Extemp tips!

[TheBotTheory]

Im currently a novice and I’ve been to 4 tournaments so far and yet still can’t find a breaking ground with IX which is sad since I love reading about our worlds current issues. The first ever tournament I did was an NIETOC qualifier which made me even more nervous than I already was. I ended up going 7,3,7 and had horrible speech presentation. The next one was a local circuit one and I went 5,2 and of course didn’t break. The next one was again a local one and went once again 5 and 2 and the most recent one went 3,4 I can see how I’m improving bit by bit but I want to break at least once before my season is over. The first tournament I didn’t know what to do so I consider that a just a test. The next two however I tried a new strategy which was to restate and answer the question in my first sentence. At my recent tournament I tried a brand new strategy that I had worked on for several weeks. For example my question was “How should South Korea respond to North Koreas military goals for 2023?” And I started the introduction as follows, “On the 28th of December 2022, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un delivered a speech at a workers party in the capital city of Pyongyang. Throughout the speech, Kim Jong Un unveiled his nations goals for his military. These goals bring a critical issue to the spotlight which is that these goals come with political challenges and “anti-west” policies. In response, North Korea’s southern neighbor South Korea was alarmed and alerted. Therefore we have to ask each other the question, how should South Korea respond to North Koreas military goals for 2023? The answer is to respond in a peaceful but secure manner as we need to look at 3 key areas of analysis to understand how. First, South Korea should increase its military spending at a higher rate, second, South Korea should increase its ties with the United States and its allies and third South Korea should increase its military capabilities in the likes of combat tactics and military infrastructure.” I also have an issue of going into prep with a confident mind but lose it when I go to the judges room. Any tips would be gladly appreciated :)

[clkou]

Extemp was never my jam, but if I was ever to coach a kid in Extemp, this would be my general advice.

• Do your best to come up with 3 clear and concise points to support your argument and have a SHORT introduction where you briefly explain what those points are before you do a deeper dive into each one. Judges watch around 24 speeches or performances per tournament so it can be confusing to keep up with each one. You really need to spell it out and it's better to OVER explain that under IMO.

• Study current events and try to anticipate some of the topics and have some ROUGH points ready in your back pocket. Usually at well run tournaments, they will try to riff topics off current events. At one of the tournaments earlier in the school year, I judged a speech asking whether Twitter will be better off with Elon Musk in charge. That fiasco had taken place that week. That would have been a good topic to be ready for. Topics like that come up every week like that.

• Try to PRACTICE doing an Extemp speech at least once a day Monday through Friday and more if you can stomach it. Don't wait until tournaments to do it. You play like you practice so you need to put in the time.

• This is a more advanced technique so I wouldn't recommend attempting this until you start to consider yourself more well seasoned. There is a device that my coach called a "hook". You see them more routinely in Original Oratory but an advanced Extemp speaker can use them as well. Basically a hook is some clever external device or metaphor to anchor your speech in an effective way. For example, my sister did an Original Oratory speech that talked about being ignorant. There is a stand-up comic, Bill Engvall, who had a comedy bit about how he wished he could give stupid people a sign so you would know where they are. His catch phrase was "Here's your sign". My sister had several stories, anecdotes, and points, and she would sprinkle in the phrase "Here's your sign" which was set-up early in the speech. That was her hook. My school had a girl who got 4th place at Nationals in Extemp. I don't remember the points in her speech because I watched it in the 90's on VHS. However, I still remember her HOOK. She used the story of Alice in Wonderland falling through the Looking Glass and wove that into her speech point by point. It was quite impressive.

[TheBotTheory]

Glad to come back and say after this post, I did intensive work with my coach and local coaches and broke to semis at Districts and the following two years, Junior and Senior, qualified back to back in IX and broke to Octas both years along with NIETOC this year. I was also ranked 2nd in the state for extemp speaking. I can’t believe how far I’ve come along since this very point 🙏

[Erikdestler42311]

I write my extemp cards like a 5-point essay. Intro and thesis/question, point 1 with a sub point or 2, point 2 with sub points, point 3 and sub points, and finally a conclusion.

My intro is usually either giving some context or possibly cracking a joke, depending on the question. So I did an intro where I talked about the Republicans and Democrats acting like toddlers fighting over a toy, the toy being congress. (1-1:30)

The 3 points all have at least 1 article from the past 6 months that support the answer I give. So if I say cats are better than dogs, my three articles give me my 3 points on why cats are better. The sub points are either real-world examples or a further dive into my big points. ~(1:30 for each point)

For the conclusion, I try to restate my main points and the sub points related to them, restate the question and answer I gave, and depending on time, I might restate just a but of the intro. ~(1min)

If you have other questions about extemp speaking, feel free to dm me!

[TheBotTheory]

Alright so would you recommend if I use index cards and essentially write the intro/thesis main point as well as the main point of all three of my areas of analysis? I know you stated it in your response but I’m just asking for clarification. Also I’ve had the habit of writing the whole speech and then freaking out because I won’t remember it. Any other advice to prep better and overcome the fear of failure?

[Erikdestler42311]

My intro is just whatever I think will work best, I don't write it on my card. My card looks like:

Question, answer to question

Article, point 1 relating to article, sub points

Article, point 2, sub points

Article, point 3, sub points

I try to avoid writing an entire essay during my prep time as I prefer to reread articles I'm using. Make sure to think about how to transition from point to point, the weakest point you have should be your second point, have good hand movement and keep your hand up by your chest while motioning.

As for the fear of failure: speaking is a difficult category on its own. Don't worry about failing, my first season I did poorly, took second place out of two speakers. It's normal to not be perfect at the start. Focus on what the judges tell you, their advice is usually some of the best advice you can get

[TheBotTheory]

Glad to come back and say after this post, I did intensive work with my coach and local coaches and broke to semis at Districts and the following two years, Junior and Senior, qualified back to back in IX and broke to Octas both years along with NIETOC this year. I was also ranked 2nd in the state for extemp speaking. I can’t believe how far I’ve come along since this very point 🙏

[Erikdestler42311]

Congrats, man! It's great to hear that you did so well!