fact that is not common knowledge.
- Learn how to cite sources correctly, both in the body of your paper and in your reference or works-cited page.
- Quote accurately and sparingly. A public speech should be based on factual information and references, but it shouldn’t be a string of direct quotations strung together. Experts recommend that no more than 10 percent of a paper or speech be direct quotations (Menager-Beeley & Paulos, 2009). When selecting direct quotations, always ask yourself if the material could be paraphrased in a manner that would make it clearer for your audience. If the author wrote a sentence in a way that is just perfect, and you don’t want to tamper with it, then by all means directly quote the sentence. But if you’re just quoting because it’s easier than putting the ideas into your own words, this is not a legitimate reason for including direct quotations.
- Paraphrase carefully. Modifying an author’s words is not simply a matter of replacing some of the words with synonyms. Instead, as Howard and Taggart explain in Research Matters, “paraphrasing force[s] you to understand your sources and to capture their meaning accurately in original words and sentences” (Howard & Taggart, 2010). Incorrect paraphrasing is one of the most common ways that students inadvertently plagiarize. First and foremost, paraphrasing is putting the author’s argument, intent, or ideas into your own words.
- Do not patchwrite or patchspeak. Menager-Beeley and Paulos define patchwriting as “mixing several references together and arranging paraphrases and quotations to constitute much of the paper. In essence, the student has assembled others’ work with a bit of embroidery here and there but with little original thinking or expression” (Menager-Beeley & Paulos, 2009). Just as students can patchwrite, they can also patchspeak. In patchspeaking, students rely completely on weaving together quotations and paraphrases in a manner that is devoid of the student’s original thinking.
- Do not auto-summarize. Some students have learned that most word processing features have an auto-summary function. The auto-summary function will summarize a ten-page document into a short paragraph.
- Do not rework another student’s speech or buy paper-mill papers or speech-mill speeches. In today’s Internet environment, there are numerous student-speech storehouses on the Internet. Whether you use a speech that is freely available or pay money for a speech, you are plagiarizing. This is also true if your speech’s main substance was copied from a web page. Any time you try to present someone else’s ideas as your own during a speech, you are plagiarizing.
- Do not rely on Artificial Intelligence, such as Chat GPT, to generate your speech. When you rely on ChatGPT or a similar program to create your script, you are not engaging in the active learning process that is necessary for building knowledge and developing your own ideas. Also, machine learning models are known to generate inaccurate or incomplete information; these tools cannot understand all the details of your assignments or your professor’s expectations, or their field of study.
Source: Adapted from Menager-Beeley, R., & Paulos, L. (2009). Understanding plagiarism: A student guide to writing your own work. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, pp. 5–8. / Adapted to include ChatGPT/Artificial Intelligence.
Use Sources Ethically In a speech
Ways to use sources ethically in a speech:
- Avoid plagiarism, as we already discussed.
- Avoid Academic Fraud – While there are numerous websites from which you can download free speeches for your class, this is tantamount to fraud. If you didn’t do the research and write your own speech, then you are fraudulently trying to pass off someone else’s work as your own. In addition to being unethical, many institutions have student codes that forbid such activity. Penalties for academic fraud can be as severe as suspension or expulsion from your institution.
- Don’t Mislead Your Audience – If you know a source is clearly biased, and you don’t spell this out for your audience, then you are purposefully trying to mislead or manipulate your audience. Instead, if you believe the information to be biased, tell your audience and allow them to decide whether to accept or disregard the information.
- Give Author Credentials – Always provide the author’s credentials. In a world where anyone can say anything and have it published on the Internet or even in a book, we have to be skeptical of the information we see and hear. For this reason, it’s very important to provide your audience with background information about your cited authors’ credentials.
- Use Primary Research Ethically – Lastly, if you are using primary research within your speech, you need to use it ethically as well. For example, if you tell your survey participants that the research is anonymous or confidential, then make sure that you maintain their anonymity or confidentiality when you present those results. Furthermore, be respectful if someone says something is off the record during an interview. Always maintain participants’ privacy and confidentiality during primary research unless you have their express permission to reveal their names or other identifying information.
Quick Check 1
Quick Check 1 (Text version)
- One way to use sources ethically in a speech is to do what?
- Make sure to cite yourself in a speech that you are giving.
- Give the author’s credentials.
- There are serious penalties for plagiarism at Georgian and in this class, but what is plagiarism in a speech?
- Any time you try to present your own ideas and don’t give yourself the credit during your speech.
- Any time you try to present someone else’s ideas as your own during a speech, you are plagiarizing.
Check Your Answers:[1]
Activity source: “Quick Check 7.6” In Public Speaking by Sarah Billington & Shirene McKay, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
How do I establish ethos?
Establishing ethos—one of the three rhetorical appeals—is achieved by including authoritative evidence or research inside of your speech. You establish ethos as well through your credibility and ethics as a speaker.
Here are some questions to ask yourself as you prepare to establish ethos for any speech:
Credibility
- Does the audience see you as topic-credible? What have you done or said to ensure this?
- What makes you credible? Do you explain your credibility to the audience in the speech?
- Can the audience trust you? What reason have you given them to trust you?
Authoritative Sources
- Do you cite your authoritative sources out loud in your speech?
- Are your sources actually authoritative for this topic?
- What makes your sources authoritative? Do you explain that to your audience?
Appearance
- Does your dress, clothing, and appearance match the topic, occasion, and audience for your speech? How might your audience perceive your appearance from your perspective?
You must be able to answer all of these questions with a yes and a good explanation. The audience should clearly hear and see your ethos in your speech.
Quick Check 2
Quick Check 2 (Text version)
As you are thinking about your ethos in your speech, you think about these three areas:
- Credibility, no sources needed, and the audiences’ appearance.
- Credibility, authoritative sources, and appearance.
Check Your Answer: [2]
Activity source: “Quick Check 7.7” In Public Speaking by Sarah Billington & Shirene McKay, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Attribution & References
Except where otherwise noted, this chapter is adapted from “Chapter 7: Research” In Public Speaking by Sarah Billington and Shirene McKay, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. / A derivative of Stand up, Speak out: The Practice and Ethics of Public Speaking by University Minnesota, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
References
University of Minnesota. (2016). Stand up, Speak out: The Practice and Ethics of Public Speaking. University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing. https://open.lib.umn.edu/publicspeaking/. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
Howard, R. M., & Taggart, A. R. (2010). Research matters. McGraw-Hill, p. 131.
Menager-Beeley, R., & Paulos, L. (2009). Understanding plagiarism: A student guide to writing your own work.
Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, pp. 5–8.
