NFGS_ch3.2_lecppt.pptx

1. Chapter 3.2
Research and Supporting
Material
Copyright © 2022 W. W. Norton & Company

2. Introduction
• Knowing what you want to say in general is not enough
• You need to find relevant, varied, interesting, and valid
supporting material for your content
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3. The Importance of Supporting Material
• Supporting material includes the ideas, information, and
opinions you use in a presentation to advance your purpose
• Expert speakers are information specialists who know their
subjects well and can share names, dates, statistics, stories, and
sayings about their topics
• This enables them to tailor their presentations to suit a variety
of audiences, occasions, and purposes
• If you are not an expert on the topic, research can substantiate
your beliefs and opinions and also uncover supporting material
that will generate audience interest
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4. Types of Supporting Material
• The most common types of supporting material include:
• Facts
• Statistics
• Testimony
• Definitions
• Analogies
• Examples
• Stories
• Presentation Aids
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5. Facts
• A fact is a verifiable observation, experience, or event known to
be true
• By contrast, an opinion is an evaluation or judgment that is
arguable, not settled
• A little-known or unusual fact can spark audience interest
• Example: “Testing water in a city’s sewage treatment plant can
identify the kind and amount of illicit drugs being consumed.”
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6. Statistics
• Statistics is a type of mathematics concerned with collecting,
summarizing, analyzing, and interpreting data
• Statistics also refers to the numerical data generated by
statistical research
• Statistics help you understand the extent of a characteristic or the
frequency of an occurrence among a large population
Reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Diabetes
Association estimate that, in 2018, more than 100 million US adults were either diabetic or
prediabetic. That’s almost half of the adult population. And many of them didn’t know they
had it. Diabetes is now the sixth-leading cause of death by disease in the United States.
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7. Testimony
• Testimony refers to statements or opinions that someone has said
or written
• Testimony from topic experts can verify and add credibility to
your claims
Great speakers understand the unique challenge of preparing short speeches that are clear,
concise, and memorable. As President Woodrow Wilson noted, “If I am to speak for ten
minutes, I need a week for preparation; if fifteen minutes, three days; if half an hour, two days;
if an hour, I am ready now.”
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8. Definitions
• A definition explains or clarifies the meaning or meanings of a
word, phrase, or concept
• A definition can be as simple as explaining what you mean by a
word or as detailed as a dictionary definition
A formal definition of the blues identifies it as a uniquely American musical form . . .
characterized by expressive pitch inflections (blue notes), a three-line textual stanza of
the form AAB, and a twelve-measure form. Well, that’s okay for some, but I like an old
bluesman’s definition: “The blues ain’t nothin’ but the facts of life.”
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9. Analogies
• An analogy is a comparison between two different things that
highlights some point of similarity to explain complex ideas or
relate a new concept to something the audience understands
• Analogies can identify similarities in things that are somewhat
different
• Example: “If the traffic plan worked in San Diego, it will work
in Seattle.”
• Analogies can also identify similarities in things that are very
different
• Example: “If a copilot must be qualified to fly a plane, a US vice
president should be qualified to govern the country.”
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10. Examples
• An example uses a specific case or instance to clarify, emphasize,
and reinforce a key idea
• Examples can be brief descriptions or detailed stories
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11. Stories (1 of 2)
• Stories are accounts of things that have happened or can be
imagined to have happened
• Real stories about real people arouse attention, create an
appropriate mood, and reinforce important ideas
I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in November 2005. My brothers were the first to
notice that I’d lost a significant amount of weight, fifteen pounds in three weeks. I was
thirsty all the time, and my attitude had changed. My family knew I had to get to a
doctor. The normal range of a blood sugar is between 70 and 120. When we got to the
doctor’s office, we learned that my blood sugar was over 700. The doctor said that I
had type 1 diabetes, but I had no idea what that meant. The first thing I asked was,
“Am I going to die?”2
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12. Stories (2 of 2)
• Hypothetical stories are an especially useful type of fictional
story, as they make a point and have the potential to be very
interesting, persuasive, and powerful
Suppose you need the rheumatoid arthritis drug Humira, but—if you’re uninsured—you
can’t afford the $50,000-a-year cost. As a recent letter to the editor published in the New
York Times points out, for that amount of money, you could fly first class to Paris, stay at
the Ritz Hotel, dine at the best restaurants, buy a one-year supply of Humira at local prices
in France, fly back home, and finish with enough money to hire a registered nurse to
administer the injection every two weeks. Crazy, huh? Perhaps. But what’s really crazy is
how pharmaceutical companies are making billions of dollars on drugs that people need.
And if you’re wondering, Humira in France costs 10 percent of what you would pay in the
United States.3
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13. Presentation Aids
• Presentation aids can reinforce your ideas and information in
memorable ways, such as graphs, charts, images, video, and audio
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14. Vary Your Supporting Materials (1 of 2)
• Using only one type of supporting material can make a
presentation seem dull
• Different types of information give your presentation life and
vitality
• Try to use at least three types of supporting material in every
presentation
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15. Vary Your Supporting Materials (2 of 2)
• The following passage uses six different types of supporting
material:
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16. Test Your Supporting Material
• Speakers use supporting material to enhance their presentations
and to demonstrate their depth of knowledge about their topics
• Information that’s not accurate and up to date undermines this
purpose
• Make sure to test the validity of every piece of supporting material
before adding it to your presentation
• Validity refers to the ideas, opinions, and information being
founded, justified, and true
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17. Is the Source Identified, Credible, and Unbiased?
• When testing the validity of your supporting material, check:
• Who is the source?
• Why should I believe this information or statement?
• You must be able to identify the source of your supporting
material and check whether the source is qualified and credible
• Be mindful that you use objective sources of information
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18. Is the Source Primary or Secondary?
• A primary source is the document, testimony, or publication in
which the data, information, or claim first appears
• Examples: speeches, scholarly research journals, diaries,
clinical reports, and recordings or transcripts of statements
and events
• A secondary source describes, reports, repeats, or summarizes
information from one or more other sources
• Examples include news articles, celebrity magazines or
websites, descriptions or analyses of a presentation or event
• When using secondary sources, ensure correct reporting and
interpretation of primary-source data and conclusions
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19. Is the Information Recent?
• For current events or the latest scientific findings, look for the
most recent professional journals, news articles, and websites, as
your supporting material can become old or obsolete very quickly
• However, timeliness should not be confused with the validity of
supporting material that comes from historical sources
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20. Is the Information Consistent and in Context?
• Check to ensure that your supporting material reports
information and reaches conclusions that are consistent with
other information you have on the same subject
• Further, make sure you do not take words out of context
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21. Is the Information from Online Sources Verifiable and Valid?
• It can be difficult to evaluate the information found online
• Lateral reading is “the practice of doing a quick initial evaluation
of a website . . . [but spending] more time reading what others say
about the source or related issue.”
• Michael Caulfied, a digital literacy expert at Washington State
University, Vancouver, transformed this principle into a
framework for initially evaluating the credibility and accuracy of
online messages, called SIFT—Stop, Investigate, Find, Trace
• Lateral reading and SIFT help you think critically about the
credibility of an online source, the real purpose of its message, and
the validity of its claims and supporting material
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22. Evaluating Statistics
• Statistical data can be accurate while also being irrelevant and
misleading
• It’s crucial for all ethical speakers to test statistics just as
rigorously as all the other types of supporting material
• As stated in Darrell Huff’s How to Lie with Statistics:
The secret language of statistics, so appealing in a fact-minded culture, is employed to
sensationalize, inflate, confuse, and oversimplify. Statistical methods and statistical terms
are necessary in reporting the mass data of social and economic trends, business conditions,
“opinion” polls, the census. But without writers who use the words with honesty and
understanding and readers who know what they mean, the result can only be . . . nonsense.
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23. Is the Statistical Sample Adequate?
• Statistics are based on a sample or portion of a population
• Sampling bias happens when some categories of individuals
within the overall population are intentionally or inadvertently
excluded from the sample
• To avoid sampling bias:
• The sample must be large enough to stand in for the
population as a whole
• The sample must be random and representative
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24. Do the Statistics Represent a Mean or a Median?
• Mean refers to the value obtained by dividing the sum of several
quantities by their number
• Median refers to the value that is at the midpoint between two
extremes
• Failure to appreciate the differences between a mean and median
can lead to major misunderstandings
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25. Can You Explain How the Statistics Support Your Claims?
• Numerical data is not self-explanatory and needs to be explained
by the speaker
• The following example shows how a speaker explained income
inequality:
The Disney Corporation’s chief executive, Bob Iger, made $65.6 million in 2018.
Abigail Disney, an heir to the company, complained that the annual compensation
was 1,424 times the median salary of a Disney employee—and that it “deepened
wealth inequality.” Think of it this way: If you made $65.5 million a year and
worked a 40-hour week for 52 weeks a year, you’d earn $1.260 million a week.
That’s $31,650 an hour. The Walt Disney Company responded by saying it had
agreed to pay a minimum wage of $15 an hour by 2021. Wow. Fifteen dollars
versus $31,650 an hour. If that ain’t income inequality, what is?
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26. Document Your Supporting Material
• Documentation is the practice of citing the sources of your
supporting material in a presentation
• In-speech documentation enhances your credibility as a
researcher and speaker while informing listeners about the
sources and validity of your ideas and information
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27. Document Your Sources in Writing
• Always keep a written list of the references you used to prepare
your presentation
• Documentation follows one of several accepted formats, such as
Modern Language Association (MLA) style or American
Psychological Association (APA) style
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28. Document Your Sources while Speaking
• During a presentation, document the sources of supporting
material out loud
• This oral footnote should include enough information to allow
an interested listener to find the original sources
• If you want your audience to have complete citations, prepare
a bibliography as a handout
• The key to avoiding plagiarism is to identify the sources of your
information in your presentation
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29. Conclusion
• Begin collecting supporting material as soon as you have a general
idea about the topic you intend to cover in the presentation
• Good research helps you find material to support your purpose
and also find new ideas to enrich the content of your presentation
• Responsible speakers have an ethical obligation to understand the
differences between facts and fiction as they choose appropriate
supporting material for a presentation
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30. Credits
This concludes the Lecture PowerPoint presentation for Chapter 3.2.
For more resources, please visit The Norton Field Guide to Speaking:
http://digital.wwnorton.com/nfgspeaking.
Copyright © 2022 W. W. Norton & Company