Supporting Your Ideas

1
Supporting Your Ideas

• Chapter 7

2
What is Supporting Material?

• Information used to bolster a speakers point of
  view.
• Research used to support key points within a
  speech.
• Without supporting material a speech is
  unconvincing.

3
Examples

• Examples concrete details that make ideas
  specific, personal, and real.
• Best way to reach your audience!!!
• Types of Examples
• Brief
• Extended
• Hypothetical

4
Statistics

• Statistics used to quantify ideas.
• Should be used sparingly
• Source must be cited
• Round complicated numbers
• Instead of 54,056.89 you say 54,000
• Use visual aids to increase clarity

5
Testimony

• Testimony quoting or paraphrasing to give the
  speech impact.
• Expert Testimony
• Peer Testimony

6
Supporting Materials Flaws

• In the words of one expert, Internet growth will
  continue to be a major economic fact of life for
  at least the next 10 years. If I were looking
  for a place to invest, Id look first to Internet
  stocks, whose value will keep going up and up.
• (Expert is not identified)

7
Supporting Material Flaws

• According to the New York Times Almanac, San
  Francisco has the highest per capita annual
  income of any U.S. city - 41,128. The lowest
  per capita annual income belongs to
  McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, Texas, at 12,005. The
  average per capita annual income for all U.S.
  metropolitan areas is 26,840.
• (Statistics not rounded)

8
Supporting Material Flaws

• In a random survey taken last month of 320
  members of the American Association of Retired
  People, 96 percent of those interviewed opposed
  any major changes in the Social Security system.
  Clearly, then, the American people oppose such
  changes.
• (Too small a group to generalize to the American
  public)

9
Supporting Material Flaws

• As Brad Pitt noted in a recent interview, global
  warming is one of the worlds most serious
  problems. If the industrialized nations do not
  take greater action to bring it under control,
  Pitt said, the ecosystem of the entire planet
  will be permanently damaged.
• (Pitt is not a highly qualified source for the
  topic of global warming)

10
Supporting Material Flaws

• Its just not true that media violence has a
  strong influence on crimes by young people. All
  my friends watch television, go to the movies,
  and play video games, and none of us has ever
  committed a violent crime.
• (Example is not representative of the whole too
  broad of a generalization)

11
Supporting Material Flaws

• According to a poll conducted for ATT, most
  people prefer ATTs long distance service to that
  of MCI or Sprint.
• (ATTs information may be skewed because they are
  the ones issuing the research)

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Where do I find supporting material?

• The Internet

13
Establishing Credibility of Internet Sources

• Authorship
• Sponsorship www.lungcancer.org
• Recency
• Wikopedia.com, about.com, dictionaries, quote
  books, and price guides will not count!

14
Where do I find supporting material?

• Library www.ctcd.edu
• Newspapers
• Magazines
• Journals
• Books
• Interviews email or face-to-face

15
Citing Your Sources

• Must orally cite all sources while speaking your
  speech.
• Must cite sources at the end of your preparation
  outline.
• Use MLA or APA source citations www.easybib.com

16
Becoming an Ethical Speaker

• Start early!
• Be prepared for each speech.
• Avoid plagiarism
• Global
• Patchwork
• Incremental