Last night I attended an open speaking event, that wasn’t Toastmasters, where speakers were tasked to give an interesting 5 minute presentation. One of the presentations was a fabulous demonstration of drawing the audience in with an interesting story, making good use of PowerPoint to reinforce spoken points, and dressing to fit the speaker’s speaking style. However, the presentation was ruined when I got home, Googled the speech topic, and found out that the presenter lifted the major points of his speech from a British business writer without citing the source.
As speakers, you will often be faced with the dilemma of using other people’s content or developing your own. Ethical speakers will always side on developing there own content. If there is a point you need to make that is illustrated by other people’s content, then you must cite your sources in the presentation. In all cases, when you speak the audience members will either know what you are talking about, or they will be able to Google your topic and know if what you are saying is another person’s work. Being called out for using unoriginal content in your speech is a sure fire way to destroy your credibility in an instant.
The point of this public speaking secret is that you should never assume that you know more than the audience. No matter how many degrees you have, how much you have read, or how many times you have spoken on your topic, the audience knows more than you. Whether their knowledge is in their head or easily accessible through Google, if you are not delivering unique or cited material, your audience will find out and your credibility will be eliminated.
As you develop your next presentation, be wary of where you get your material. Strive for original brilliance at every opportunity, but if you can’t, then make sure to give credit where credit is due. If you don’t give credit, you will learn that your audience (and Google) know more than you.
This article was inspired by an audio lesson presented by Ed Tate in his home study course: Energize, Educate, and Entertain. For more information on that program, check out Ed’s products page on edtate.com.
About the Author: My Toastmasters Blog is written and edited by Chris Elliott, the founder of the young professional coaching site Young Profit Pros. Chris enjoys using his knowledge and experiences during his speaking engagements, workshops, consulting projects, and one-on-one coaching sessions. The result—connecting people and empowering change. If you would like information on how you can bring Chris to speak to your next meeting, please download Chris' one sheet or contact him by clicking here.
As a published author with many works to my credit, I have strong feeling on this topic: If you use someone else’s material and call it your own, that is plagiarism; if you compile and distill a mass of information from many sources on a certain subject, that’s research.
Best,
David Portney