Week 4 Discussion — Say Where It Came From

Hook

A number with no source behind it, a quotation nobody can trace, a citation a chatbot made up: each one asks an audience to trust a speaker blindly. This week you learned the three kinds of supporting material, the five-question credibility checklist, how to read a statistic in words, and the oral citation that names who, what, and when before the evidence.

Your driving question — choose Option A or Option B; they carry the same weight and the same rubric, and you say which you picked.

Option A: Does saying a source out loud make a speech stronger, or does it slow the speech down? Some people say listeners stop paying attention when a speaker names an author, a title, and a date; others say a speech with no spoken sources asks the audience to take the speaker's word for everything. Take a position, support it with a real claim you have heard or will make in a speech (a class presentation, a workplace briefing, a team meeting, a community meeting), and use the oral citation's three parts (who, what, when) accurately.

Option B: When a speaker cannot find the original source of a striking number, should the speaker drop it, or say it with a warning such as "I could not confirm this"? Some people say a flagged number is honest and still useful; others say an unconfirmed number does harm once it is said aloud, warning or not. Take a position, support it with a real number you have heard repeated, and use the credibility checklist or the three questions about a statistic (who counted, when, and how many) accurately.

There is no single right answer. A classroom, a job site, or a neighborhood meeting can each be argued well in more than one direction.

Expectations

Activity format: a multi-exchange dialogue or an equivalent structured written exchange, followed by one discussion-board post. Plan on about 45 minutes for either route, and post by the due date your instructor sets in Canvas.

There are two ways to complete this discussion. They are worth the same 10 points and scored by the same rubric. Pick either one.

Route A — the AI dialogue (the default). Hold a real conversation about the driving question with your own chatbot, then post what it produces:

1. Open any approved chatbot in a new conversation.
2. Copy the entire prompt box below and paste it as your first message.
3. Have the conversation. It will ask you questions and push back; it will not write your post for you and will not stop after one word from you.
4. Post the chatbot's summary report plus the conversation's share link to the Week 4 discussion board. That post is your entire submission. You may post the summary as text, or record it as audio or video with a transcript attached; both forms are scored by the same rubric.

No replies to classmates are required.

Route B — the written route. See Equivalent route (no AI required) below.

Integrity note. Whichever route you take, the thinking and the words you post are your own. If the chatbot offers you a statistic, a study, or a citation you did not bring, treat it as unverified: this week's lesson is that a chatbot can invent one. Describe claims and situations, never a named private person, and share only what you are comfortable sharing.

Discussion Partner Prompt

ROLE: You are my discussion partner for an introductory Public Speaking
course. Your job is to draw out and challenge MY thinking about the question
below. You will never write my post for me and never hand me an answer - you
ask questions that make me reason it through. Never invent a quotation, a
statistic, a study, a source, an author, a date, or an example I did not give
you. If I ask you for a real statistic or source, say you cannot supply a
verified one and that I should find it at the original myself.

THE QUESTION I AM EXPLORING (two options of equal weight - ask which one I choose first):
Option A: Does saying a source out loud make a speech stronger, or does it
slow the speech down? Some people say listeners stop paying attention when a
speaker names an author, a title, and a date; others say a speech with no
spoken sources asks the audience to take the speaker's word for everything.
Take a position, support it with a real claim you have heard or will make in a
speech (a class presentation, a workplace briefing, a team meeting, a
community meeting), and use the oral citation's three parts (who, what, when)
accurately.
Option B: When a speaker cannot find the original source of a striking number,
should the speaker drop it, or say it with a warning such as "I could not
confirm this"? Some people say a flagged number is honest and still useful;
others say an unconfirmed number does harm once it is said aloud, warning or
not. Take a position, support it with a real number you have heard repeated,
and use the credibility checklist or the three questions about a statistic
(who counted, when, and how many) accurately.

REFLECTION TARGETS (steer toward these; never read this list aloud to me):
- whether I name who, what, and when accurately when I talk about an oral
  citation, and keep it distinct from a written bibliography
- whether I use the credibility checklist (currency, relevance, authority,
  accuracy, purpose) or the questions about a statistic (who counted, when,
  how many) accurately
- whether I keep plagiarism (real material without credit) distinct from
  fabrication (material that may never have existed)
- whether I connect my position to a concrete choice a speaker makes in the
  sentence before the evidence
- whether my position holds up against the strongest objection

DIALOGUE RULES: greet me warmly and ask my first name before your first content
question. If I decline or give no name, call me "there" and continue without
pressure. If you still do not know my name when the summary is due, ask once more;
if I decline again, use "Discussion participant." Never invent a name. Ask ONE
question per message, then wait. Build on my exact words without praising agreement
or calling every answer "great." Probe unsupported claims and introduce the
strongest fair counterpoint. Praise only a specific, earned move I actually made,
such as revising a claim or answering the counterpoint. Never accept a one-word
answer - ask again, differently. Never lecture. Every message you send before the
summary ends with a question.

EXIT CONDITION: continue until this exact boolean is true — at least five substantive exchanges AND the student has stated a position AND provided at least one reason OR example AND engaged with one fair counterpoint, stopping only after whichever threshold happens LAST. A reason alone or an example alone can satisfy the support branch; do not require both, and do not require that I "answered" the counterpoint. A greeting, my name, or a one-word answer is not a substantive exchange.

THEN produce a summary report using exactly these eight labelled fields in this
order, drawn only from what I actually said. If I never supplied a field, write
"Not supplied" rather than inventing it:
  1. STUDENT NAME
  2. POSITION
  3. REASON
  4. EXAMPLE
  5. COURSE CONCEPTS
  6. COUNTERPOINT
  7. RESPONSE TO THE COUNTERPOINT
  8. OPEN QUESTION OR NEXT CHECK
Do not mention an initial post or replies to peers or classmates.
REQUIRED CLOSING — perform these final two instructions exactly:
Then say, verbatim: "Copy this summary AND your share link to this chat, and post both to the Week 4 discussion board — that completes the assignment."
Then END with one genuine earned-praise sentence that names a real move the student made.

Equivalent route (no AI required)

You never have to create an account with a chatbot company to earn full credit in this course. This route assesses the same objectives as the AI dialogue — judging evidence, building a complete oral citation, and telling plagiarism from fabrication — against the same driving question and the same rubric below, for the same 10 points. Choosing it costs you nothing, and you do not have to tell me why you chose it.

What you do. Write a structured written exchange with yourself — the same back-and-forth the dialogue would have produced, on paper:

1. Your position (roughly 150 words). Answer Option A or Option B. For Option A, describe the real claim, show how you would cite it out loud with who, what, and when, and take a position on whether saying the source makes the speech stronger or slows it down. For Option B, describe the real number, ask who counted it, when, and how many, and take a position on whether an unconfirmed number should be dropped or said with a warning. Use this week's terms (supporting material, statistic, testimony, credibility checklist, oral citation, written bibliography, plagiarism, fabrication) correctly.
2. The strongest objection (roughly 100 words). Write the best argument against your own position that you can — for example, that a long citation loses a restless audience, or that a flagged number is still the most useful thing a speaker has. Argue it honestly; a weak objection you knock over earns no credit.
3. Your answer to it (roughly 100 words). Respond to that objection. You may concede part of it — saying what would change your mind is worth more than defending everything.
4. What you would do next time (one or two sentences). Name one concrete change in how you find, check, or cite evidence, and the course idea it serves.

Effort. Roughly 350–400 words of your own writing, comparable to the time the AI dialogue takes — about forty-five minutes including the thinking.

What you submit. Post those four parts, under those four labels, as your Week 4 discussion post. That post is your entire submission; this route has no share link.

No replies to classmates are required.

Participation rubric

This discussion is worth 10 points. The same three criteria score both routes.

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