Supporting your Central Idea: Research

In a trial, lawyers use exhibits, or evidence, to try to make their case to the jury. Evidence is extremely important in a jury trial: jurors are instructed that they should “base their conclusions [only] on the evidence as presented in the trial.” American Bar Association. “How Courts Work.” https://www.americanbar.org/groups/public_education/resources/law_related_education_network/how_courts_work/juryinstruct/ ¹

Although it’s an imperfect comparison, it may help to think your audience is the jury and you’re the lawyer making your case. No matter how eloquently and passionately you speak, you can’t make a convincing case without evidence of facts and details. In a speech, you provide evidence to support central idea and your main points. Some of your evidence may be the result of research.

Finding Evidence through Research

There are different types of research that you can find online.  Distinguish between a general search and an academic search.

General Search

For general supporting information, you may use a search engine such as Google to find relevant articles, websites, blogs, photos, etc., to support your speech. For the speech topic “Successful Resumes for College Students,” you might look at the resources on your college’s career center website, articles in magazines like Forbes, or examples of great and not-so-great resumes on a job listing site like Indeed.com.  Using the terms “college student resume” in a Google search also identifies the article “How to Write a College Student Resume” on the job listing site Indeed.com.

General research can provide materials for your main ideas, supporting evidence and examples. Credible articles and websites will also include statements from experts on your topic, whom you can then quote or paraphrase in your speech. Pay attention to any stories, anecdotes, research, and examples you might integrate into your speech. Your general research will be useful for exploring your topic more broadly and gathering supporting examples that will add depth and personality to your speech. Note that not every article you read will seem relevant to your speech, but since your topic is probably evolving, keep a careful list of your notes and their sources.

Academic Search

An academic search will provide more specific, in-depth information written by experts and reviewed by other experts in their field (also known as peer-reviewed). This type of academic research typically includes background on a topic and details about a research study and its results. Academic research is published in scholarly journals, dissertations, and professional conference proceedings. You can find academic research and scholarly journals through databases in your college’s library, including Academic OneFile and JSTOR. Google Scholar is a free search engine where you can search for research on a wide range of topics.

Using the search term “resume for college students” in Google Scholar shows thousands of results. The following result might be a useful article to read for a speech topic about resumes for college students.

Be aware that academic research is often quite technical and difficult for a non-expert to understand. If that is the case, the “Abstract” at the beginning of an article or the “Findings” section near the end can provide a clearer summary of the research and findings. Not every speech will need academic research for support, but it can add credibility and depth to your speech.

Evaluating Sources

Relevancy

It’s normal to want to use every bit of research you find; however, it’s not wise. Make sure that your researched evidence directly relates to your speech’s purpose and central idea.  For example, it may be interesting for your audience to learn that in 2024, approximately 22% of adults and 41% of adults over 65 received COVID vaccinations ², but it may not be relevant in a speech about new guidelines for COVID isolation periods.

One tactic for avoiding irrelevant research is to keep your purpose and central idea handy while researching, so you can use specific search terms.

Quality

The two main questions you should ask yourself when evaluating a source’s quality are:

1. Is this source suitable?
2. Is this source trustworthy?

Not every suitable source is trustworthy, and not every trustworthy source is suitable. When researching, it is crucial to ask probing questions about quality. Consider whether the researched information is reliable. You want to incorporate into your speech sources written by unbiased and professional experts, not businesspeople with commercial interests. You don’t necessarily need to go through a complicated checklist every time you encounter new information. Instead, you can evaluate information more organically by focusing on some basic guidelines and principles, as explained by the CRAAP Test.

Evaluating Sources

The two main questions you should ask yourself when evaluating sources are the following:

1. Is this source suitable?
2. Is this source trustworthy?

Not every suitable source is trustworthy, and not every trustworthy source is suitable.

View the following video, which clearly identifies a variety of questions to ask in order to evaluate sources.

CRAAP Analysis

One excellent tool to examine both the suitability and trustworthiness of a source is the CRAAP method, which stands for:

• Currency: the timeliness of the information
• Relevance: the importance of the information for your needs
• Authority: the source of the information
• Accuracy: the reliability, truthfulness, and correctness of the information
• Purpose: the reason the information exists

Evaluating Websites

While CRAAP method is one fabulous tool for assessing the credibility and reliability of sources, there are some additional things you may want to consider when investigating a website.

Author/Site

• What do you know about their credentials? Has the author written multiple publications on the topic (you can do a quick search).
• Is the site personal, commercial, governmental, organizational, or educational? (.com, .gov, .org, .edu)
• Is the site trying to sell something?

Bias

• Is there a sponsor or affiliation?
• Does the publication have a particular bias?
• Keep in mind that everything is written from a particular social, cultural, and political perspective. Realize that some publications tend to be slanted towards a certain viewpoint. For example, the CATO Institute is known for being libertarian, while The Nation is known to lean left.

Design

• Does the site use current, professional design?
• Is the navigation menu well-labeled?
• Are there spelling or grammar errors?

CRAAP Method

One excellent tool to examine both the suitability and trustworthiness of a researched source is the CRAAP method, which stands for:

• Currency: the timeliness of the information
• Relevance: the importance of the information for your needs
• Authority: the source of the information
• Accuracy: the reliability, truthfulness, and correctness of the information
• Purpose: the reason the information exists

Here is a video with accurate captions and a transcript: Evaluating Information using the CRAAP Test (opens in new window).

Taking Notes and Tracking Sources

Notetaking for speech preparation is similar to what you do preparing for a business report, research paper, or similar project. Note-taking in an organized and deliberate manner will save you from unnecessary stress and wasted time and ultimately contribute to a great speech!

Communication professor and author Stephen Lucas recommends the following four steps to keep your research focused and efficient:

1. Take lots of notes: Even if you’re not sure if you’ll use a particular material, still make detailed notes of what it is and how you can easily access it again. Write down plenty of notes so you’ll know why you thought it was relevant. If you conduct an interview, you might record it (with permission) or take notes during it, then add detailed notes immediately after the interview while the material is fresh in your mind. Throughout your notes, you might also include messages to yourself (e.g., “This might be a strong hook,” or “Great quote relevant conclusion,” or “Is this relevant? Maybe re-think?”) so you can retrieve your thought process at later research sessions. Trying to figure out “what was I thinking here?” when your notes are sparse and confusing is annoying and inefficient.
2. Use a System: Regardless of the type of materials you are recording, maintain a consistent formatting system. Typically, each entry will include your actual notes, the source, and where it might fit in your speech (a heading or subject, such as “Main Point #2” or “Pros of Self-Driving Cars”). Labeling the subject of a note will enable you to quickly see which materials fit where in your speech and possibly where you might need to do additional research.
3. Separate Your Entries: Make each note a separate entry using the system above. A variety of information (examples, quotes, statistics, etc.) from a single source should still be divided into unique entries with individual subject headings. Doing so will also allow you to stay organized and quickly review and keep track of your research.
4. Label Clearly: To avoid accidental plagiarism, make it 100% clear whether your notes are quotations or paraphrasing, and always include sources. Some students put any quoted material in bold and colored font in addition to including quotation marks in their notes so they don’t inadvertently present it as their own words in their speech.³

Develop a Preliminary Bibliography

Your preliminary bibliography should include all the resources you used to research your speech. Throughout the research process, you will find articles, books, websites, images, etc., that relate to your topic and might eventually be included in your speech. As part of your note-taking, keep a list of each of these sources, even if you don’t ultimately end up using all of them. This is called a preliminary or working bibliography.

Developing a preliminary bibliography will help you keep track of your various sources and gather broad knowledge on your topic. It also helps you build a list of possible sources without the pressure of determining yet whether or how they will fit in your final speech draft.

Since your preliminary bibliography will contain sources that do not end up in your speech, it’s important to keep track of which sources do make the cut. Keep track of the sources that end up in your speech by marking them clearly in your preliminary bibliography. This will remind you to transfer these sources to the Works Cited document.

Develop an Annotated Bibliography

You may be asked to develop an annotated bibliography, which is a list of all your sources, including full citation information along with notes about what’s in the sources and notes on how you will use the sources. Annotated bibliographies differ from your notes since they summarize all of your note information to provide a sense of the totality of information in one source. Annotated bibliographies essentially combine your note information with citation information in an alphabetized list, for easy reference.

Parts of an Annotated Bibliography

1. The source’s full citation
2. A brief summary of the source
3. A critique and evaluation of credibility
4. An explanation of how you will use the source in your speech

After the citation, state the main idea of the source. If you have space, note the specific information that you want to use from the source, such as quotations, chapters, or page numbers. Then explain if the source is credible, and note any potential bias you observe. Finally, explain how that information is useful to your own work. In most annotated bibliographies, the summary, evaluation, and linkage to the topic for each source becomes the body of the annotation for that source. Some annotated bibliographies may not require all of these elements, but most will.

You may also consider including:

• An explanation about the authority and/or qualifications of the author
• The scope or main purpose of the work
• Any detectable bias or interpretive stance
• The intended audience and level of reading

Keep these suggestions in mind as you construct an annotated bibliography:

1. You need a relatively narrow focus or central idea in order to gain value from having an annotated bibliography.
2. As you research, select the sources that seem most related to your narrow focus. Skim the sources first; then more carefully read those that seem useful to your focus.
3. In the summary section, condense only the author’s main ideas in your own words, using your own sentence structure.
4. In the evaluation section, ask and answer questions such as the following: Is there enough relevant information to address my narrow focus? Does the author delve deeply into the subject as opposed to offering a general overview? What type of evidence does the author use? Does the author use statistical information accurately, to the best of my knowledge?
5. Finally, evaluate the source’s usefulness to the narrow focus of your research. Make connections between the source and your focus for your speech.

Sample Annotation

Citation: Farley, John. “The Spontaneous-Generation Controversy (1700–1860): The Origin of Parasitic Worms.” Journal of the History of Biology, 5 (Spring 1972), 95–125.

Annotation: This essay discusses the conversation about spontaneous generation that was taking place around the time that Frankenstein was written. In addition, it introduces a distinction between abiogenesis and heterogenesis. The author argues that the accounts of spontaneous generation from this time period were often based on incorrect assumptions: that the discussion was focused primarily on micro-organisms and that spontaneous-generation theories were disproved by experiments. The author takes a scientific approach to evaluating theories of spontaneous generation, and the presentation of his argument is supported with sources. It is a reliable and credible source. The essay will be helpful in forming a picture of the early 19th-century conversation about how life is formed, as well as explaining the critical perception of spontaneous-generation theories during the 19th century.

Citation Styles

A Works Cited (or References) bibliography is often submitted as a part of your final speech outline. Every school is different in terms of the style of reference entries they prefer, but the most common citations styles are MLA (Modern Language Association – most often used in the humanities) and APA (American Psychological Association – most often used by business, sociology, human services).

Note that the final section of this text has pages that detail how to do citations in MLA and APA styles.