types of supporting Material 8.3 175
sections of most libraries. Arranged alphabetically by subject, these compila-
tions are easy to use.
USING OPINIONS EFFECTIVELY Here are a few suggestions for using opin-
ions effectively in your speeches:
- Be certain that any authority you cite is an expert on the subject you are discussing.
Advertisers ignore this advice when they use well-known athletes to en-
dorse such items as flashlight batteries, breakfast cereals, and cars. Athletes
may indeed be experts on athletic shoes, tennis rackets, or stopwatches, but
they lack any specific qualifications to talk about many of the products they
endorse. - Identify your sources. If a student quotes the director of the Harry Ransom
Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas but identifies that
person only as Tom Staley, few listeners will recognize the name, let alone
acknowledge his authority.
In Chapter 4, we discussed the importance of citing your sources orally.
In the course of doing so, you can provide additional information about the
qualifications of those sources, as the student speaker does in the following
example:
... as Professor Helen Norton of the University of Colorado explained in
a February 16, 2011, press release from the Equal Employment Opportu-
nity Commission, the rationale for jobless discrimination is that employ-
ers believe that those who’ve been out of work are not good employees
and that their job skills are not up to par.^27 - Cite unbiased authorities. Just as the most reliable sources of statistics are un-
biased, so too are the most reliable sources of opinion. The chairman of Gen-
eral Motors may offer an expert opinion that the Chevrolet Cruze is the best
compact car on the market today. His expertise is unquestionable, but his
bias is obvious and makes him a less than trustworthy source of opinion on
the subject. A better source would be Consumer Reports analyses of the reli-
ability and repair records of compact cars. - Cite opinions that are representative of prevailing opinion. Unless most of the
experts in the field share an opinion, its value is limited. Citing a minority
opinion leaves your conclusions open to easy rebuttal. - Quote your sources accurately. If you quote or paraphrase either an expert or
a layperson, be certain that your quote or paraphrase is accurate and pre-
sented in the context in which the remarks were originally made. - Use literary quotations sparingly. Be sure that you have a valid reason for
citing a literary quotation, and then use only one or two at most in a
speech.