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COMM-105 Speech Sources

This guide serves as a jumping off point for COMM-105 students who are researching and preparing to give an Informative Meeting Speech or a Speech to Actuate. For more help, contact your friendly neighborhood librarian!

Informative Meeting Speech GuidelinesSeema Bansal hosts Session 2 of TED@BCG: Unlock —

Specific Requirements: A minimum of 5 sources (no more than two may be Internet sources), extemporaneous delivery, visual aid, a typed labeled manuscript with a works cited page uploaded to Canvas on your meeting date. 

Finding Sources

In the boxes below you will find links to sources by format type. For your Informative Meeting Speech, you will benefit from choosing a variety of sources. For example:

  • Use a trustworthy encyclopedia to provide general background information.
  • Read a relevant introduction and/or chapter from a book about your topic. You do not need to read an entire book to gain useful information that is more focused and detailed than you find in an encyclopedia.
  • Select a couple articles from newspapers, magazines, or academic journals that deal with your subject. Articles often deal with specific aspects of a topic (that is, articles are more focused than books). Read articles to get deep dives into interesting aspects of your topic.
  • Watch a documentary or a clip from a news or television broadcast. Documentaries, like books, can present an overview of your subject. Shorter clips from news reports etc. can provide a quick perspective on your subject that will add to your overall knowledge.
  • Don't forget the sources that are not linked here, such as credible websites, Podcast episodes, in person interviews, artwork, music, digitized primary sources at museums and archives, and so much more.

Message your librarian if you need or want help with any stage of your research. I can also help with narrowing or broadening your research topic, fixing technical difficulties with ebooks or online articles, and any citation questions. 

Websites Previewed by a Librarian

The websites I'm sharing here will give you an idea of how I recommend you select credible sources online using the CRAAP Test. These websites are examples that obviously do not cover your topic, so you will want to apply the CRAAP Test yourself to searches using your own keywords. I can help you if you have any questions. 

Your professor provided a Sample Labeled Manuscript for an Informative Meeting Speech. The topic of that sample speech is "one-room schoolhouses." The sources I share below fit that sample topic. 

Remember:
C- Currency

R- Relevancy

A- Authority

A- Accuracy

P- Point of View

Encyclopedias

Unlike Wikipedia, these Encyclopedias are trustworthy and have editors and qualified authors who check the accuracy of the information they contain. 

Books and Ebooks

Use keywords to search any of these collections for a book about your topic. All of these books can be read online, however they count as "non-Internet" sources because they have been published in print somewhere. 

Magazine, News, and Journal Articles

You can find credible newspapers, magazines, and journals through the PUC website and online. If you use a source that also has a print version, such as the New York Times, it will count as a "non-Internet" source. News sources that appear only online such as the Huffington Post or BuzzFeed are unlikely to be a good fit for your speech as they tend to be less credible. However, if they fit your subject and you wish to use them, remember to apply the CRAAP test for credibility and note that they will count as an Internet source. 

Streaming Video

Search here for clips from news and television broadcasts as well as full-length documentaries about your topic. Some of the streaming services listed here do contain feature films (meaning movies you'd see at the theater), which are unlikely to be useful for this assignment. 

Images

Google Images often turns up results that are unclear about their origin, content accuracy, or copyright status. Rather than pulling visual aids from Google, try searching for your subject in these online collections. As long as you give proper credit to the source (which you will know), you can use the images from these online collections for educational purposes.