Original Oratory
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Original Oratory (often shortened to "OO") is an event in the National Forensic League, National Catholic Forensic League, and other high school forensics competitions in which competitors deliver an original speech on a subject of their choosing, though the speech must be factual. Though the rules for the category change from organization to organization, generally, an Oratory must be written and memorized by the performer and should be no more than ten minutes in length. No more than 150 words can be quoted. The finished speech must be approved by the National Forensic League. This speech should be highly persuasive and is normally about a slightly controversial topic.
Oratory topics are usually over current problems in the world, and are delivered in a persuasive way as to motivate the audience to make a choice. However, this may not always be the case. Some orations may alert the audience of an imminent, definitely not ""upcoming"" threat, or inspire them to act now. According to the National Forensic League, the competitor is judged through:
- Speech Effectiveness: Did the speech have any inspiration or purpose to make the audience react?
- Bodily Movement: What guestures did the speaker perform to help the audience better visualize what you're saying?
- Supportment: Was what the speaker said backed up by proof? Was the evidence visualized with current proof, past proof, or quoted by words from other experienced people?
- Factual: Is what the speaker saying really true? Was the purpose of your Oration mostly truthful and not mostly opinion based?
These are the questions the competitor and the judge should ask themselves before performing an Oration, to either an audience, or especially yourself. They key to gain the audience's attention isn't through your topic, it's through your passion. For instance, your topic could be that people today are lazy, but instead of changing it, they are accepting it. Now the topic itself interests the audience or judge.
General Rules
1) An oratory is ten minutes in length. 2) It is memorized and no notecards or aids may be used to help the competitor remember the speech. 3) There may be no more than 150 quoted words. 4) An oratory is given standing up, in front of a judge or audience. 5) There may be no props, charts, diagrams, etc.
Competitions
When competing in Original Oratory tournaments, the tournament begins with preliminary rounds. Competitors are arbitrary chosen to compete in separate rooms of six to eight people each (an exception is made to separate students of the same school to put them in different rooms so they are not competing against each other in the earliest stage). In each round, judges rank the competitors, and depending on the size of the competitor pool 2-3 people advance to the next round. Most tournaments will advance to the semi-final round (two to three groups of six to eight competitors each). If the tournament is particularly large, a quarter-final round may be used instead (which can range from four to five groups of six to eight competitors each). It then proceeds like the preliminary round until the top two or three advance into the final round. The final round will have no more than eight competitors (most tournaments, including the National Forensic League National Tournament choose to have only six competitors). While the preliminary rounds will only have one judge, all final rounds and some semi-final rounds will have a panel of three to five judges. The choice to have more than one judge is up to the discretion of the school hosting the tournament and almost always depends on the availability of judges. The final ranking is an average of the panel of judges' rankings (they rank the competitors individually after the round is over without consulting the other judges. Their rankings are then averaged together to announce placements). In the case of the National Tournament, the rankings from preliminary and semi-final rounds are also averaged into the final rankings.
Judges
Judges are usually Original Oratory alumni competitors, coaches, sponsors, parents, or friens of the host tournament. A person has to have graduated high school to be qualified to judge. Coaches are prohibited from judging their own school, and alumni competitors must wait two years before they are allowed to judge the school from which they graduated.
Steps of an Oration
Even though it's your original work, Oratory does require some kind of preparation and steps. This is what sets Oratory appart from Impromptu. These steps can greatly affect your speech deliverance, whether good or bad. The following are recommended steps in delivering a good Oration:
1) Intro Hooker: The best way to deliver an Oratory is to grab your audience and make them want to actually listen to you what you as the speaker have to say, and not just hear another figure trying to persuade. You can do this with a story, startling fact, question, and especially a joke. Telling a story needs to have something to do with your topic.
2) Body: If one wants to keep an audience's attention, add facts and startling figures. Make your subject relevant to the audience. Though you do indeed want to add facts and startling figures, humorous examples and jokes also can help in explaining your topic. This is probably a more effective way of keeping the audience's attention, however, to write an award winning oration, both facts and humor are necessary.
3) Conclusion: If one did not make a good impression on the audience before, chances are slim that one will not recover with a smashing conclusion. Reiterate, go over the main points of the speech and make it memorable for the audience.
Progress
While Original Oratory was originally an event used to inform the audience over a controversial or pressing topic, it has progressed over the years to rarely include such topics. In recent years, Original Oratory is used to tell the audience about a more light-hearted topic such as perfection, individuality, or society's decreasing attention spans. While having a factual baseline is still one of the most important parts of the speech, the inclusion of humor and personal antecdotes greatly boost performance. Typically an oratory follows a pattern:
Introduction: The introduction begins with a joke, a story, or an interesting fact. A successful oratory will either make the audience and the judge laugh or grab their attention. A part from grabbing the attention of those listening, the main purpose of the introduction is to explain in an interesting and creative manner what you're speech is going to be about. Its important to explicitly state from the very beginning what you are talking about so the judge and audience doesn't have to guess. This also makes it easier for the judge, because they know what sort of things to look for when listening to the speech.
Problem: After the introduction, an oratory will usually explain in a little more detail than what was given in the introduction what the topic is about. When doing this, the orator should explain why this topic is important and why it is becoming a signficant problem in American society. For example, if the topic is about individuality or being your own person, an Oratory will explain that a decrease in individuality is bad because it lowers your ability to stand up for what you believe in or it makes you conform to standards instead of forming your own beliefs and values.
Causes/Effects: Next, the orator will explain what is causing the problem. Since Oratory is generally a speech used to encourage people to take action against a problem, it is important to explain what specifically is causing the problem. This allows the audience to know specifically what they need to look out for. An orator will generally explain that by attacking the problem by the "roots" (what causes it), it will be the easiest way to solve it. Similarly, it is important to explain the negative effects of the causes. Explaining the causes is important to the oratory because it valididates the fact that the topic is in fact a significant problem in American society.
Solution: The most important part of an oratory is the solution. This should be creative, innovative, and should be presented in such a way that will encourage both the judge and the audience to take proactive measures to act against the problem. In an oratory about individuality, the solutions might be to 1) Relax and decide what you yourself want to do, 2) Resist temptations to simply follow others even though it might be the easiest way 3) Even if others don't follow you, if you think its right, then it is the best path for you personally to take. This part of the oratory will also explain the positive benefits of following these solutions which will make the judge and the audience want to listen to them (i.e. it gives the speech merit). It is imperative that the solution is not forgotten, otherwise an oratory is simply a wasted ten minutes. No one wants to hear about a problem without being told what they can do to fix it.
Conclusion: Judges look at the conclusion and judge based on whether or not it ties in with the introdcution. If you told a story about a problem you got yourself in for your introduction, use the conclusion to finish the story and tell how you fixed the problem. If it was a fact, elaborate on the fact. By tying the introduction to the conclusion, it gives the speech a feeling of finality.
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