Page 220 - Between One and Many The Art and Science of Public Speaking

Chapter 7 Researching Your Message 187

that never were; and I say ‘Why not?’” The original source is George Bernard
Shaw’s play, Back to Methuselah. Ironically, although Kennedy used the quotation
as a theme in his 1968 campaign for the presidency, the actual speaker of these
words in Shaw’s play is the serpent enticing Eve in the Garden of Eden. 18
Numerous other reference books can be found in libraries, including encyclo-
pedias, some of which are available online. Although the information in general
encyclopedias is rather basic, a number of specialized encyclopedias are also
available. Here’s a representative list of encyclopedias provided by Kristin John-
son, an Instructional Librarian at our university:
• Encyclopedia of Advertising
• Encyclopedia of Global Change
• Encyclopedia of the Human Brain
• Encyclopedia of Skin and Skin Disorders
• Encyclopedia of Death and Dying
• Encyclopedia of Criminology and Deviant Behavior
• Encyclopedia of Drugs, Alcohol & Addictive Behavior
• Encyclopedia of Interior Design
• Encyclopedia of North American Sports History
• Encyclopedia of Popular Culture
• Encyclopedia of Movie Special Effects
• Encyclopedia of Creativity
• Encyclopedia of Sleep and Dreaming
• Encyclopedia of Homosexuality
• Encyclopedia of Television
• Encyclopedia of World Terrorism
• The Film Encyclopedia
• International Encyclopedia of Sexuality
• Violence in America: An Encyclopedia
There are countless other reference books to which you can turn in the effort
to track down information. For example, almanacs and yearbooks, such as
The World Almanac and Book of Facts and Information Please Almanac, are useful
sources of statistics and facts. Digests of information, such as Facts on File and
Editorial Research Reports, are useful sources for information on current issues.
Biographies, such as the Who’s Who series, help you fi nd out about the qualifi ca-
tions of various sources. Atlases are valuable in learning about the world. By
consulting a current atlas, you can learn not only where a country is geographi-
cally but also important facts about it.

Interviews

We put off discussing interviews until now for a reason. It is tempting to go into
an interview before researching the topic. In a sense, we expect the expert to
write the speech. Although interviews with experts can offer useful informa-
tion and may lead to other sources, they cannot substitute for doing our own