Internet Activities
for Speech Communication

In Part I we examined how you relate to other people so that you can discuss ideas for a speech or lurk to gather information about an interest. In this section, we will do online activities to explore some of the ways you can use the Internet.

The Internet has been likened to many different ideas: a fire hose of information (when you only want a sip), a haystack (when you want the needle), and, of course, the most well-known of all, the information superhighway. It's the world's biggest book, with tens of billions of words, but there's no table of contents or index.

You could also think of the Web as the largest library in the world. To enhance your effectiveness, you will need to plan your research strategy. Specifically, we will look at how you can use the resources of the Internet to accomplish four searching strategies:

1. Search the Web to find a speech topic
2. Search the Web to gather supporting evidence
3. Search the Web to use reference sources
4. Search the Web to analyze your audience

Strategy I: Finding a Speech Topic

One of the most difficult steps is finding an appropriate topic for your speech. There are numerous Web based strategies that you can use.

But, first you have to clarify the speaking goal for your presentation. Is your intention to provide information or to persuade your audience? If your goal is persuasive, will you be discussing a timely topic in the news? Or, maybe you will advocate in favor of a legislative solution being debated in the Congress or your community. Another option is to persuade your audience to take a stand on an issue of justice that is being considered by our legal system. Your instructor will provide further thoughts to help you shape a goal for your speech. Consider some of the following as research strategies for finding a topic.

Use a General Topical Browser, Especially for an Informative Speech.

Earlier, you read about how to use AltaVista and Yahoo! to find information on the Web. Now, check out another browsing tool called the Librarians' Index to the Internet. This would be a particularly good starting point for finding informative speech topics.

1. Start your browser and go to URL http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/ InternetIndex.
2. Note how the subject page is organized. In the left margin are buttons that allow you go to news stories about topics. In the main part of the page are various subject headings such as Arts, Science, or Health and Medicine.
3. Now select one of the topic areas that appeals to your interests and that you think might be a meaningful, informative topic for your audience.

Find a timely topic that is being discussed in newspapers and current magazines.

The digital newsstand offers many choices, and most newspapers and magazines online allow you to search back issues. Check the section titled "Speech Communication Related Web Sites" later on in this guide to find the URLs for newspapers or magazines that you could use to prepare a speech. Or, go online to the Allyn and Bacon Public Speaking Web site list of periodicals at http://www.abacon.com/pubspeak/research/news.html/.

One of the most useful of these papers is The Christian Science Monitor (http://www.csmonitor.com/) because of its search capacities and extensive digital files, with reports as far back as 1980. The New York Times also is especially useful for allowing you to search back issues. Many of the others on the list provide the most recent news. And for topics that are timely, it is useful to use one of them.

There are also a number of magazines on the Internet. As you do research, it is meaningful to recognize that most magazines develop an ideological perspective on current affairs. Read a sample of different views from those on the periodical list.

In addition to browsing individual newspapers, you can also do a global search. One of the most comprehensive guides is the Drudge Report. You can find it at http://www.drudgereport.com/.

Note how the Drudge Report is organized in three columns. To the left are search engines for finding headline stories from United Press and the Associated Press. You can also click on any of the newspapers or magazines to go to its current issue. The middle column creates links to opinion pieces by columnists, and the right column is a précis or headline of top stories of the day.

We've explored a variety of ways find an informative speech topic by using search engines, topical lists and news reports. Another method is to use the journalistic method.

Exercise: 5W's and How for Informative Speeches

Journalists commonly address the questions Who did What? When? Where? Why? and How? The same questions can be starting points for selecting and organizing a topic for an informative speech.

The purpose of this exercise is to use the journalistic method to find a speech topic and to organize a research strategy for finding additional sources on the Internet.

First, point your browser to one of the following URLs:

Who: Use Biography, an online magazine at http://www.biography. com or consult one of the biographical sources organized by Bob Drucker at http://www.refdesk.com/factbiog.html.

What: Encyberpedia is an online encyclopedia at http://www.encyberpedia.com/ency.htm/. Scroll down to its subject list or use its search functions to find a range of topics. Or go to Drucker's My Virtual Encyclopedia at http://www.refdesk.com/myency.html/.

When: Search through the American Memory Collection at the Library of Congress at http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/.

Where: Take a virtual to tour somewhere with National Geographic Online at http://www.nationalgeographic.com/. Or, explore an international topic with The Web of Culture at http://www.worldculture.com/.

Why: Try the "Why Files," a site funded by the National Science Foundation at http://whyfiles.news.wisc.edu/.

How: Learn2.com-the ability utility with explanations on many "how to" topics at http://www.learn2.com/.

As you surf for informative topics, make a list of keywords that you can use for using one of the Internet Search Engines. To access search engines, go to http://www.abacon.com/pubspeak/research/search.html/.

Your informative speech ought to have a specific goal. For instance, to describe activities at Mardi Gras, or to explain how contemporary superstitions have historic roots. Phrase three different specific goal statements for an informative speech based on the work you've just done on the Web.

Which specific goal statement is likely to be the best informative topic in light of your interests, the interests and knowledge level of your audience and the research that you have done?

Next rephrase your goal statement as a thesis or topic sentence. The topic sentence is a short declarative sentence that states the central idea of your speech. For instance, if your specific goal was to explain how streaming works in RealAudio transmission of sound files, you might state a topic sentence as "RealAudio transmits sound files as packets of information on the Internet."

Decide which method of organization would work best to develop your topic:

Which method of organization did you choose and why did you select it?

Organize a skeletal outline of your speech with a topic sentence and between three to five main ideas that follow the method of organization you've noted above. Topic Sentence:

Main Idea I:

Main Idea II:

Main Idea III:

There are several other topical browsers for finding informative subjects. You can get to them at http://www.abacon.com/pubspeak/ assess/topic.html. There you will also see a special category for subjects in science and technology as well as a whole list of other general topical browsers.

Strategy II: Finding and Evaluating Evidence

In the last section we emphasized surfing the Web to generate ideas for a topic. As effective speakers are thinking about topics for a speech, they are at the same time, finding sources of information. That's what we refer to under Strategy II as finding sources of information and making critical judgements about the value and reliability of evidence. Exercising critical judgement is necessary at any step along the way of speech preparation, and particularly crucial when the goal of your speech is to solve a problem or to persuade members of an audience to take a stand. So, we'll shift our emphasis to sort out some of the ways you can exercise critical thinking to assess evidence.

Check Out Think Tanks for Their Expert Views for Persuasive Speeches

Think tanks undertake extensive research and formulate policy papers on a range of social, political and economic issues. Their findings may be very useful for helping you think about persuasive speeches, especially when your goal is to use a problem-solution approach. There are many different think tanks representing a range of interests and ideological perspectives. One of the most comprehensive is the Electronic Policy Net. A distinctive feature of the Policy Net is its easy-to-navigate image map.

1. Start your browser and go to URL http://www.epn.org/.
2. Click on the site map. Follow the red line across the top to find topic areas. Blue lines on the image map are for other think tanks that deal with social and policy organizations.
3. Click on "Health Policy." When you arrive at the page for health related issues, you will see a variety of specific subjects that might be useful as persuasive speech topics.
4. When you click on one of the specific subjects, you will enter a hypertext analysis of the problem.

It is meaningful to recognize that think tanks are often supported by organizations with an ideological perspective. The Electronic Policy Net, which is sponsored by the American Prospect, labels itself as a progressive organization. You can find more think tanks representing a wider political spectrum from the Allyn and Bacon Public Speaking Web site page. Check especially under the link for "Social Problems and Social Policy" at http://www.abacon.com/pubspeak/assess/topic.html. You can also search for advocacy groups, including nonprofit organizations, from http://www.abacon.com/pubspeak/research/groups.html/.

Testing Evidence

The sheer fact that something is on the Web does not automatically confer credibility on the information. You need to exercise your critical thinking faculties to evaluate the evidence you find. Use the following exercise to consider several standards for judging sources.

Exercise: Finding and Evaluating Sources of Information on the Web

A recent editorial in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medial Association, cautions Caveant Lector et Viewor-Let the Reader and Viewer Beware. The authors of that piece, headed by Dr. W. M. Silberg, outline several core standards that we might use to assess information found on the Web.

First, find the JAMA guidelines at http://www.ama-assn.org/sci-pubs/journals/archive/jama/vo l_277/no_15/ed7016x.htm/.

What are the names of the co-authors of the piece, and what are their qualifications to write on the subject?

Next, find a source of evidence and assess the quality of the information found at one of the following Web sites (or at a site recommended by your instructor):

Assess the information source in light of the JAMA standards:

Authorship: Are authors and contributors identified with a citation for their affiliations and relevant credentials?

Attribution: Are references listed for sources that are cited? Is all relevant copyright information included?

Disclosure: Is ownership of the Web site clear? Are sponsors, advertisers, underwriters or sources of commercial funding identified, especially if there might be a conflict of interest?

Currency: Is the page dated to indicate when the content was posted or updated?

What other considerations would you give to this Web page to test the accuracy and reliability of the page?

Take a Stand on a Bill That Has Been Introduced in Congress

Persuasive speeches often advocate that audience members change personal behavior. At other times, your persuasive goal centers on urging a deliberative body to act on an issue. In this next section, we will look at how you can develop a persuasive speech that argues for or against a piece of legislation.

A primary source for such persuasive speeches is the United States Congress. Each year hundreds of bills are introduced on the floor of the House or the Senate. We will examine how you can locate a bill that relates to one of your interests. You can read background information about the legislation, and get an update on how far it has progressed through the legislative chambers. Then take a stand. Urge your classmates to support or reject a piece of legislation by having them contact their representative or senators. Even if a bill has already been passed, present a persuasive speech that contends that it is a good bill, or that it ought to be challenged in the courts! If the bill has not been signed into law, urge your classmates to write the White House convincing the President to sign or veto the legislation.

We will use THOMAS from the Library of Congress to locate Congressional information.

1. Point your browser to http://thomas.loc.gov/bss/d105/hot-subj.html.
2. Note the listing of topic areas in alphabetic order. Choose one that appeals to you.
3. When you click on a topic, you will go to its page, actually a hypertext page with further links to a wealth of information. The first thing to note is the number of the bill. A bill identified as H.R. ### has been introduced in the House of Representatives. If the bill number is prefaced with S., Thomas has found a Senate bill.
4. Click on a bill number. Click on the "All Bill summary and Status Info" link. This will afford you a number of choices. You can get an update on where the bill is in the legislative process, when it was introduced into its chamber, which committees have or will act on the measure, Congressional Record citations on the matter, and even a copy of the bill itself. If you click the link for the text of the bill, you will see additionally how a bill is organized by sections. Many bills are extremely long; so you can look only at those parts that relate most to your speech. The "Digest" version of a bill is a shorter summary.
5. You can also click on the name of the congressional representative or senator who authored the bill. This will help you see other topics that that member of Congress has championed. When you see that a legislator has introduced a number of bills on related issues, you can consider contacting the Web page for that member. There you are likely to find additional resources on a topic that interests you. To Find Web pages for members of the House of Representatives, use http://www.house.gov/ or for the U.S. Senate http://www.senate.gov/.
6. Check out a page for your congressional representative or one of your senators. About half of the members of the House have pages, and like their fellow Americans, sometimes they have substantive pages with a significant amount of information about issues, and other times they give you little more than shallow political advertising. House pages are found with a link fittingly labeled "Member Pages," and from the Senate click on "Senators." Senate pages are indexed by alphabetic order or by state. For those House members with pages you will find simply an alphabetic listing.

If you don't know the name of your congressional representatives, check out the Project VoteSmart to do a state-by-state or zip code search. VoteSmart is found at http://www.vote-smart.org/.

Next, we will use what you've just learned in a concrete situation.

Exercise: Persuasive Speaking on Legislative Topics

The purpose of this activity is to use the World Wide Web to gather information about a topic that is under consideration by lawmakers.

Access the Internet address http://thomas.loc.gov. (An alternative source to use for this exercise is Project VoteSmart's Congress Track. You can find it at http://www.vote-smart.org/congresstrack/.)

Click on the button for "Major Legislation by Topic" and choose one of the topic areas in the alphabetic list.

What interests you personally about the topic area?

What is the bill number and the title for a piece of legislation in this area? Next, who is the sponsor for that bill?

Now click on the bill number. Assess the stated goal of the legislation. Do you agree or disagree with that goal?

Click on "All Bill Summary and Status Information" to see if floor action has been taken on the measure. Then, find a speech or debate from the Congressional Record on this matter. (Look for the notation "CR" for the Congressional Record. Did any of the remarks or debates on the floor provide good reasons for supporting or advocating against the law?

Determine the current status of the bill. Based on how far the bill has gotten, what will be your persuasive goal?

• to urge members of the House or Senate to support the bill?
• to urge the President to sign or veto the bill?
• (if floor action has not been taken) to urge members of Congress to act on the legislation, perhaps to reintroduce a re-worked version of the bill?

State your specific goal as a topic sentence.

Make a list of pertinent email addresses and Web page URLs for congressional representatives, senators, House or Senate committees, or for the White House. You may also use http://www.house.gov/, http://www.senate.gov/, or http://www.whitehouse.gov/ for this part of the exercise.

Next, find a federal agency that may have bearing on this topic. Federal agencies often provide input to Congressional deliberations. They perform their main function of executing and enforcing most Congressional legislation. You can find federal agencies at the Federal Web Locator. Use http://www.law.vill.edu/fed-agency/.

What are pertinent Web addresses for an agency or bureau that deals with this topic? What kinds of information are available that would be pertinent to your topic?

Finally, use the Internet Law Library for the House of Representatives to find other federal or state laws that are pertinent to your topic. The URL for the law library is http://law.house.gov/90.htm/. What did you find that provides leads for further research?

There are additional resources for doing topics on legislation at the Allyn and Bacon Public Speaking Web Site. In particular, go to http://www.abacon.com/pubspeak/research/gov.html. From this page, you will also be able to link to federal agencies, the White House, and to your state and local government agencies.

Speak About a Pending or Contentious Court Case

You can also choose a persuasive speech topic that deals with a legal question. Legal questions are often very intricate and complex. One way to learn about the workings of the justice system is to see how legal lobbying groups approach an issue. Keep in mind that the main purpose of a lobby is to advocate a position. So, you can decide whether you agree with their position or not. At the same time, effective lobbying groups responsibly inform the public. To illustrate this, we will use the Web site for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Exercise: Do You Agree with the ACLU?

The goal of this exercise is to explore some of the resources on the ACLU home page and to exercise critical judgment for developing a persuasive speech on an issue of Free Speech.

First, go to the ACLU Web site at http://www.aclu.org/. Note that the ACLU page uses an image map. Earlier, we discussed the image map as a navigation tool. As you run your mouse down the topics listed in the right hand column of the page, you will see your cursor become a finger pointer. Click the "Free Speech" option.

Click on the "Index of ACLU Free Speech Materials" to choose one of the ACLU Briefing Papers. After you've read the paper, consider the following questions:

What aspect of free speech do you think is most important? Why?

Do you agree or disagree with the general principles about free speech that the ACLU advocates?

Note some of the court cases that the ACLU cites in its briefing:

State a persuasive goal for a speech about free speech:

Next, use a page from the American Communication Association (ACA) Center for Communication Law. Go to its this page at http://www.americancomm.org/~aca/american.htm.

List at least three URLs that you found from this page that are pertinent to your topic.

To find the best sources of information about legal questions we turn to primary documents written by officials in the judicial system. Explore at least one of the following to find three more primary sources:

• FindLaw <http://www.findlaw.com/> This source allows you to search for syllabi of cases before the U.S. Supreme Court (the syllabus is a brief synopsis of the case), or to find topics at any of the appellate courts.
• Federal Court Locator <http://www.law.vill.edu/Fed-Ct/fedcourt.html/> It does the same kind of searches as FindLaw.

Strategy III: Using Reference Sources: Encyclopedias, Dictionaries, Glossaries, and Thesauri

How many reference books can you keep on your desk at one time? Most of us would run out of room if we tried to keep as many reference books at arm's length on our desk as can be accessed by letting our fingers do the reaching on a keyboard-one that is "keywording" search commands on the Web, that is. When you use the Web you've got just about any reference source you'll need. To explore that idea, turn to the next exercise, called "Look It Up."

Exercise: Look It Up

The purpose of this exercise is to explore reference sources on the Web, looking up words and expressions that you can use in crafting your speech. The goal of this exercise is to try a variety of types of dictionaries and glossaries and writing tools that are available on the Web.

First, point your browser to a compendium of reference sources at http://www.abacon.com/pubspeak/organize/dict.html. Notice the range of types of sources for finding general and specific vocabulary terms, literary sources, scientific and technical, legal definitions, and the special parlance of the Internet. Bookmark that page, and then look up the items in bold print that are listed below. Along with the definition that you find, write down the URL for the Web source that you used for the term.

1. Employees of the United States Government speak their own short hand language to label various federal agencies. What is meant by the term SBA?

What source did you use?

2. Reading a book of folk tales, you came across the name Cormoran. Who is that?

What source did you use?

3. Did Shakespeare have the same meaning for the word sometimes as we do today?

What source did you use?

4. How many different meanings can you come up for the word line and other terms related to it, such as linear, lining, underline, and so on?

What source did you use?

5. Who was the mythological character Pegasus?

What source did you use?

6. What does a legal contract mean if people hold property under the status of tenancy in common?

What source did you use?

7. In your multimedia class, what is the meaning of the term interlaced GIF? And how do you pronounce GIF? Does the first letter sound more like the first consonant in gift or jump?

What source did you use?

8. What is the meaning of the medical term glioblastoma?

What source did you use?

9. How is the use of evidence governed in a court of law in light of the exclusionary rule?

What source did you use?

10. What is a homophone for the word sun? And for that matter, what is a homophone?

What source did you use?

11. On a bulletin board someone posted a message with the expression ROTFL and then used the expression ;-). What do these interjections mean?

What source did you use?

12. What is the meaning of the Latin phrase saepius sepius?

What source did you use?

13. If someone is employed as a jawbone breaker, what kind of work does that person do?

What source did you use?

14. What do computer nerds mean when they speak of a MIDI file?

What source did you use?

Strategy IV: Analyzing Your Audience

In your public speaking class, you've no doubt discussed how impor- tant it is to adapt your speech to the audience. And, you've probably made some good observations of the members of your class. You can also do research on the Web to analyze your audience. In the next exercise, we will find data to help you assess your listeners. We will look at demographic, psychographic, and ideological methods of analysis.

Exercise: Draw a Demographic and Psychographic Profile

Public speakers attempt to adapt to their listeners after assessing the demographic background of the audience. Factors such as the age, sex, race and ethnicity, income level, educational level, religion and philosophical orientations, professional background, and family makeup and sexual orientation are demographic groupings that characterize an audience.

The purpose of this exercise is to work with data available from the U.S. Census Bureau at its Web site. In doing this activity, suppose that you have been asked to present a speech to a group in the community in which you reside. Suppose further that the makeup of your audience is representative of the community as a whole. For purposes of this exercise, we will define your community as everyone who lives within the zip code where you live, or where your college is located.

Choose some of the demographic fields. Then draw a pie chart to represent one of the following demographics for your target audience:

percentages by age
percentages by sex
percentages by race
and ethnic background

To what degree do you think the percentages of that demographic on your pie chart is representative of the class group?

Next, draw another pie chart that is more representative of your class:

Do you think that the demographic distribution of your class affects the way you tailor your speech? How?

What other demographic factors are important for your class audience?

Effective speakers also adapt on the basis of psychographic factors. Psychographic dimensions of the audience include the value system, lifestyle, and ideology that each class member operates from.

For the next part of the exercise, we will once again use a zip code. We will go to the Web page for Equifax, which is a marketing research firm that develops psychological profiles of neighborhoods. First, go to the URL http://www.natdecsys.com/low/lifequiz.html, and simply type in your zip code. Lifestyle profiles are also based on attitude surveys, demographic categories, geographic factors and consumer habits.

What lifestyle descriptions are identified for your community?

Do you think this profile fits your community? If yes, how? If no, what other label would you use?

Is your class representative of the broader zip code community that you used? If yes, how would you appeal to the class in light of the lifestyle profile? If no, how would you develop a different approach to your class as an audience than to the community as a whole?

Analyzing Political Ideologies

A political ideology is a conceptual framework that an individual uses to analyze issues. We act on our ideology in the choices we make to identify with others politically, and the positions we articulate. Our political ideology is reflected in the attitudes that we hold about the proper role of government.

The next goal of this exercise is to identify one's own political ideology and to analyze the audience for your speech in light of its ideology. We will also look at some of the Web pages of political organizations for discussion of the underlying political ideology that these organizations represent.

First, find and take the "World's Smallest Political Quiz." Go to http://www.self-gov.org/quiz.html.

Based on the political quiz, what is your political ideology? Do you agree with that characterization? If you don't agree with that designation, what label would you use to describe your political ideology?

What political and social views that you hold are consistent with your political ideology?

Based on your observations of your class and from hearing speeches from other class members, do you feel that most members of your class audience share your views?

As you adapt your next speech to your audience, what aspects of a shared ideology can you emphasize? How will you adapt to segments of your class audience that hold an ideology different from yours?

The "World's Smallest Political Quiz" was created by Paul Schmidt and sponsored by an organization called "Advocates for Self Government." Go to Paul Schmidt's home page at http://world.std.com/~pschmidt/. What is his political ideology?

Analyze the political ideology that is reflected in one of the following Web pages.

What is an ideologically based position held by this organization that would make an effective persuasive speech in light of your own ideology and your audience's?