LFL Virtual Speech Debate

2024 — NSDA Campus, NY/US

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Original Oratory

Event Description:

1. Original Oratory

a. This contest shall comprise only memorized orations actually composed by the contestants.

b. Any appropriate subject may be used, but the orator must be truthful. Any non-factual reference, especially a personal one, must be so identified. The oration must be composed from the standpoint of the present speaker; however, the speaker may adopt another persona for a maximum time of one minute.

c. No visual aids are permitted.

d. Not more than 150 words of the oration may be direct quotation from any other speech or writing, and such quotations shall be indicated on a written or typed copy of the oration to be supplied upon the request of the Tournament Committee or Regional Director during the tournament. Extensive paraphrasing of another source is prohibited.

e. Since these orations have been written by the contestants delivering them, the judge should consider thought, composition and delivery of the message. However, since this is a contest in speech rather than in essay writing, the emphasis should be placed on the speech phase. Thought and composition should be considered primarily in the way they are employed to make effective speaking possible.

f. The orator should not be expected to solve any of the great problems of the day. Rather, he or she should be expected to discuss intelligently, with a degree of originality, in an interesting manner, and with some profit to his/her audience, the topic he or she has chosen.

g. Although many orations deal with some current problem and propose a solution to it, the judge is expressly reminded that this is not the only acceptable form of oratory. The oration may simply alert the audience to a threatening danger, strengthen its devotion to an accepted cause, or eulogize a person. The orator should be given free choice of subject and should be judged solely on the effectiveness of its development and presentation.

h. The composition should be considered carefully for its rhetoric and diction. The use of appropriate figures of speech, balanced sentences, allusions, and other rhetorical devices to make the oration more effective should be noted especially.

i. Delivery should be judged for mastery of the usual mechanics of speechpoise, quality and use of voice, bodily expressiveness, and for the qualities of directness and sincerity which impress the oration on the minds of the audience.

j. No particular style of delivery is to be set up as the one correct style to which all contestants must conform. Rather, each contestant is to be judged on the effectiveness of his/her delivery, and each contestant is free
to choose or develop whatever style will best give her/him that effectiveness with his/her particular oration