Skip to Main Content

SPCH 1311: Persuasive Speech Assignment (Dr. Adkins)

The purpose of this research guide is to help students in Dr. Shae Adkins's SPCH 1311 class to find information for their persuasive speech assignments.

How to Access Library Databases

Database Basics

To find articles for your persuasive speeches, you will need to access the library's databases. If you don't have recent experience with our library's databases, then I suggest first watching this introductory video.

Database: Issues and Controversies

How to Search Issues & Controversies

The next video shows you how to search Issues & Controversies, which is the database in which you will find the articles that you need for your persuasive speeches.

Database: Opposing Viewpoints

How to Search Opposing Viewpoints

The next video shows you how to search Opposing Viewpoints, which is the database in which you will find the articles that you need for your persuasive speeches.

Database: CQ Researcher

How to Search CQ Researcher

The next video shows you how to search CQ Researcher, which is the database in which you will find the articles that you need for your persuasive speeches.

Database: Academic Search Complete

How to Search Academic Search Complete

The next video shows you how to search Academic Search Complete, which is the database in which you will find the articles that you need for your persuasive speeches. Unlike the other databases in this list, Academic Search Complete is a large, general-purpose database of newspaper, magazine, and scholarly journal articles on a wide variety of subjects. It is not focused on controversial issues and thus must be searched differently.

APA Documentation

How to Cite Your Sources in APA 7

This is our video that introduces APA documentation. I urge you to watch the entire video carefully before starting to write your paper or annotated bibliography. It is much easier to cite correctly as you go along, rather than try to fix your documentation after you have written your paper.

This is our complete APA guide, which goes into more detail about citing sources and formatting correctly.

It includes our sample paper. When you're writing a paper, you can model the formatting of your paper after this one.

If you are unsure how to set up the formatting in Microsoft Word so that it fits the requirements for APA formatting, you could instead download this blank Word document that has the formatting already set up for you.

Ask a Librarian

Today's Hours