Extemporaneous Speaking

Extemporaneous Speaking, more commonly referred to on the circuit as Extemp, is the political cousin of impromptu. *Everyone gasps as the black sheep of the family enters the room to ominous music* "Ryan, how dare you bring politics into your blog! What if you offend someone?"

Well, I'm sorry if one of my seven followers gets offended.

There are a few possible outcomes in the event of a disagreement:

1. Post a nasty comment 

2. Learn something from this post  (even if what you learn is that you we hold different opinions and that it's ok to not agree on everything as long as we're respectful) 

3. Have your political views forever altered because I'm just that persuasive.

Option 3 is impossibly unlikely, option 2 would be pretty cool, and please don't do option 1. I'm incredibly oversensitive and will probably cry and be permanently scarred. 

Also, none of those are going to happen here because I'm not going to give any political opinions. See what happens when you jump to conclusions because I put words in your mind? I know we all get unraveled when politics are brought up, but remember I'm just covering how to do this event, not what you should say or agree with. 

Now that our heart rates are up, let's break this event down. 

As was the case with Radio, all competitors start in the prep room and will be given 30 minutes to prepare their case. The prompt for Extemp will consist of three research questions that revolve around news and politics. You will need to pick one of the three and answer it with a seven minute speech. 

That brings us to the question of which prompt should we choose? Generally speaking, pick the one that you feel the most confident in.

So what do you say when you know absolutely nothing about any of the topics? Well to keep it kid-friendly I won't elaborate on that here, but it's a little rough. And it happens.  Happened to me in the last round. All you can do is very briefly do some broad research on the topics to get a feel for which one you'll have the easiest time talking about. For the sake of time, after about three minutes you will need to have chosen a topic and started your research. 

According to wcdebate.org, the first and most important thing to do is to develop a thesis. Once we know the stance we want to take, we can know the research direction that we need to follow. Usually, the best way to pick a side is to see what the research shows and go from there. 

Here's where things get tricky. The speech should have three main points, each supported by two credible sources. You're looking at a minimum of 6 sources to cite. That's a lot of articles to dig though and not a lot of time to do it. 

As for the points themselves, the most common structures for the speech are:

Problem, Cause, Solution 

             or

Past History, Present Situation, Future Implications

If the prompt says "How can China reduce their smog by 2020?" we would probably use the problem, cause, and solution model. Show the current problem with sources to back the stats, show what's causing the smog, then propose solutions such as their EPA enforcing the environmental laws. 

If the prompt says "What effect will China's smog have on it's citizens by the year 2020?" we would probably use the past, present, future model. Show how China's air has devolved over the years, the present humiliation and harm both to their people and government it has caused by not cleaning it, and how it will only get worse in the future. 

Some questions will ask you to give a definitive answer of "yes" or "no". don't be intimidated by these, just use logical points and evidence to back up your conclusion. 

Before I leave you and let you try this for yourself, I want to remind you that most of these prompts won't have a wrong answer, you just have to be confident and well-infomred. Not making a decision is worse than a "wrong" decision. If you hesitate you will fail. Go with your gut and have fun! Remember, all of these take a long time to master so be patient. It'll all come in due time.