GEL 102-MODULE TWO

SPEAKING ETHICALLY AND CORRECTLY

Olayinka Susan OGUNDOYIN, Ph.D.

Department of Mass Communication
Bowen University, Iwo, Osun State
Email: sayogundoyin@yahoo.co.uk
+2348034064239

Integrity is telling myself the truth. And honesty is telling the truth to other people.
– Spencer Johnson

CONTENTS

1.0 Introduction

2.0 Objectives

3.0 Main Contents

3.1 Some definitions of Ethics

3.2 Ethics in Public Speaking

3.3 Ethical guidelines in public speaking

3.4 Plagiarism

4.0 Summary and Conclusion

5.0 Assignment

6.0 References
1.0 Background

In the world today, many people are interested in collecting, handling and disseminating
information especially in the public sphere. Good public speakers have been produced in recent
times within the society from different discipline and are making marks in their field of
endeavour. One important area that is pertinent to look into when one is planning to become a
renowned public speaker is the issue of ethics. It is a very vital ingredient for effective speaking
skill. This will be considered in this module in relation to plagiarism.

In this lecture, the act of speaking ethically and correctly will be discussed for 15 minutes, later
ethical guidelines governing public speaking would be discussed in another 15 minutes.
Subsequently, the concept of plagiarism would be addressed for 20 minutes. The last 10 minutes
will be spent on questions and answers.

2.0 Introduction

Ethical issues have continued to generate a lot of discussion among scholars from different walks
of life. The knowledge about Ethics in public speaking is crucial if we want to leave an indelible
mark in the minds of the listeners. Every day, people make ethical decisions regarding public
speaking. As a speaker, it is appropriate for you to tell your listeners the absolute truth and not lie
to them. Therefore, the use of evidence as part of your illustration within a speech is highly
important. As a public speaker, you would be doing yourself a lot of disservice by furnishing
your listeners with incorrect information or facts because this can tarnish your image.

3.0 Objectives

At the end of this unit, students should be able to:

- Define Ethics
- Explain what ethics is in public speaking
- Identify the guidelines for ethical speaking
- Understand the concept of plagiarism

4.0 Main Contents

There are different definitions of ethics by different scholars but all are geared towards the same
meaning. Ethics is the branch of philosophy that deals with the issue of right or wrong in human
conduct. It raises a question about whether a course of action is moral or immoral, fair or unfair,
honest or dishonest, just or unjust. Pearson, Nelson, Titsworth and Harter (2003) define ethics as
a set of moral principles or values or a set of principles of right conduct. According to them,
ethical standards differ from one culture to another as they vary from one discipline to another.
Ethics is derived from the Greek word “ethos” which means character. In other words, in
applying ethics in public speaking, one is referring to the character of the public speaker.
According to O‟Hair, Stewart and Rubenstein (2009), ethics can be seen as our responsibility
towards the audience and ourselves. The definitions above will help us to have a proper
understanding of what ethics is and its application to public speaking practices. Whenever ethics
is discussed, our minds go straight to the codification of these ethics into law, but some of these
ethics are unwritten rules which have dare consequences when violated. For example no law
would penalize you for pointing out short people among the audience and make them as part of
the illustration that would help the retention level of the audience, but audience members may
find your illustration unpleasant. This can affect your credibility as a speaker.

Speaking ethically and correctly

Have you ever thought of why some public speakers are adjudged good speakers with a standing
ovation after delivering their speech? And why some are seen as wasting the audience‟s time by
presenting what they have?

The answer is a simple one – the former observed the ethics in public speaking, while the latter
did not. It is not only about keeping to the ethics of public speaking alone but also to speak
correctly at a given speech occasion. This will include choosing illustrations correctly in order to
buttress points to be made in addition to the fact that words have to be chosen correctly to fit the
audience addressed.

Ethical public speaking is not an event that just happens within a brief moment in the presence of
a small group of people within a given space. It is regarded as a process which begins with a lot
of brainstorming on the topic under discussion. The question of ethics comes into play when a
public speaker faces an audience because all public speakers are expected to be truthful and
honest for the good of the society.

Guidelines for ethical speaking

Respect your audience: The audience determines the success or otherwise of your speech,
hence highest regard must be given to them in the form of respect. How do I respect my
audience? As a public speaker, you must not forget that your audience in most cases is
heterogeneous in nature and as a result, their interest should be taken care of. So, it will
definitely not speak well to pull down the morale of your audience irrespective of their gender,
religion, race, age, educational level, ethnicity, social status and economic level. So, mutual
respect between the speaker and the receiver will work well in a bid to influence the audience
through a given speech. Attempts to lie or make exaggerated claims are regarded as unethical
and this can cause the audience to be hostile towards the speaker who has played on their
intelligence by being untruthful to them in order to achieve his goal.

Be Honest: People are present at a public speaking occasion because they believe that the
speaker will furnish them with truthful information and would always look forward to it. An
attempt to juggle statistics, misinterpreting sources, quoting out of context, portraying
unconcluded findings as concluded, citing unusual cases as illustration, etc, are unethical and is
known as dishonesty. The audience can make mockery of the speaker with this act if exposed.
Ethics in public speaking demands that one gives accurate information to the audience. If you are
not sure of the information, statistics or fact, just drop it.

Make sure your goals are ethically sound: The responsibility of a public speaker is to ask if his
goals are ethically sound. What does the speaker hope to achieve? Is your speech trying to
persuade your audience, motivate them to adopt a new health behaviour that will be beneficial to
the society, promote a good behaviour or improve the quality of education? Then, your speech
must be channeled towards that. But if your speech is to promote terrorism or domestic violence,
child abuse, chaos amongst others then, you are not observing the ethics in public speaking. A
good public speaker must ensure that his goal should be geared towards the good of the society.

Avoid name-calling and abusive or hate language: This has to do with using derogatory words
to degrade, demean, and defame a person or a group of people. Words that can make an audience
feel that way is unethical. In every society, there is the freedom to associate and express oneself
irrespective of gender, religion, culture, colour, creed or race. These differences must not form
the basis for discrimination such that a faction will not take advantage of the other group and be
ascribing negative names to them. As a public speaker, it is an ethical duty to help preserve all
human rights by avoiding name-calling and abusive or hate language. The National
Communication Association (NCA) Credo for Communication Ethics advocates against
unhealthy speech that portrays hatred, coercion, distortion, violation and intimidation of people.
It is important for public speakers to desist from using derogatory, hate or sexist language (NCA,
1999). The implication of this is that it isolates a person or group of people and put them in a
state that make them seem worthless.

Respect your audience time: It will be highly ethical for any public speaker to stick to the time
given to him to deliver his speech. This is because the audience values their time and might have
left other important engagements to listen to the speech. So, as a public speaker, ensure that each
minute of their time spent there is worth its value. Keeping to time allotted for your speech is
showing respect to your audience and this can only be achieved through adequate preparation. If
adequate preparation is made then factors that might make the audience lose interest will be
taken care of and subsequently, it will prevent all the hard work that has gone into the speech
preparation not to be a waste.

The concept of plagiarism

Plagiarism comes from plagiarius, the Latin word for Kidnapper. Therefore, plagiarism means to
present another person‟s work, ideas or words as your own-by crediting the idea to be solely
yours. Plagiarism is seen as an ethical issue inside and outside the classroom. In ethical speech
preparation, the public speaker must endeavor to take notes as he researches the speech topic. He
is expected to jot down the title of the internet document, the author or organization responsible
for the document online, the date on which the document was updated last and the date on which
the site was accessed. All these information are relevant for information sourced from the
internet. If all these guidelines are adhered to, then we are at the verge of fighting and
discouraging plagiarism. Plagiarism attracts some measure of penalties if one is found guilty,
they are: poor grade and academic expulsion (if the plagiarism is found within the classroom).
When it is outside the classroom, it can damage one‟s name, career, pay a huge fine and one can
be sued. The concept of plagiarism can be looked into in three areas (Lucas, 2001) which are
common today:

Global Plagiarism: This happens when a student copies the entire work or speech from another
source and making it his own. This is common among students who fail to do their assignment
on time until the last minute. The easiest way out for them would be to copy the speech verbatim
from either the internet or their classmate and make the idea theirs. This act is highly unethical
and should be guarded against. The way out of this mess is for the student to work early on his
assignment to avoid a last minute rush that can land him into trouble.

Patchwork Plagiarism: This happens when one copies two or more speeches or works of
another person. In other words the speech writer takes bit and pieces from each of the different
sources he is copying from to make a whole piece for himself. Also, the best way to avoid this is
to start off the speech writing process long enough before the deadline.

Incremental Plagiarism: This occurs when the speaker fails to acknowledge a particular part -
comments, statistics, claims or quotations borrowed from the source of the original speech in
spite of the fact that most of the speech or idea is the speaker‟s original work, unlike the case
with global and patchwork plagiarism.

The following are clues to what to cite and what not:

Table 1 Purdue OWL APA Guide for citing sources

Cite Don’t cite

Words or ideas presented in a magazine, book, writing your own life experience, your

Newspaper, song, TV programme, movies, web own observation and insight, your own

page, computer programme, letter, advertisement, thoughts, and your own conclusions

or any other medium. about a subject.

information you gain through interviewing when you are writing up your own

or conversing with another person, face to face, results obtained through laboratory or field

over the phone, or in writing. experiments.

When you copy the exact words or a unique phrase When you use your own art work,
 Digital photographs, videos, audio, etc

When you reprint any diagrams, illustrations, When you are using common

Charts, pictures, or other visual materials. Knowledge – things like folklore,

Common sense observation, myth,

Urban legends, and historical events

(but not historical documents).

When you reuse or repost any electronically When you are using generally accepted facts

available media, including images, audio, e.g pollution is bad for the environment

video or other media.

Source: Stolley and Brizee (2011)

Summary and Conclusion

In this module, students have been exposed to the issue of ethics in public speaking. It addressed
the conduct expected of a public speaker in terms of what is moral or not, what is ideal or not,
what is just or not amongst others. Students were also acquainted with the guidelines for ethical
public speaking and the issue of plagiarism was discussed paying particular attention to the
different types of plagiarism and how they can be avoided.

Assignment: (The deadline for submission is next week Tuesday)

Attempt the following questions by filling the gaps created

1. What do you understand by Ethics?...........................................................................

2. Have you plagiarized before? YES/NO…………
3. The issue of plagiarism attracts reward. YES/NO………….
4. List the different types of plagiarism…………………………………………………………….
Exercises
1. What is the meaning of the Greek word „Ethos‟
a. Love
b. Writing
c. Character
d. Diligence
2. In discussing ethics, one should know that not all ethics have been………………
a. Accepted
b. Known
c. Screened
d. Codified into Law

3. Speaking correctly could mean………………………………………………………

a. Choosing illustrations carefully to fit the audience addressed
b. Speaking flawless or impeccable English
c. Speaking without looking into one‟s note
d. Using elevated languages to deliver the speech

4. Ethical public speaking is regarded as a process that begins with……………………

a. Ethics about the speech
b. Brainstorming on the speech topic
c. Speech delivery
d. Audience

5. One of the followings can be regarded as the guideline for ethical speaking…………….
a. Respect your audience
b. Respect your speech
c. Respect your interest
d. Respect your status

6. To be Honest in public speaking means to be…………………………….

a. Blunt
b. Truthful
c. Diplomatic
d. Distort information or fact

7. Plagiarism means………………………………………………………………………….
a. Arranging ideas in a more organized manner
b. Copying notes because I missed a class
c. Asking my friend to help me write my note because I was indisposed
d. Presenting another person‟s work or idea as your own without giving the credit to the original
source.

8. The plagiarism that occurs when the speaker fails to acknowledge a part of the idea borrowed
from the source despite the fact that the speech is the speaker‟s original work is known
as…………………………………………..
a. Extemporaneous plagiarism
b. Impromptu plagiarism
c. Incremental plagiarism
d. Patchwork plagiarism

9. A situation whereby a student copies the entire work or speech from another source presenting
it to be his own is known as ………………………………………….
a. Global plagiarism
b. Patchwork plagiarism
c. Manuscript plagiarism
d. Incremental plagiarism

10. One of the penalties for plagiarism in the classroom include……………………………..

a. Rustication
b. Flogging
c. Sit up
d. Jumping

References
Pearson, J. Nelson, P. Titsworth, S. and Harter, L (2003). Human Communication. New York;
McGraw-Hill.
Lucas, S.E. (2001). The art of public speaking. 7th edition. New York; McGraw-Hill.
National Communication Association (1999). NCA Credo for ethical communication.
https://www.natcom.org/uploadedFiles/About_NCA/Leadership_and_Governance/Public_Polic_
Platform/PDF-PolicyPlatformNCA__Credo_for_Ethical_Communication.pdf
Received date: 14/3/2018
O‟Hair, Stewart and Rubenstein (2009). A Speaker‟s Guidebook.
https://www.slideshare.net/professionEvans/chap-5ethical-public-speaking.
Retrieved date: 14/3/18
O‟Neill, M.T. (1980). Plagiarism. Writing Responsibly. Journal of Business Communication
Quarterly, 43, 34-36.
Shi, L.(2010). Textual appropriation and citing behaviors of university undergraduates. Journal
of Applied Linguistics, 31(1), 1-24.
Stolley, K. and Brizee, A. (2011). Avoiding plagiarism, Retrieved from
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/01/ Accessed date 14/3/18.