COMS 101 Informative Speech Instructions

COMS 101

Informative Speech Instructions

This course requires you to present an informative speech to an audience of 3 or more adults. You must use a camcorder to record the presentation. After recording the presentation, you must download it from your camcorder onto your computer and then upload it onto YouTube.* To do this, you will need to set up a free YouTube account, if you do not already have one. After uploading a speech file to YouTube, you must submit the uploaded speech’s URL link (http://www.youtube. . . .) to your professor via the designated Blackboard submission link so he/she can access and grade it. Your grade for the speech will be determined by the degree to which it satisfies the requirements listed below.

Topic Selection:

This assignment requires you to research and to present an informative speech about a job field that you already practice or that you may wish to enter someday and how someone can use it as a platform for promoting something God values in the world. See the Alban text, pp. 264–534, for descriptions of several job fields you may wish to consider for the purpose of this project. See the Alban text, pp. 73–76, for a list of things God values in the world.

Speech Goals : Because this is an informative speech—a speech in which you merely report information from credible sources without expressing your personal opinion—your goal in this presentation is simply to use information from appropriately credited expert sources in 2 ways:

(1) to describe this occupation to your audience, and

(2) to show through documented examples or expert quotations how people can use this occupation as a platform for advancing something that God values according to this list of things God values that appears in the Alban text, pp. 73–76.

Among the many occupation-related points you could communicate to your audience in this informative speech are the nature of the job’s work, the training or credentials it requires, its employment-related trends, its outlook for the future, its pay scale, etc. See the Alban text, pp. 84–259, for examples of people, from a variety of occupational fields, who have used their job skills/situations as platforms for promoting something God values in the world.

Other Topic Criteria: Your topic must satisfy not only the preceding criteria, but also the topic selection criteria set forth in the Alban text and the prescriptions of the Liberty University Online Honor Code. Among other things, this means you must do the following:

· Topic Appropriateness: Avoid any topic that leads you to portray legally or ethically questionable texts or behaviors in a favorable light. This includes but is not limited to theses that advance sexually promiscuous activity, the use of illegal substances, or other behaviors that Liberty University’s statement of values prohibits. Questions about the appropriateness of topics, sources, etc. should be directed to your professor early in the speech-planning process.

· Topic Originality: Your speech topics MUST be researched,selected, and delivered primarily for this course and not primarily for, or in conjunction with, a presentation for a church group, a Sunday School class, a social group, or any other small group. You may not give a speech that serves a double purpose.

· Topic Grading Criteria: Finally, you must choose a topic that enables you to construct the speech in a way that satisfies the specific requirements of the Informative Speech Grading Rubric, which lists the criteria that your professor will use when grading your presentation.

Research, Organization, and Outlining:

Basic Requirements: For your informative speech, you are required to:

(1) Research credible sources for information about your topic.

(2) Form a main idea for your speech in the light of what your research discloses.

(3) Express this main idea as a complete thought in a single-sentence, declarative thesis statement.

(4) Choose the information from your research that most powerfully delivers the type of information that this thesis statement requires.

(5) Present this information in a logically sequenced outline of properly documented main points, sub-points, and perhaps even sub-sub-points, using the Informative Speech Outline Template document as your formatting guide. Your outline, in its final form, will serve as the blueprint that you mentally must follow while extemporaneously delivering the recorded speech to your audience.

Research Requirements: For your informative speech, you are required to:

· Use 3 Expert Sources: You must use and explicitly cite supportive material (examples, illustrations, statistics, quotations from experts, etc) from at least 3 expert sources in this project. An expert source is a person, group of persons, or organization with documentable expertise in the area it addresses. Information from such sources typically derives from personal interviews with credentialed experts or from documentable print and/or electronic publications (see the Alban text, pp. 637–661, for more about this).

· The Bible as an Expert Source: While you may, of course, use the Bible as a source when related to your topic, it must be in addition to the 3 required sources.

· The Alban Text as an Expert Source: The third section of the Alban text, pp. 264–534, and the U.S. Government’s Occupational Outlook Index count as 1 of your 3 sources, not as 2 separate sources.

· Non-Expert Sources: Never use information from anonymous or questionable sources, such as Wikipedia or any printed source authored by someone whose credentials for addressing the topic are not clearly established.

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Organization and Outlining Requirements :

Topical Sequencing Required: You must use the Topical organizational pattern for addressing your topic (see the Alban text, page 701, for more about this).

The Draft and the Final Outlines: The speech outline submission process involves 2 stages— (1) the submission of an ungraded draft outline, in MS-Word format, at the end of Module/Week 4 and (2) a graded revised final outline, also in MS-Word format, at the end of Module/Week 6. After reviewing your draft outline, your professor will post constructive feedback that you must heed as you must assimilate as you compose the revised final outline. The draft outline and the revised final outline must be submitted via the designated Blackboard submission links.

Use the Outline Template: You also must use the Informative Speech Outline Template document as a guide for constructing your speech outline. Retain its formatting. Provide information for each of its categories—an audience description, its organizational pattern, purpose statement, etc. Include a clearly distinguished introduction, body, and conclusion section.

Outline Parts:

· The introduction must list, in order, your attention-getter, credibility statement, purpose statement, and preview statement.

· The body must include 2–5 main points, each with supportive subpoints and perhaps even sub-subpoints, consisting mainly of documented examples, illustrations, statistics, quotations from experts, etc. that you have derived from the 3 or more expert sources that this project requires.

· The conclusion must include a summary statement and a concluding element that refocuses the audience’s attention on the main point.

· The Works Cited (MLA), Reference page (APA), or Bibliography (Turabian) page must properly credit your sources and must do so in the format prescribed by MLA, APA, or Turabian style to format.

Document Your Sources Properly:

· In-Text and End-Page Citations: Whether you directly quote, summarize, or paraphrase it, any information that you present in your outline and in the speech itself must be explicitly attributed to the source from which you derived it. This requires you to use parenthetical citations or footnotes in the outline itself to show which information derives from which expert source. This also requires you to list the same sources on a Works Cited (MLA), Reference (APA), or Bibliography page (Turabian) in the format prescribed by the style manual for this project that you choose. Failure to cite sources is tantamount to plagiarism, a serious offense that can result in automatic failure of an assignment and possibly of the course.

· Use Direct Quotes Sparingly: If you include directly quoted material from another source in your outline, it must account for no more than 20 percent of the outline’s content.

· Offset Direct Quotes with Quotation Marks: You must place the directly quoted material inside double-quotation marks to make it clear that you are not claiming to be the originator of the quotation’s wording. Failure to use double-quotation marks to offset directly quoted material constitutes plagiarism is a serious academic offense that results in automatic failure of the assignment or automatic failure of the course (see the Liberty University Honor Code for more information about this).

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