How to Judge an Original Oratory Round in Speech and Debate

The Catholic Forensics League, also known as the CFL, is one of the two main leagues for speech and debate (the other being the National Forensics League, also known as the NFL). While every district may have slightly different events or rules used in judging the events, the basic rules for judging Original Oratory are listed here. This list is based off of the events and rules used by the Palm Beach Catholic Forensics League (also known as the PBCFL) district in south Florida.

Original Oratory

Original Oratory, as the name suggests, is a speech that is written and performed by the speaker (competitors wishing to perform a speech that they did not write themselves should take part in the event of Declamation). The speech should be between seven and ten minutes. In the Catholic Forensics League, there is a thirty second grace period, allowing for students to speak for up to ten minutes and thirty seconds before they forfeit a first place ranking in that particular round. An Original Oratory should be a persuasive speech, and usually deals with societal issues. While there are an infinite number of topics to discuss, there are many overdone topics, including: stereotypes, the impact of the media, and ignorance. The great thing about Original Oratory is that you can take an overdone topic, such as stereotypes, and put an unexpected spin on it (maybe you could say that stereotypes are beneficial). An Original Oratory should be informative, persuasive, and entertaining. While there is no official structure for how an Original Oratory must be formatted, most competitors to choose the problem, cause, solution route; in this, they explain the problem they are discussing (for example, the media causes people to spend too much time worrying about celebrities rather than important issues); next, they will explain why this is happening (for example, the media will focus on celebrity gossip because they know it will increase their sales or viewers, so important issues are pushed aside); finally, they will propose a solution to help end the problem (for example, people should stop watching news shows that focus on celebrity gossip and spend more time reading news papers).

When judging the event, there are many things to look for in a competitor: a speaker should be confident, have their piece completely memorized, make eye contact with EVERY individual in the room, stand up straight, and speak with a clear and loud voice. You should feel like the speaker really cares about what they are talking about; if they don't, you won't be persuaded, and if they haven't persuaded you to believe that their topic is important, they haven't accomplished the task they set out to do. A speaker should gesture with their hands; this can be difficult to do with a memorized piece, because gestures can seem too planned and mechanical.

As for the content of the Original Oratory, there should be a variety of sources to back up the claims of the speaker. There should be at least three cited sources with statistics or quotes that support the claims of the speaker (for example, According to Newsweek Magazine, sales of celebrity gossip magazines have gone up 15% in the past three years, while sales of newspapers have decline 10% in the past three years). Acceptable sources include newsmagazines (such as Newsweek and Time), major newspapers (such as the New York Times), news websites (CNN.com, Fox.com), and websites that deal specifically with the issue at hand. Blogs and Wikipedia should not be cited, as they are not always credible or reliable. Most Original Oratories contain a human interest story, and for good reason: a human interest story will allow the listen to really care about your topic, because they will see how it has affected an individual. For example, a story about a girl who died from an eating disorder she developed after watching celebrity news shows for years would help push the point that the media is having too much of an impact on our society.

In the end, a great Original Oratory will entertain you, as well as make you think. After leaving an Original Oratory round, it is not uncommon to be depressed and inspired at the same time: you have just spent an hour hearing about everything that is wrong with the world, but you also have listened to people who want to change the world.