Going Beyond Wikipedia-Level Research
Surface-level research produces surface-level speeches; judges can tell within the first minute when a topic hasn't been dug into. You'll learn how to move from general overviews to genuine depth.
Using Overviews as a Starting Point, Not an End Point
General encyclopedias or top search results are fine for orienting yourself to a topic's basic vocabulary and shape, but they should never be your cited sources. Treat them as a map that points you toward the primary studies, expert interviews, and specialized publications actually worth citing.
Finding Depth
Depth comes from academic journals, books by subject-matter experts, interviews or lectures by researchers in the field, and specialized publications like trade magazines or scientific news outlets that summarize primary research accurately. Aim for at least one source per content area that goes beyond general-audience summary and into genuine mechanism or data.
Following the Citation Trail
A powerful technique is to find one strong general article, then follow its citations or quoted experts backward to the original studies or books, which often yields far better sources than a fresh search and also reveals which researchers are considered authoritative in that field.
A speaker researching 'marine cloud brightening' starts with a general science news article.
The news article gives her the basic concept and a few names of researchers. She then finds a peer-reviewed climate science paper by one of those named researchers, plus a recorded conference talk where the lead scientist explains the mechanism in plain language. Now she has both technical depth and a quotable, explainable source for her speech.
1. How should general encyclopedia or top search-result articles typically be used in Info research?
2. True or False?
"A well-researched Info speech typically cites only general-audience websites for all three content areas."
Answer all 2 to check.
Use broad overviews to orient yourself, but build your actual speech content from deeper, more authoritative sources.