Ethical speaking

Credibility and Plagiarism

1. SPEAKING ETHICALLY

2. Ethical Public Speaking Ethical speaking is a process, not a one-time event when you present your speech to your classmates. This process begins when you brainstorm your topic. Every time you speak before an audience you have ethical responsibilities to uphold

3. Two keys to ethical speaking There are two main keys to ethical speaking: Your ability to remain honest, Your ability to avoid plagiarism.

4. Honesty Credible speakers are honest with their audiences. This honesty includes telling your audience why you’re speaking and what you will address during the speech. A common example of dishonest speech can be found when a vacation destination offers “complimentary tours and sessions” which are really opportunities for a sales person to pitch a timeshare to the unsuspecting “tourists.”

5. Honesty Another example of dishonesty comes in the music industry where many cases of “melody lifting” exist. For example, the Beach Boys song “Surfing in the USA” is a note-for-note rendition of a 1958 Chuck Berry song.

6. Honesty Other examples of dishonest public communication include political speeches that intentionally mislead the public. For example, former White House press aide, Scott McClellan, claimed that President Bush misled the American people about the reasons for the Iraqi war. McClellan said Bush manipulated sources in order to gain support for the war, including Bush’s claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. No such weapons were ever found.

7. Three types of plagiarism There are three types of plagiarism: 1. Global plagiarism, 2. Patchwork plagiarism, 3. Incremental plagiarism.

8. Global Plagiarism This is the most obvious type of plagiarism. It occurs when a speaker presents a speech that is not his/her own work. A classic example occurred at Parkersburg High School’s graduation ceremony in 2019 when Principle Kenny DeMoss delivered an address to the graduating class that was word-for-word from Ashton Kutcher’s Teen Choice Awards speech. I can proudly note that the student who discovered this plagiarism and brought it to the attention of the school board was one of my former speech students. Mr. DeMoss was suspended for five days without pay.

9. Patchwork Plagiarism This is the most common form of plagiarism for college students. It occurs when you copy text, or sometimes pick-up and put-down copy, without crediting the source, or with just a few alterations to the copy. This is also called “ paraplagiarism ” to illustrate how an author uses partial text sources with minimal original writing. Patchwork Plagiarism occurs if you create a speech by pasting together parts of another speech, or another author’s work.

10. Incremental Plagiarism This type of “incremental plagiarism” occurs most often in collegiate speeches. What happens is the speaker uses quotes or other information and fails to cite those quotes or information. This occurred recently in several of this class’ informative speeches. Quotes were given. Information was noted. But the source of that information was not cited. Or the speaker simply said, “Evidence points to” or “Research has revealed.”

11. Incremental plagiarism Another example of this type of plagiarism would be when a student speaker uses a direct quote from someone without letting the audience know who the source of the direct quote is. Understanding these three types of plagiarism is key to preparing an honest speech.