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Course & Subject Guides

Public Speaking - Johnstown Campus

This guide will help Public Speaking students find source content for their informative and persuasive speeches.

Citing Sources in Speeches

Your professor should let you know how much citation information you will need to include with your speeches. Just like in written papers, anytime you cite facts or statistics or quote another person's words and/or ideas, you need to provide proper credit. Here are a few examples:

A direct quote - since you've included a direct quotation in your speech, you need to provide the source of the quotation:

"As John W. Bobbitt said in the December 22, 1993, edition of the Denver Post, 'Ouch!'" In this case, you have included a direct quotation and provided the source of the quotation.

A statistic - even if you haven't directly quoted someone, you still need to provide information on where you found the data you are reporting:

 "After the first week of the 1995 baseball season, attendance was down 13.5% from 1994. This statistic appeared in the May 7, 1995, edition of the Denver Post."

Source

Citation Style Manuals

The most recent editions of various style manuals are on Course Reserves at the Owen Library Information Desk. Do a search in PittCat for the style manual required for your class and narrow the search by Library: Johnstown Campus Library-Owen.

Need Help Formatting Citations?

PittCat and most library databases offer a citation tool to help you format citations for found sources. Just remember to always double-check the formatting because there may be errors!

Citing Sources Using a Citation Manager

Keep track of all of your reference lists and bibliographies. Pitt's library resources work with citation management tools and allow you to import citations from sources like PittCat and article databases.