Oral citations help you demonstrate the reliability and accuracy of the information you share during your speech. They provide the audience with proof you've researched your topic and help you establish ethos, or credibility, with your audience.
Oral citations should include the following information.
Author
Who did you get the information from? Also share the author's credentials, to help establish this person or organization as a credible source.
Example oral book citation: In their 2007 book, Made to Stick, researchers Chip and Dan Heath identify six principles that help people remember information.
Title
Where did the information come from? This could be a book, magazine, academic journal article, website, interview, etc.
Example oral article citation: According to Bruce Bower's 2005 article in Science News, about one-third of the 100 kids who participated in a research study by Marjorie Taylor at the University of Oregon in Eugene reported playing with imaginary friends.
In most cases, oral citations require only the journal or website name. However, if you have used multiple sources from the same journal, also cite the article title.
Example oral website citation, when multiple articles from the same site are used: In a quote from his August 4, 2017 aeon.co opinion article, "Why vegetarians should be prepared to bend their own rules," Alberto Guibilini, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, argues that, "if people perceive vegetarianism as a position that allows for no exception, they are probably less likely to become vegetarian."
Date
When was the information published? For websites that don't identify a date, say the date the site was last updated or the date you accessed the site.
Example citation for an interview: In an interview I conducted for this speech on September 1, 2017, Professor of Marketing Maria Jones, said she teaches ethics in her classes by introducing students to different professional codes of ethics and then asking students to use these codes to analyze different real-life scenarios.
