There is a classic Western starring Clint Eastwood called A Fistful of Dollars. People across the world love the movie except for Akira Kurosawa, a Japanese filmmaker that produced the samurai movie Yojimbo. It turns out that the Clint Eastwood movie is a shot-for-shot remake of Yojimbo and they had to pay Kurosawa hundreds of thousands of dollars because of it. Giving credit to original authors is something that people take very seriously whether it’s in the film industry or academia. When it comes to giving speeches the same rules apply. Including evidence is how one avoids plagiarism and it is fundamental to any academic work. In this lesson we’re going to discuss using evidence in speeches by first discussing plagiarism, second, citing sources and finally, how to quote content.
Plagiarism
Many students conclude that when they say something that is factually correct, they don’t need to cite the source from where they got it. This couldn’t be further from the truth. You have to consider ethics and credibility when including sources. First is ethics. People put a significant amount of work into their publications, and plagiarism is fundamentally claiming that someone else’s work is your own – which is dishonest. People deserve recognition for the work that they do. Some academic studies take months or even years to compile, so ignoring the person’s effort is, well, unethical.
Beyond the ethical concerns, you also have to consider how credible you appear to your audience. Purposeful plagiarism seems like the author isn’t skilled enough to do their own work, but even accidental plagiarism appears as if the offending author is ignorant of writing conventions and expectations. So, even if you don’t intend to steal somebody’s work, you really want to show that you understand what it means to be a credible speaker by including authorship for the original work. Luckily avoiding plagiarism is exceptionally easy. All you have to do is cite your sources in the speech.
Citing Sources
But when do you cite sources and what information should you include? It’s understandable if people don’t know when to cite sources because it really is something that you have to learn through experience. But generally, you ought to consider avoiding citing sources for common knowledge information, things that people know readily. Consider when you state a fact that isn’t common knowledge or isn’t intuitive. Those are the things that you want to have a source citation for. For instance, “Christmas is on December 25th” does not need a source citation. That is commonly known not only in Western societies, but worldwide. It’s not something that you actually need to research and verify. On the other hand, the story behind Christmas, and its origins in other religions might, be something that you need to cite your sources for because many people aren’t aware of those long histories that have made up this holiday. Ultimately, if you feel that any of your audience members might doubt the veracity of your claims, that’s when you want to cite a source. Also, sources are not a numbers game. You shouldn’t try to increase the amount of times that you use source citations. You want to have sources that support what you are saying and leave room to include your voice in your research.
Beyond knowing when to cite sources, you need to know what to include. One thing that’s not optional is the publication and the date. If the only information you have about the date is the year, then just include the year. But you want to have a date all the way down to the day that it was published, considering the information age that we live in right now. This is usually available on the publication itself. The publication name isn’t necessarily the author and sometimes the publication name takes the place of the author especially in government reports which have multiple authors. You wouldn’t necessarily cite the writer of the New York Times, you would cite the New York Times on December 25th, 2022. Use your best judgment. You may choose to include the author’s qualifications as well, but this is usually only when the author has some sort of credentials that help to boost the credibility of your evidence and your speech.
Speakers should also consider the language they are going to use when citing sources. If every single time they say: “According to,” “according to,” “according to,” it starts getting a bit repetitive. Think about other ways to introduce it like, “as noted by,” “reported in,” “as stated by.” There are many different ways to introduce or cite, and adding variety helps your audience to follow your speech.
Quoting and Paraphrasing
The final thing we’re going to cover is how to quote content and the important distinction that you need to understand is the difference between quoting versus paraphrasing. Quoting is a word-for-word representation of evidence. Be careful about not quoting out of context. Sometimes people include words and phrases that change the meaning of a particular sentence that you are extracting from their speech or their work. Understand the intent of the material that you are quoting, and include the context. You also want to be careful about how much material you are quoting at one time. If you include a lot of information and it takes up the majority of your speech it looks like you don’t really have a voice in your speech and basically you’re just reciting somebody else’s work. This goes back to credibility again and is the reason paraphrasing is a preferred practice.
Paraphrasing, or putting evidence into your own words, maintains the essence of the meaning from the original author. This is a great tool when evidence is really long or complicated. You can’t just read an entire book for somebody if you only have 10 minutes to give a speech in front of an audience. So don’t be afraid to paraphrase as long as you are confident that the information that you are representing is an accurate portrayal of the author’s original intent. Paraphrasing is an especially powerful persuasive tool in providing support for arguments you are making.
Make conscious decisions when using evidence in speeches. Never plagiarize. Include all of the necessary publication information when citing, and accurately quote or paraphrase your source. It’s of the utmost importance to include evidence in your speeches. Whether you’re writing a speech or producing a classic western film don’t forget it is paramount to give credit where credit is due.
