While you will probably start your speech with some basic background knowledge, good speeches usually involve some in-depth research so you can find out more about your topic. You should know 10 times as much about the topic as actually appears in the speech, so you are confident that you can answer your audience's questions as well as provide an accurate portrayal of the topic. Research sources can be found absolutely anywhere, but if you are struggling to find information for your speech, I might suggest the following web sites:

News and Information Index: this is a super-comprehensive site that gives links to a variety of news organizations, research reports, statistical services, etc. As a bonus, it also has links to both the APA and MLA sites in order to help you write citations for electronic sources.

CSI Online Library: Online libraries are a much more reliable way to research on the internet than merely 'searching the web.' CSI subscribes to an extensive array of magazines and journals that can be searched electronically.

Both of these sources are better places to start than a basic 'google' search which will give you too much information that might be suspect in nature.  Try to refine your searching beyond a mere 'web' search.  This isn't to say that there isn't super information out there on the web or that 'googling' won't get you to some of it.  However, there are more sophisticated ways to get information. 

Once you have done all of this research, your audience needs to know where all of this information comes from. So, you need to tell your audience what sources you used. This serves several purposes:

1.Avoids plagiarism

Anything that isn’t common knowledge needs to be attributed to the source where you received that information. For instance, if we don’t just all “know” the number of people who ordered Dominos Pizza last year, and you tell us that this information came from the July 3 edition of Pizza Weekly.

2. Builds credibility

Using sources in your speech will give you as a speaker a bunch of credibility. It is one thing if YOU just think that people should eat more soybeans, but it is an entirely different deal if the Journal of the American Medical Association thinks that as well. So you telling us these sources increases your credibility and provides support.

3. Gives the audience a “next place to go.”

If you have just captured your audience’s attention and they want to find out more about your topic, they can use these sources to go learn some more about the topic.

Remember, these MUST BE DELIVERED in the speech. So phrases like, “according to,” “as written in,” “supported by,” are good ways to introduce some of this information.  To be more specific, here are some additional ways to verbally include various types of information in the speech itself:

Books

 In his 2005 book, The World is Flat, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman points out…

• Make sure we hear the author, title and any other pertinent information like dates, author qualifications, etc.

Magazines/Newspapers

According to the November 5, 2007 issue of US News and World Report ….

• Make sure we hear the author, magazine title and any other pertinent information like dates, author qualifications, type of article, etc.

Interviews

In a personal interview I conducted with John Doe, head of the Institute for Research I Care About, on January 3, 2008, he stated…

• Make sure we hear the name of the interviewee, their qualifications, the date you interviewed them, and any other pertinent information.

Internet Sources

The Nizkor Project, an organization devoted to victims of the Holocaust in Germany, points out on their web site that.....

• Make sure we hear the name of the group sponsoring the web site and any pertinent information about them or the type of web site. 
• For example, is it a .gov, .org, .edu, .com, etc.  Don’t just give us the web address.  If I had done that on the example above, it would have said, “According to http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/index.html#index,” which would have told you nothing useful.

Audio-Visual Sources

In his 2007 documentary film on War, producer Ken Burns argues that…

• Make sure we hear the name of the electronic source, where/who it came from and any other pertinent information

Test yourself: Where are the sources on the outline we used as a class example? How does the speaker present this information?

Summarize The Main Points