A good speech must be an accurate speech. No matter how energetic the voice, no matter how powerful the language, a good speech must, to the best of the speaker's ability, be accurate. If a speech is inaccurate, it is a bad speech. Accuracy in speaking means two things: first, that the facts must be right and, second, that the speech gives the listener a meaningful impression of those facts.
Factual accuracy has become even more vital in the Internet age, when fake Founding Fathers quotations and made-up numbers find prominent homes.
Not everything on the Internet is true, and some things that most people believe are actually wrong. A speaker is responsible for what he or she says, and needs to check all information for accuracy. Public libraries are excellent places to start looking for information; most libraries today subscribe to excellent databases, and the librarians can help patrons look up current information from knowledgeable people and organizations--all at no charge. For current new items, it is important to find at least two completely independent sources for potentially controversial information.
I tell my students that there are already too many people who know how to convince audiences of falsehoods. Our country does not need any more such people.
Knowledge is good, and careless mistakes often come back to haunt speakers who make them.
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