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COMM 101 - Effective Speaking - Gingras-Moore

Citing References in Your Speeches

In most COMM classes, you will cite sources verbally in your presentations, in addition to creating a written bibliography or works cited page. Your audience likely won't have your bibliography in front of them when they are listening to you, so it's important to let them know where you found your information.

This page offers tips to help you create effective oral citations.

Oral Citations

Oral citations help you demonstrate the reliability and accuracy of the information you share during your speech. They provide the audience with proof you've researched your topic and help you establish ethos, or credibility, with your audience.

Oral citations should include the following information:

Author

Who did you get the information from? Also share the author's credentials, to help establish this person or organization as a credible source.

Example oral book citation: In their 2007 book, Made to Stick, researchers Chip and Dan Heath identify six principles that help people remember information.

 

Title

Where did the information come from? This could be a book, magazine, academic journal article, website, interview, etc. If it came from a source other than a book, be sure to include both the name of the source as well as the title of the article.

Example oral website citation: In a quote from his August 4, 2017 aeon.co opinion article, "Why vegetarians should be prepared to bend their own rules," Alberto Guibilini, a postdoctoral research fellow and the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, argues that, "if people perceive vegetarianism as a position that allows for no exception, they are probably less likely to become vegetarian."

 

Date

When was the information published? For websites that don't identify a date, say the date the site was last updated or the date you accessed the site.

Example citation for an interview: In an interview I conducted for this speech on September 1, 2017, Professor of Marketing Maria Jones, said she teaches ethics in her classes by introducing students to different professional codes of ethics and then asking students to use these codes to analyze different real-life scenarios.