Chapter 5

Question 1

Research Question

Answer 1

the question about your topic you seek to answer

Question 2

thesis statement

Answer 2

a clear and succinct one-sentence statement of the overarching idea for the talk, what the speaker wants the audience to take away from the communication as a whole; it is often the answer to the research question that guided the project.

Question 3

scholarship

Answer 3

the pursuit of knowledge by anyone who wishes to deepen or expand their understanding and the production of works by people for others to consider as they participate in and contribute to that same pursuit

Question 4

information literacy

Answer 4

the ability to figure out the type of information you need, find that information, evaluate it, and properly use it

Question 5

background information

Answer 5

material that provides context for a topic

Question 6

tangential information

Answer 6

evidence used to provide background and capture an audience’s interest

Question 7

evidentiary information

Answer 7

information that supports main points within a speech and is directly related to the topic

Question 8

dewey decimal classification system

Answer 8

the coding system used for books, magazines, and journals used in libraries

Question 9

JSTOR

Answer 9

an electronic database for political journals

Question 10

communication / mass media complete

Answer 10

an electronic database for academic journals and popular sources related to communication and journalism

Question 11

Lexis-Nexis

Answer 11

an electronic database for newspapers and magazines

Question 12

formal survey

Answer 12

a time-consuming way of gathering data on a population which employs randomized sampling to ensure reliability and validity

Question 13

informal survey

Answer 13

polling a few people based on convenience

Question 14

interviewing

Answer 14

a direct method of gathering information from a human source that allows for questions to adapt to responses

Question 15

undercover interviewing

Answer 15

when the interviewer disguises either himself or his purpose in an effort to trick someone into sharing more information than they may have if the interviewee knew to whom he or she was speaking

Question 16

accuracy

Answer 16

the truthfulness or correctness of a source

Question 17

bias

Answer 17

presenting information in a way that unfairly influences someone’s perception of something

Question 18

relevance

Answer 18

information that is connected to the topic

Question 19

currency

Answer 19

timeliness of the information

Question 20

authorship

Answer 20

who wrote the information and are they credible

Question 21

argument

Answer 21

a claim that you are making about a given topic that you support with evidence and reasons

Question 22

claim

Answer 22

the conclusion that the speaker wants the audience to accept as true

Question 23

grounds

Answer 23

evidence in the toulmin model

Question 24

warrant

Answer 24

explains why the grounds support the claim and makes that connection clear to the audience

Question 25

backing

Answer 25

support for the argument

Question 26

rebuttal

Answer 26

a refutation of contradiction

Question 27

qualifier

Answer 27

a word or statement that indicated the level of probability for the argument to bear out as given

Question 28

American Psychological Assiciation

Answer 28

preferred reference manual for social science communication scholars

Question 29

verbal attribution

Answer 29

the act of citing sources orally when you give information that you have taken from your sources

Question 30

plagiarism

Answer 30

to present another person’s work as your own

Question 31

incremental plagiarism

Answer 31

failure to give proper credit for parts of a speech that are borrowed from others

Question 32

patchwork plagiarism

Answer 32

stealing ideas from two or more sources without referring to them

Question 33

global plagiarism

Answer 33

taking an entire speech from a single source and pawning it off as your own

Question 34

ghostwriting

Answer 34

to write for and in the name of another person