In the fourth century BCE, the classic philosopher Aristotle took up the study of the public speaking practices of the ruling class in Athenian society. For two years he observed the men (it was only men) who spoke publicly in the assembly and the courts. In the end, he developed a theory about persuasiveness that has come down to us in history as a written treatise called Rhetoric. Among his many ideas was the identification of three elements essential to effective public speaking: ethos, logos, and pathos. In short, these mean credibility, reasonability, and emotion.

In this chapter, we will focus on what Aristotle called ethos and what we today would call ethical public speaking. Ethics refers to the branch of philosophy that involves a determination of what is right and moral. On a personal level, it’s a standard of what you should and should not do in various situations. Although ethics are based on personal decisions and values, they are also influenced by factors outside of you.

Ethical Public Speaking 

Ethical Public Speaking refers to those aspects of public speaking that pertain to the personal character of a public speaker and the quality of the content they present in a speech. It involves honest research and truthful presentation, good intentions towards the audience, and the integrity of ideas. We are ethical speakers when we write and present speeches that respect these values.

Honesty & Truthfulness

Ethical public speaking requires adherence to factual truth and respect for your audience. This means that you’ll do your best to present factual, well-documented information designed to improve their lives and help them make informed, intelligent decisions with it. Honesty and truthfulness mean not telling lies and being thorough in representing the truth. When quotes are intentionally taken out of context to misrepresent the original author’s intent or to deceive the audience this isn’t honest research. You may have heard of the phrase “cherry-picking facts.” That’s when essential information is ignored in order to promote one version of the facts. When this happens, honesty fails because the truth is skewed.

Good Will

A speaker is ethical when the intention of their communication is in the best interest of the audience. It means approaching the speech with honest purpose and wanting the best experience for the audience. If a speaker aims at manipulation, falsifies information, insults the audience, or simply has no intention of fulfilling the purpose of a speech, then they are not acting with good will.

Integrity

When public speakers research and write speeches, they are expected to do so in a way that respects the sources from which they gain their knowledge and ideas. Furthermore, it’s the responsibility of the speaker to utilize factually accurate sources. When using sources known to be biased it’s important to acknowledge this. This is no different from the way that any writers (students, journalists, researchers, and teachers) are expected to acknowledge the sources of ideas. When we fail to do that, it’s called plagiarism. Plagiarism is unethical and will be discussed in depth below.

When a public speaker successfully conveys to their audience that they possess the qualities of integrity, good will, honesty, and truthfulness, then they have established speaker credibility. “Credibility” means the “quality that someone or something has that makes people believe or trust them” (Oxford Learner’s Dictionary). The success of any speech depends on the speaker’s establishing credibility with their audience. Simple forms of credibility statements form a part of the introduction of a speech, as described in the chapter Introductions and Conclusions.  What follows in this chapter is a more in-depth discussion of this important quality.

Being a Credible Speaker

Speaker credibility is the positive attitude that the audience acquires toward a speaker. It’s based on both reality and perception and leads the audience to believe that the speaker is honest and competent. An audience wants to be “in good hands” and they use their intelligence and powers of observation to judge whether they should put their trust in a speaker.

Credibility is a product of both the content of a speech and its delivery. It’s related to what the audience hears in a speech as well as their perceptions, or even gut feelings, about the intangible characteristics of the speaker such as appearance, friendliness, sense of humor, likability, poise, and communication ability. It’s hard to overestimate the importance of establishing speaker credibility.

Let’s assume you’re giving an informative speech and you have worked diligently on all the elements of ethical public speaking. The content of your speech is honest (based on fact) and truthful (not “cherry-picked”). You’ve been careful to cite your research sources properly. You have the good intention to educate your audience about the topic and you will avoid manipulating, talking down to, or insulting your audience. You’re a credible speaker, certainly. However, your challenge is this: how do you convey to the audience that you are credible? What are the signs of credibility that they will hear and see? What do you say or do as a speaker so that the audience knows they are “in good hands”—that they can trust in you and in what you have to say?

Because credibility is made up of many factors, both verbal and non-verbal, this isn’t a simple question to answer. Establishing credibility is achieved in both speechwriting and delivery.

Establishing Credibility through Speechwriting

Some of the traits of credibility that a speaker conveys through speechwriting include:

Competence

A speaker is credible when they establish their competence on a topic. Competence means the speaker possesses the right level of expertise and sound knowledge about the speech topic, which they have acquired through research or firsthand experience. The speaker explains what the topic means to them and how they learned about it, with statements like: “I started studying the history of Ukraine last year and became fascinated by the people I met” or “I’ve always loved animals and have been volunteering at my local humane society for the past three years.”

Organization

A speaker establishes credibility with a speech that is organized and allows the audience to follow. Good, structured speeches allow the audience to relax and trust the speaker. Organized speeches state and restate their thesis and main ideas, using redundancy to beneficial effect. They allow the audience to follow along by providing connections, summaries, and previews.

Relationship

A speaker becomes credible by establishing a relationship with the audience. The speaker shows that they have thought about who the audience is, both demographically and psychographically and may say something like “I’m happy to be speaking to a group of new voters.”  The speaker introduces themselves (if they haven’t already been introduced by a host); and finds common ground with the audience and communicates these similarities. “Like you, I understand the challenges of being a student athlete . . . ” or “I know it must be strange to hear a 21-year-old talk to you today about retirement, but I helped my grandparents for several years and . . .”

Citation

A speaker is credible to an audience when they make use of, and cite, credible sources. Quotations without acknowledgments or mentioning sources by saying “I read on a website that . . . ” will not gain the trust of audience. In speeches that involve research, that present information beyond your own experience, be sure to properly acknowledge your sources. Not doing so will sow the seeds of doubt in an audience and undermine their trust. In speechwriting, this is called “spoken citation” and will be discussed further on in this chapter.

The Importance of the Introduction

While credibility through speechwriting is established throughout the entire speech, pay close attention to the introduction. The introduction is crucial to establishing your credibility. The introduction is the part of the speech where you state your topic and tell the audience why you chose it, what expertise you bring to it, and what it means to you. It’s also the part of the speech when you state your name and affiliation and establish the common interests you share with your audience.

Establishing Credibility through Delivery

If credibility is a matter of audience perception, does that mean that credibility is only what a speaker manages to get the audience to believe about them, rather than what is actually true about the speaker? Of course not. The factors of credibility and ethical public speaking must be real before a speaker can successfully convey these qualities to an audience.

That said, it’s an unfortunate fact of public discourse that speakers misrepresent their credibility all the time, either intentionally or unintentionally. Can you think of situations where speakers pretended to be experts when they were not? When they say that they really care about a subject when there is evidence to the contrary? Or, they boast of having similarities with an audience—for example, boasting of a religious affiliation with the audience—but they don’t really possess these similarities? To intentionally misrepresent your background, such as experience and credentials, is clearly unethical. No doubt you can think of many such instances.

Unethical speakers do this because they know how important it’s to establish credibility with an audience. But managing to pass off lies about your credibility doesn’t mean you’re actually credible! Perceptive audience members will know the difference.

Defining Plagiarism

An ethical public speaker has integrity. Although there are many ways that you could undermine your ethical stance before an audience, the one that stands out and is committed most in academic contexts is plagiarism. A dictionary definition of plagiarism would be “the act of using another person’s words or ideas without giving credit to that person” (Merriam-Webster, 2015). According to the student help website Plagiarism.org, sponsored by WriteCheck, plagiarism is often thought of as “copying another’s work or borrowing someone else’s original ideas” (“What is Plagiarism?” 2014). However, this source goes on to say that the common definition may mislead some people. Plagiarism also includes:

• Turning in someone else’s work as your own
• Copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit
• Failing to put quotation marks around an exact quotation correctly
• Giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation
• Changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit
• Copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up most of your work, whether you give credit or not

Plagiarism exists outside of the classroom and is a temptation in business, creative endeavors, and politics.

Types of Plagiarism

Generally, there are three types of plagiarism: direct, incorrect paraphrasing, and self-plagiarism. Sometimes these types of plagiarism are intentional, and sometimes they occur unintentionally (you may not know you’re plagiarizing). However, as everyone knows, “Ignorance of the law isn’t an excuse for breaking it.” Unintentional or accidental plagiarism is still plagiarism. Furthermore, the penalties for plagiarism are steep and it’s considered a serious act of misconduct. So, let’s familiarize you with how plagiarism occurs in order to prevent it from happening.

Direct

No one wants to be the victim of theft; if it has ever happened to you, you know how awful it feels. When a student takes an essay, research paper, speech, or outline completely from another source, whether it’s a classmate who submitted it for another instructor, from some sort of online essay mill, or from elsewhere, this is an act of theft. If you take a whole text and claim it’s yours, you are committing plagiarism; you are deliberately and directly lying about the authorship of a work. Even just lifting a short passage directly from a source without quoting it and using proper citation, is a form of stealing, thus plagiarism. You are committing plagiarism even if you delete or change a couple of words. If the structure and most of the words are the same as in the original, and you imply it’s your own work, this counts as direct plagiarism. If properly acknowledged and justified, it’s permissible to use verbatim short parts of another work, as discussed below.

Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing means taking someone else’s ideas and rephrasing them in your own words. There’s nothing wrong with rephrasing, in fact, it’s the basis of how we write and think. However, ethical writing (including speechwriting) means acknowledging the source of your ideas by citing or mentioning it. When you restate or summarize information from a source and don’t include a citation you are implying that those ideas came from you. Paraphrasing without citation is the most common form of plagiarism because it often happens unintentionally.

Another unethical, and more deliberate, form of incorrect paraphrasing is when you take two out of every three sentences and mix them up, so they don’t appear in the same order as in the original work. Perhaps the student will add a fresh introduction, a personal example or two, and an original conclusion.

Many students don’t see this as the same thing as stealing because they think “I did some research, I looked some stuff up, and I added some of my own work.” Yet this is only marginally better than direct plagiarism. Why? Because no source has been credited, and the student has “misappropriated” the expression of the ideas as well as the ideas themselves.

A similar sort of paraphrasing plagiarism involves copying passages from various sources and editing them together, mixed with some of your own words. If you do this and don’t correctly cite each source, it’s plagiarism. Furthermore, if your entire paper consists of predominantly the work of other authors that you have stitched together, whether you cite it or not, it’s plagiarism.

Self-Plagiarism

Some colleges and universities have a policy that penalizes or forbids “self-plagiarism.” This means that you can’t use a paper or outline that you presented in another class a second time. You may think, “How can this be plagiarism or wrong if I wrote both and, in my work, I cited sources correctly?” The issue with re-using your own work is that you are not putting in the amount of effort expected for an assignment. One way to avoid self-plagiarism, particularly if your previous work is published, is to cite yourself. When in doubt, ask first.

Other Considerations

One area in speeches where students are not careful about citing is on their presentation slides. If a graphic or photo is borrowed from a website (that is, you did not design it), there should be a citation in small letters on the slide. The same would be true of borrowed quotations, data, and ideas. Students also like to put their “works cited” or “references” on the last slide, but this really does not help the audience to match particular images or material to the original source.

An issue that often comes up with students happens when two or more students submit the same assignment. When confronted, the student says, “We worked on it together.” If your instructor wants you to work collaboratively, they will make that clear. Otherwise, don’t do this.  Always assume you are expected o turn in your own work. Any use of unauthorized assistance is considered cheating.

Finally, using AI technologies such as chat bots to produce the text of a speech is equivalent to turning in something written by someone else. While it may be permissible to use technology for editing grammar and spelling, you are the author and the idea you present should be the result of your own thinking. Unless stated otherwise in your instructor’s policy, using AI to write a speech constitutes plagiarism.

Avoiding Plagiarism

Avoiding plagiarism involves, first, the intention to create your own work. If you begin by assuming you can take other work and present it as your own, you will surely be in the realm of plagiarism. The second part of avoiding plagiarism is to learn the proper way to cite the sources you use. To “cite” means to provide the sources for your research, creating what is called a “citation.” Citations appear in written work, including essays and speeches, and on many websites, images, and more. Explaining exactly how to create citations for a written essay or research paper is outside the scope of this textbook. There are also free online tools that will generate proper citations for you. In this section and the one following it, we will focus on spoken citations as they appear in a speech—in other words, how to create a citation for listeners, not readers.

Avoiding Plagiarism with Direct Sources

As explained above, copying whole works from another source is plagiarism. But there are times when it’s appropriate to use a small amount of a source’s exact wording. You should have a good reason for inserting a direct quote. Typically, we quote when the source or author is highly respected, or they have stated the idea in a compelling way, or the material is well known, and others would recognize it. We also quote when we are discussing or analyzing a specific part of a text.

Whether you are using a phrase, a sentence, or even several sentences from another’s work, if you use exact words from a source, it requires quotation. Quoting tells the reader and listener that you are using the exact words from a source. The proper way to manage direct quotes in a speech text is to provide quotation marks at the beginning and end of the quote followed by a source citation. The most common citation is a parenthetical reference such as (Smith 12) where the author’s last name and the page number are written in parentheses following the quote. This parenthetical reference should correspond to a full citation in the bibliography. Alternatively, you can use a superscript number at the end of the quotation that corresponds to a full citation listed in footnotes/endnotes.

When using direct quotations, you should make it clear you’re quoting by the way in which you introduce and end the borrowed material, as in examples further below. A common practice in public speaking is to say quote and/or make air quotes to specify you are about to give a direct quote. It can also be beneficial to change your vocal tone and use appropriate gestures to help differentiate the quote from your own words.

Avoiding Plagiarism when Paraphrasing

As stated earlier, paraphrasing is common form of plagiarism because it often happens unintentionally. It’s important to understand what good paraphrasing is. Look at this example of an original source and three possible ways to paraphrase it.

Original information, posted on CNN.com website, October 31, 2015:

“The biggest federal inmate release on record will take place this weekend. About 6,600 inmates will be released, with 16,500 expected to get out the first year. More than 40,000 federal felons could be released early over the next several years, the U.S. Sentencing Commission said. The sentencing commission decided a year ago to lower maximum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders and to make the change retro-active, with the inmate releases effective November 1, 2015. Sentences were reduced an average of 18%, the commission said. Early release will be a challenge for the inmates as well as the judicial bureaucracy” (Casarez, 2015).

With that as the original source, which of the following three is truly paraphrasing?

1. The CNN News website says the federal government is releasing 40,000 felons from prison in the next few years.
2. According to a report posted on CNN’s website on October 31 of 2015, the federal government’s Sentencing Commission is beginning to release prisoners in November based on a decision made in 2014. That decision was to make maximum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders shorter by an average of 18%. Over the next several years over 40,000 federal felons could be let go. However, this policy change to early release will not be easy for the justice system or those released.
3. The largest release ever of federal inmates will take place in early November. At first 6,600 inmates will be released, and then over 16,000 over the first year. The U.S. Sentencing Commission says it could release over 40,000 federal felons over the upcoming years because the sentencing commission decided a year ago to lessen maximum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders and to make this happen for those already in jail. When the Sentencing Commission says that when it made that decision, the sentences were reduced by an average of 18%. Early release will be a challenge for the felons as well as the judicial system. This came from a story on CNN News website in later October 2015.

If you chose the second paraphrase, you would be correct. It uses different language and identifies the source of the information clearly at the beginning. The first version does not really interpret the original statement correctly, and the third choice imitates the original almost entirely. Neither of these two would be good paraphrasing.

Notice that each paraphrase example includes a citation that provides the source of the material, but only the second paraphrase does so completely: “According to a report posted on CNN’s website on October 31 of 2015 . . . “

There is a general rule of research that says that if the information you are using is “common knowledge”—dates and facts for example or other information a general reader should know—then it doesn’t need to be cited. A good rule of thumb is if the same information can be found in 4-5 sources where it was not cited, it’s common knowledge. But if it’s an original idea, research results, or the author’s interpretation of common facts then it needs to be cited. If you are in doubt whether you should cite something or not, always err on the side of caution. Over-citing is much better than the alternative: plagiarism.

Keep in mind good research takes time. Procrastinating leads to being unduly pressured to finish. This sort of pressure can lead to sloppy research habits and bad decisions. Make sure you give yourself plenty of time to complete your speech so it’s both ethical and well executed.

One way to avoid accidental plagiarism is to keep track of your citations as you are researching and writing. This prevents forgetting where a quotation came from or misattributing the source. Citation managers such as Zotero and Mendeley (which are free to download) not only keep track of all your sources while you research and write they can create instant bibliographies.

Creating Spoken Citations

Now that you understand using two forms of source material—direct quotation, and paraphrase—and you understand the importance of citing your sources to your audience, exactly how should you include a citation in a speech?

In a paper, you would only need to include a written citation such as “(Jones 78)” for a source that the reader can find in the bibliography. But it doesn’t work like for a speech. In a speech, saying “Jones, 78” doesn’t mean anything. Even saying “According to Jones, p. 78,” does little for the audience. Why? Because they can’t turn to a bibliography. They don’t have another way to understand the type of information being conveyed. In speeches it’s necessary, therefore, to give more complete information that would help the audience understand its value. This is why these are called spoken citations.

What information needs to be included in a spoken citation? The page number, the publishing company, and city it was published in are not very important. What is important is the type of source: for example, a website, scholarly article, newspaper article, or a book. Then, you should include when it was written, if possible, and the position, background, or credentials of the source. There are no fixed rules, however. In determining what should go into the verbal citation, think about the information that is necessary to clarify the relevance and credibility of your source for your audience and let that be your guide.

For example, instead of saying “According to Jones, p. 78,” a better approach would be,

According to Dr. Samuel Jones, Head of Cardiology at Vanderbilt University, in a 2010 article . . .

Whether you are introducing a direct quote or a paraphrase, you can see that it’s best to begin with the citation. Take these examples:

In her 2012 book, The Iraq War in Context, historian Mary Smith of the University of Georgia states that . . .

In consulting the website for the American Humane Society, I found these statistics about animal abuse compiled by the Society in 2023:

In the first example, you would insert a quote from Smith’s book after your spoken citation. In the second example, a paraphrase would be appropriate. For example:

In his 2014 book, Talk Like Ted, public speaking guru Carmine Gallo states that “Ideas are the currency of the twenty-first century.”

In consulting the website TED.org, I learned that the TED organization does much more than sponsoring TED talks. There are also podcasts, a video series, and television programs.

Sometimes when using direct quotes, speakers find it helpful to clarify where the quote begins and ends by saying the word “quote.”  In that case, this is an example of exactly what a speaker would say:

In her 2023 memoir entitled Finding Me, the actor Viola Davis writes, quote, “I felt my call was to become an actress. It wasn’t. It was bigger than that. I was bigger than my successes.” End quote.

As mentioned above, a speaker can achieve the same effect by making a gesture of air quotes or changing the tone of the voice.

To conclude, citing your sources is immensely important. It shows that you have done proper research to support your ideas and arguments and it allows your audience to find the material if they want more information. Using clear citations makes your speech more credible to the audience.

Conclusion

This chapter introduced you to the ethics of public speaking and how being an ethical public speaker makes you a credible public speaker that audiences will trust. Using sources ethically means not only proper citation, but taking care that the information you use is relevant and presented in context. Avoid manipulating statistical information or taking a quotation from an expert in one field and present as if they are an expert in another field. Differentiate facts from opinions, especially when dealing with controversial subjects. In addition, be sure you understand the material you’re citing before using it. If you’re unsure of any words, look their definitions up so you’re sure to be using the material as it’s intended. Finally, it’s important that you understand the type of publication or source you’re using and any potential biases. It’s your responsibility to help the audience understand the reliability of a particular source, the purpose of including any cited information, and how it relates to your overarching argument.

Something to Think About

The following exercise might be helpful for you to develop an understanding of orally citing your sources.

Choose one of your sources for an upcoming speech for this exercise. On a sheet of paper, answer these questions.

• Is this information you found in a unique source, or information that was repeated in all or most of your sources? (This may bear upon whether you need to cite the information or not.)
• Who is the original author or “speaker” of this quotation or material? Are they an expert, such as a scientist, doctor, government official, college professor, etc.?
• What is the title of source?
• What do you know about the source of the citation? What is the medium (book, article, website)?
• If a website, who sponsors the website (what organization, government, company)?
• When was this information published? What is the date on it?

It’s not necessary to give all this information, but most of it should be included in the citation.