Public Speaking

Getting Started
When starting a project, there are a few simple guidelines to keep in mind:

Know the guidelines of the assignment.
Your topic should be specific or broad enough to be dealt with satisfactorily.
The topic should be of interest to both you and your audience.
Your topic and the statements you make about it should be supported with reliable information.
Plan ahead! Set a time line and allow for unexpected developments and planned revision.

When beginning, a good way to obtain background information and ideas to build on your topic area is with reference materials such as encyclopedias, almanacs, and abstracts. Once you have established your topic, state your thesis or theme in a sentence or two. From this sentence, identify the keywords and use them in your search statement.

Using the Boolean search operators of AND & OR will help you create a very broad or very narrow search. And combines search terms so that each search result contains all of the terms. For example, travel and Europe finds articles that contain both travel and Europe. Or combines search terms so that each search result contains at least one of the terms. For example, college or university finds results that contain either college or university. Each result contains all search terms. The search heart and lung finds items that contain both heart and lung. Each result contains at least one search term. The search heart or lung finds items that contain either heart or items that contain lung.