360 Part 4 Public Speaking
THINK
ABOUT
THIS❶ Is what Alex did plagia-
rism? Do you even “own”
the content you create and
post on Facebook?
❷ How is your friend
Elliot “sharing” your status
different from what Alex
did? Does it matter how
the content was “shared”?
Was your name credited in
Elliot’s post?
❸ How will you deal with
this instance of plagia-
rism? Should you alert
your instructor? Confront
Alex? If you were the in-
structor, how would you
handle the situation?Didn’t I Already Say That?
You met Alex in your speech communication class and formed a fast friend-
ship when you realized that you both were from New Orleans. You are listen-
ing to Alex deliver a speech about growing up in the aftermath of Hurricane
Katrina. His speech is compelling, and you are enthralled by his detailed
account of how his parish changed in the years after that devastating storm.
Having gone through many of the same experiences, you find yourself nod-
ding in agreement with much of what he says. But when he closes with a
passage about the lessons the storm taught him—from keeping up his car
insurance to counting his blessings—it seems eerily familiar. In fact, it’s an
almost verbatim copy of a status update you posted to your own Facebook
page on Thanksgiving Day, the semester before you met Alex. When you get
back to your dorm room and pull up your Facebook history, you realize that a
mutual friend, Elliot, had been moved by your post and reposted it to his own
page. Alex must have seen it there, because he used it almost wholesale,
changing only minor details, like the names of your family and your elemen-
tary school.
You are angry—on many levels. You poured your heart into that post,
and although it was only about a hundred words, it took you a good deal of
time to write and rewrite until it captured exactly how you were feeling. Now
you feel like someone has stolen not only your work but your feelings as well.
Even worse, you saw that the class was moved by Alex’s—your—conclusion,
and you’re certain he’s going to get a good grade based at least in part on
something you wrote. And because your privacy settings are pretty tight, the
passage won’t come up on a standard Web search so you know it’s unlikely
that he’ll get caught unless you say something. What do you do?EVALUATINGCOMMUNICATIONETHICS
As this example shows, keeping track of all your outside material and its
sources can be challenging, which is why taking accurate notes is so critical.
To keep yourself organized, consider using note cards to keep track of refer-
ences separately. Or place all of your references and source material into an
electronic document, such as a word processing file or a note-taking applica-
tion on your smartphone or tablet. For example, many of our students use
the basic Note feature that comes standard on the iPad to stay organized
and they’ve also had good experiences with free, platform-agnostic apps. A
particularly popular app called Evernote allows you to create and save notes
in organized folders; you can even “clip” full Web pages, annotate them to
highlight the information you need, and save them as entries for later use, as
shown in Figure 12.3.
Regardless of the format you choose, your entry should contain or highlight
the quote or material you want to use, along with pertinent information, such as
author name, publication information (title, volume, publisher, location, date),
and relevant page or paragraph numbers from the source. In addition, each
entry should note whether the material is copied verbatim (word for word)
or paraphrased (put into your own words). When you have completed your