Market Research: the Difference Between Primary and Secondary Sources, by Emily Craig, Standard YouTube License. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bPDNt9463g  

1. Primary Research Sources: Primary research is reported by the person conducting the research and is considered an active form of research because the researcher is actually conducting the research for the purpose of creating new knowledge. The researcher discovers or revises facts, theories, and applications. For the purposes of your speeches, you may use two basic primary research categories: surveys and interviews. This includes firsthand research where you personally complete an interview or survey and share the results in your speech.

Conducting surveys: A survey is a collection of facts, figures, or opinions gathered from participants and used to indicate how everyone within a target group may respond. Maybe you’re going to be speaking before an education board about its plans to build a new library, so you create a survey and distribute it to all your neighbors seeking their feedback on the project. During your speech, you could then discuss your survey and the results you found.

Conducting interviews: An interview is a conversation in which the interviewer asks a series of questions aimed at learning facts, figures, or opinions from one or more respondents. As with a survey, an interviewer generally has a list of prepared questions to ask; but unlike a survey, an interview allows for follow-up questions that can aid in understanding why a respondent gave a certain answer.

2. Secondary Research Sources: Secondary research is carried out to discover or revise facts, theories, and applications and is reported by someone not involved in conducting the actual research. Most of what we consider research falls into the secondary research category. These sources are what you will mostly use for your speeches:

• Almanacs
• Atlases
• Biographical resources
• Books
• Books of quotations
• Digital collections
• Encyclopedias; Wikipedia, but only used properly
• Government publications
• Images, to an extent
• Newspapers
• Periodicals
• Podcasts
• Poetry collections
• Social news sites
• Videos
• Weblogs
• Website reference works

Academic and Scholarly Sources These include texts that are read by dozens of academics who provide feedback. If you include academic research in your writing process, it will be time consuming, but it provides you with an extra level of confidence in the information’s relevance and accuracy. The main difference between academic or scholarly information and the information you get from the popular press is oversight. In the nonacademic world, the primary information gatekeeper is the editor, who may or may not be a content expert. Academia has established a way to perform a series of checks to ensure that the information is accurate and follows agreed-upon academic standards. In this section, we will discuss scholarly books and articles, computerized databases, and scholarly web information.

Academic examples and resources:

Scholarly Books – According to the Text and Academic Authors Association, there are two types of scholarly books: textbooks and academic books. Textbooks are books that are written about a segment of content within an academic field and are written for undergraduate or graduate student audiences. These books tend to be very specifically focused. Academic books are books that are primarily written for other academics for informational and research purposes. Generally speaking, when instructors ask you to find scholarly books, they are referring to academic books. Thankfully, there are hundreds of thousands of academic books published on almost every topic you can imagine. In the communication, field, there are a handful of major publishers who publish academic books, for example, SAGE, Routledge, Jossey-Bass, Pfeiffer, the American Psychological Association, and the National Communication Association, among others.

Scholarly Articles – Because most academic writing comes in the form of scholarly articles or journal articles, these are the best places to find academic research on a given topic. Every academic subfield has its own journals, so you should never have a problem finding the best and most recent topic research. However, scholarly articles are written for a scholarly audience, so reading scholarly articles takes more time than if you were to read a popular press-magazine article. It’s also helpful to realize that there may be parts of the article you simply do not have the background knowledge to understand, and there is nothing wrong with that. Many research studies are conducted by quantitative researchers who rely on statistics to examine phenomena. Unless you have training in understanding the statistics, it is difficult to interpret the statistical information that appears in these articles. Instead, focus on the beginning part of the article where the authors discuss previous secondary research, and then focus at the article’s end, where the authors explain what was found in their primary research.

Computerized Databases – Finding academic research is easier today than it ever has been because of large computer databases. Here’s how these databases work: a database company signs contracts with publishers to gain the right to store the publishers’ content electronically. The database companies then create thematic databases containing publications related to general knowledge areas, such as business, communication, psychology, medicine, etc. The database companies then sell database subscriptions to libraries. Use our SLCC library database.
How to Use SLCC Library

The Web – In addition to the subscription databases, there are also numerous great sources for scholarly information on the web. As mentioned earlier, however, finding scholarly information on the web poses a problem because anyone can post information on the web. Fortunately, there are many great websites that filter this information for us.

Scholarly Information on the Web

Tips for Finding Authoritative and Credible Sources and Evidence

1. Create a Research Log – George believes it’s important to keep a “step-by-step account of the process of identifying, obtaining, and evaluating sources for a specific project…” (George, 2008). In essence, keeping a log of your research is very helpful because it can help you keep track of what you’ve read thus far.
2. Start with Background Information – It’s not unusual for students to try to jump right into the meat of a topic, only to find out that there is a lot of technical language they just don’t understand. For this reason, start your research with sources written for the general public. Generally, these lower-level sources are great for topic background information and are helpful when trying to learn a subject’s basic vocabulary.
3. Search your Library – Try to search as many different databases as possible. Look for relevant books, ebooks, newspaper articles, magazine articles, journal articles, and media files. Modern college and university libraries have a ton of sources, and one search may not reveal everything you are looking for on the first pass. Furthermore, don’t forget to think about topic synonyms. The more topic synonyms you can generate, the better you’ll be at finding information.
4. Learn to Skim – Start by reading the introductory paragraphs. Generally, the first few paragraphs will give you a good idea about the overall topic. If you’re reading a research article, start by reading the abstract. If the first few paragraphs or abstract don’t sound like they’re applicable, there’s a good chance the source won’t be useful for you. Second, look for highlighted, italicized, or bulleted information. Generally, authors use highlighting, italics, and bullets to separate information to make it jump out for readers. Third, look for tables, charts, graphs, and figures. All these forms are separated from the text to make the information more easily understandable for a reader, so discovering if the content is relevant is a way to see if it helps you. Fourth, look at headings and subheadings. Headings and subheadings show you how an author has grouped information into meaningful segments.
5. Read Bibliographies and Reference Pages – After you’ve finished reading useful sources, see who those sources cited on their bibliographies or reference pages. We call this method backtracking. Often, the sources cited by others can lead us to even better sources than the ones we found initially.
6. Ask for Help – Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Librarians are your friends. They won’t do your work for you, but they are more than willing to help if you ask.

Key things to remember:

• Is it important that you explain who the author of a text is? Or, why is the source website relevant to your speech’s topic? Why mention the research study date or a source-book title? By including this explanation in your speech you help the audience see the ethos or credibility in your sources, and therefore, your credibility as the speaker.
• Mentioning your sources boosts your credibility. If you are not a credible speaker, people won’t take you seriously; they won’t listen to you at all; or they could even make you look bad in public, embarrass you, or ruin your reputation, etc.
• Proper oral speech citation also helps you avoid oral plagiarism, which is a serious issue and could lead to failing the class or being kicked out of school, etc. Oral plagiarism has the same consequences as written plagiarism.

What does it mean to use sources ethically?

Avoid Plagiarism

If the idea isn’t yours, cite the information source during your speech. Listing the citation on a bibliography or reference page is only half of the correct citation. You must provide correct citations for all your sources within your speech as well. In a very helpful book called Avoiding Plagiarism: A Student Guide to Writing Your Own Work, Menager-Beeley and Paulos provide a list of twelve strategies for avoiding plagiarism (Menager-Beeley & Paulos, 2009):

1. Do your own work, and use your own words. One of the goals of a public speaking class is to develop skills that you’ll use in the world outside academia. When you are in the workplace and the real world, you’ll be expected to think for yourself, so start learning this skill now.
2. Allow yourself enough time to research the assignment. Not having adequate time to prepare is no excuse for plagiarism.
3. Keep careful track of your sources. A common mistake people make is that they forget where information came from when they start creating the speech itself. When you log your sources, you’re less likely to inadvertently lose sources and to cite them incorrectly.
4. Take careful notes. It doesn’t matter what method you choose for taking research notes, but whatever you do, be systematic to avoid plagiarizing.
5. Assemble your thoughts, and make it clear who is speaking. When creating your speech, make sure that you clearly differentiate your voice in the speech from your quoted author’s voice. The easiest way to do this is to create a direct quotation or a paraphrase. Remember, audience members cannot see where the quotation marks are located within your speech text, so clearly articulate with words and vocal tone when you are using someone else’s ideas within your speech.
6. If you use an idea, a quotation, paraphrase, or summary, then credit the source. We can’t reiterate it enough—if it is not your idea, tell your audience where the information came from. Giving credit is especially important when your speech includes a statistic, an original theory, or a fact that is not common knowledge.
7. Learn how to cite sources correctly, both in the body of your paper and in your reference or works-cited page.
8. Quote accurately and sparingly. A public speech should be based on factual information and references, but it shouldn’t be a string of direct quotations strung together. Experts recommend that no more than 10 percent of a paper or speech be direct quotations (Menager-Beeley & Paulos, 2009). When selecting direct quotations, always ask yourself if the material could be paraphrased in a manner that would make it clearer for your audience. If the author wrote a sentence in a way that is just perfect, and you don’t want to tamper with it, then by all means directly quote the sentence. But if you’re just quoting because it’s easier than putting the ideas into your own words, this is not a legitimate reason for including direct quotations.
9. Paraphrase carefully. Modifying an author’s words is not simply a matter of replacing some of the words with synonyms. Instead, as Howard and Taggart explain in Research Matters, “paraphrasing force[s] you to understand your sources and to capture their meaning accurately in original words and sentences” (Howard & Taggart, 2010). Incorrect paraphrasing is one of the most common ways that students inadvertently plagiarize. First and foremost, paraphrasing is putting the author’s argument, intent, or ideas into your own words.
10. Do not patchwrite or patchspeak. Menager-Beeley and Paulos define patchwriting as “mixing several references together and arranging paraphrases and quotations to constitute much of the paper. In essence, the student has assembled others’ work with a bit of embroidery here and there but with little original thinking or expression” (Menager-Beeley & Paulos, 2009). Just as students can patchwrite, they can also patchspeak. In patchspeaking, students rely completely on weaving together quotations and paraphrases in a manner that is devoid of the student’s original thinking.
11. Do not auto-summarize. Some students have learned that most word processing features have an auto-summary function. The auto-summary function will summarize a ten-page document into a short paragraph.
12. Do not rework another student’s speech or buy paper-mill papers or speech-mill speeches. In today’s Internet environment, there are numerous student-speech storehouses on the Internet. Whether you use a speech that is freely available or pay money for a speech, you are plagiarizing. This is also true if your speech’s main substance was copied from a web page. Any time you try to present someone else’s ideas as your own during a speech, you are plagiarizing.

Use Sources Ethically In a speech

Ways to use sources ethically in a speech:

1. Avoid plagiarism, as we already discussed.
2. Avoid Academic Fraud – While there are numerous websites from which you can download free speeches for your class, this is tantamount to fraud. If you didn’t do the research and write your own speech, then you are fraudulently trying to pass off someone else’s work as your own. In addition to being unethical, many institutions have student codes that forbid such activity. Penalties for academic fraud can be as severe as suspension or expulsion from your institution.
3. Don’t Mislead Your Audience – If you know a source is clearly biased, and you don’t spell this out for your audience, then you are purposefully trying to mislead or manipulate your audience. Instead, if you believe the information to be biased, tell your audience and allow them to decide whether to accept or disregard the information.
4. Give Author Credentials – Always provide the author’s credentials. In a world where anyone can say anything and have it published on the Internet or even in a book, we have to be skeptical of the information we see and hear. For this reason, it’s very important to provide your audience with background information about your cited authors’ credentials.
5. Use Primary Research Ethically – Lastly, if you are using primary research within your speech, you need to use it ethically as well. For example, if you tell your survey participants that the research is anonymous or confidential, then make sure that you maintain their anonymity or confidentiality when you present those results. Furthermore, be respectful if someone says something is off the record during an interview. Always maintain participants’ privacy and confidentiality during primary research unless you have their express permission to reveal their names or other identifying information.

How do I establish ethos?

Establishing ethos—one of the three rhetorical appeals—is achieved by including authoritative evidence or research inside of your speech. You establish ethos as well through your credibility and ethics as a speaker.

Here are some questions to ask yourself as you prepare to establish ethos for any speech:

Credibility

• Does the audience see you as topic-credible? What have you done or said to ensure this?
• What makes you credible? Do you explain your credibility to the audience in the speech?
• Can the audience trust you? What reason have you given them to trust you?

Authoritative Sources

• Do you cite your authoritative sources out loud in your speech?
• Are your sources actually authoritative for this topic?
• What makes your sources authoritative? Do you explain that to your audience?

Appearance

• Does your dress, clothing, and appearance match the topic, occasion, and audience for your speech? How might your audience perceive your appearance from your perspective?

You must be able to answer all of these questions with a yes and a good explanation. The audience should clearly hear and see your ethos in your speech.

References

University of Minnesota. (2016).  Stand up, Speak out: The Practice and Ethics of Public Speaking. University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing. https://open.lib.umn.edu/publicspeaking/. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.

Media References

Cannonball of Death. (2011, January 3). Robert Cannon NFA Info Finals – Informative Speaking [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SogNbDakslQ

Craig, E. (2019, September 20). Market Research: the Difference Between Primary and Secondary Sources [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bPDNt9463g

Dombrowski, Q. (2010, October 28). Bibliography [Image]. Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/quinnanya/5124103273/

Fuller, A. (2022, May 5). Textbook Cartoon [Image]. Center for eLearning, Salt Lake Community College.

Geralt. (2021, May 20). Arrows Direction Way [Image]. Pixabay. https://pixabay.com/illustrations/arrows-direction-way-sketch-false-6268063/