I attended my speech class, as I have a tendency to do, this Thursday evening.

I usually scribble the alphabet on a piece of paper when listening to speeches, as I was this evening. However, something caught me off my guard and bothered me for the rest of the evening.

A fellow speech student had taken "statistics" from a random website and used them in his argumentative speech. He had not bothered to explain what the website dealt with, or why it's numbers were credible. He had merely stated numbers from a website. I believe the reason it upset me so much was that I try to make my sources as credible as possible. Even if he had just stated that 'this website deals with my subject in regards to x, y and z' would have helped his case, in my opinion.

One other thing: his introduction included a drawn out, angsty poem dealing with anorexia from a different web site written by a '17 year old'. Perhpas it is my cynicism, but that poem might have just as well been written by a 43 year old balding man looking for skinny girls.

The internet is a scary place. Wherever you go selling yourself, you are sure to find a buyer.