Speech 111 : Public Speaking

Instructor: Jorge Espinosa. jespinos@pcc.edu
Cascade Librarians: Tony Greiner, Torie Scott, Roberta Richards, Stephanie Debner
refer@pcc.edu, 503-978-5269
Term: Spring, 2009

Teddy Roosevelt giving a speech

Locating sources for Informative Speeches

Background Information: Can you speak for one minute without notes on your topic, and answer the "Who, what, when, where and why?" for that topic? Then you are ready for deeper research. If not, invest 5 minutes in reading an encyclopedia.

World Book Online or Wikipedia or ask a librarian about the many SUBJECT ENCYCLOPEDIAS we have, both print and online.

CQ Researcher -- Provides 'research papers' on new topics every week. Can be an excellent source of background information, and provide leads to some scholarly publications on your topic.

Opposing Viewpoints -- Still looking for a topic? Opposing viewpoints will give you some ideas, and provide informative essays as well as argument essays. These are not peer-reviewed.

RELIABILITY


These publications are listed alphabetically. Please re-sort them in order of "reliability"

Journal of the Amerian Medical Association
National Geographic
Oregonian
People Magazine
Wall Street Journal

This is only slightly tricky, but when you add in websites, it gets trickier.

Which is more reliable- National Geographic or CNN.com?

The most reliable source of information is likely to be a scholarly or peer-reviewed publication. Professional journals fit this definition, and books from some publishers. (University of Chicago Press, for example.)

Locating sources for Your Speeches.

FOR YOUR SPEECH INTRODUCING A CELEBRITY

Biography Reference Bank. One and a half million biographies, with links to article updates!

FOR YOUR INFORMATIVE SPEECH, REQUIRING RELIABLE, BUT NOT SCHOLARLY ARTICLES:

MasterFILE Premier from EBSCOhost. Full text of general interest periodicals. These are generally reliable, and include things such as Smithsonian and Newsweek.

FOR YOUR PERSUASIVE SPEECH, WHICH REQUIRES SCHOLARLY (Peer-reviewed) ARTICLES:

Academic Search Premier from EBSCOhost is a great starting place.

OTHER ARTICLE DATABASES WITH SCHOLARLY INFORMATION

EBSCOhost offers about 30 databases. Search databases that will have articles on your topic.

EBSCO search tip: click on the box next to "Scholarly (peer reviewed) Journals" to get only articles from peer-reviewed journals.

JSTOR Full text of about 600 scholarly journals in the arts and sciences, from their earliest issues up to 2-5 years ago. Does not include current issues of the journals. Video tutorials are available.

PsycINFO Covers the professional and academic literature in psychology and related disciplines including medicine, psychiatry, nursing, sociology, education, pharmacology, physiology, and linguistics. Coverage: 1887 - present.

Science Direct and Life Science Journals Collection Full text for over 890 peer reviewed health and life sciences journals. For best results click on SEARCH to get started. Limit your search to SUBSCRIBED Journals,1995 to the present.

Purdue University Library's video: How to read a Scientific Paper.

In case you lost it, here's the persuasive speech assignment for this class.

VISUAL AIDS

Use the Google Image search to find images on the Internet. Unfortunately, the images are are often too small to project well.

ARTStor (a library database) has fine art images. They are bigger files and will look better, but the interface is harder to use.

 

Finding Books and Videos in the PCC Library Catalog

  • Subject Keyword search
  • Use descriptive and inclusive terms: renewable energy
  • Use specific words, or narrower terms: biodiesel
  • Use the truncation symbol (ethic* = ethic, ethical, ethically, ethics)
  • Remember: the catalog indexes primarily data from the cover of the book: to be successful, you'll need to use encompassing terms, since only the "cover" information is used, not the text inside the book

 

CITIN' THOSE SOURCES

APA Style Guide from PCC Library. (Similar to the one handed out in class.)

Citation Makers

Many free citation makers are available on the Internet. You fill in the citation information, the citation maker fformats the citation for you!

EasyBib [website] A free automatic bibliography (works cited) composer.

OSLIS Secondary Citation Maker [website] From the Oregon School Library Information System.

SourceAid [website] Automatic citation maker. MLA, APA, Chicago, CSE

Other sources for Persuasive Speeches

This page was created for a specific class. Visit the Speech Communication subject guide for more.

Class Pages, Subject Guide -- Speech