Limited Preparation Events  

These events are called limited preparation because competitors get a limited amount of time to prepare their speech.  But while they are called limited prep events, the name is not entirely accurate.  A great deal of preparation is necessary to be ready to compete in these events.

In this event, you get two minutes to prep a five-minute speech.  Topics range from one-word abstracts to quotations (famous and otherwise).  A good impromptu speaker has committed many examples of people, movements, philosophies, and events to memory.  These examples can be used across the themes that tend to be represented by the quotations.  Themes such as love, adversity, courage, failure, etc., are commonplace.

Here you get half an hour to prepare a 7-minute speech.  Topics are taken from stories in Time, U. S. News and World Report, and Newsweek magazines from the past 90 days.  Extempers spend considerable time staying apprised of current affairs.  They research, file, and index stories from major publications across the country (most of which we subscribe to), keeping the material in team �extemp tubs.�  These tubs are taken to the tournaments and consulted during prep time.  9-12 source sites are expected in a good extemporaneous speech. 

 Platform Speeches

Platform speeches are all under 10 minutes in length and are memorized.  In competition, emphasis is placed on the creativity of the topic.  Topics that were done in a basic speech class are rarely creative enough to meet the challenge.

This is a well-researched speech that attempts to inform the audience about a significant topic.  Emphasis is placed on the freshness of the topic.  Topics involving innovations in technology, medicine, and science are common and tend to do well.   Visual aids are generally expected in this event.

This is well-researched speech that attempts to change an audience's attitude or behavior.  You must persuade the audience to act to change a significant, but little-known social problem.  You present the problem, advocate a solution, and challenge your audience to get involved.

This is one of the most difficult individual events.  A rhetorical model is applied to a communication artifact (e.g., an advertising campaign or a television show) in an attempt to help us better understand that artifact.  This event requires a great deal of work with a coach (probably Francesca) who is familiar with newly released rhetorical theories.

The goal of this speech is to make people laugh.  The trick is that it also must have a significant social message and structure.  It is not a stand up comedy routine, but rather a well crafted persuasive or informative speech that is full of humor.  Speakers in STE must cite sources (although some of them can be gag sources) and devise clever visual aids.   People who do this event have a good sense of comedic timing.

Oral Interpretation of Literature

 People who do these events are good actors.  This is typically a skill that you are either born with or have developed over the years.  To be brutally honest, not everyone has the talent to do these events, though everyone seems to want to.  Unlike acting, there is limited movement in interpretation, but there may be multiple characterizations and even singing.  The participants hold black binders with their scripts in them at all times to remind them and the audience of the centrality of the literature.  As with platform speeches, competitive material is usually not well known.  Material must be from published sources, though, to use a Clintonism, it depends on how you define "published."  All programs are under ten minutes long.  Each program should communicate a central theme, and many judges require that the theme be an argument.  There are several interp events from which to choose:

This is a cutting from a book or short story.  The cutting should develop key characters well enough that we know them.  The story that emerges must have coherence�a clear beginning and ending.  Ideally, there is emotional variety (humor as well as drama) in the piece.

You can either weave together a variety of poems around a central theme/argument or choose a single piece that has multiple voices.  The model here is verse, not rhyme.  In fact, most competitive pieces are not readily identifiable as poetry, in the classic sense.

This is a cutting from a play, where the interper portrays multiple characters.  Like prose, the cutting must be artistically crafted to allow sufficient character and scene development.  Credit is given to emotional variety and the uniqueness of the selection.

In this event, the performer weaves together more than one of the above genres around a central theme/argument.

Same as drama but with two people, both of whom may portray multiple characters.

Back to top