Extemporaneous Speaking, also known as extemp, is a competitive event popular in United States high schools and colleges, in which students speak persuasively or informatively about current events and politics. In extemp, a speaker chooses a question out of 3 offered, then prepares for 30 minutes with the use of previously prepared articles from magazines, journals, newspapers, and articles from news Web sites, before speaking for 7 minutes on the topic. There are four speaking events: informative, persuasive, domestic, and foreign. However, some areas have only two events, being foreign policy and domestic policy, and some other areas have three, being foreign policy, domestic policy, and economical.
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The actual speech is delivered without the aid of notes and, at top levels, is a smooth, dynamic performance that incorporates research, background knowledge, humor, and opinion. A successful extemp speech has an introduction that catches the listener's attention, introduces the theme of the speech, and answers the question through three, or sometimes two, areas of analysis which develop an answer to the question. The preview of these areas to come is called the "menu". The conclusion summarizes the speech and ties everything together, relating back to the introduction and body of the speech.
Debate and public speaking (collectively called "forensics") are generally stratified into novice, or beginning, and varsity, or experienced, levels. A varsity level extemp is expected to cite anywhere from 5 to 10 sources within the speech to substantiate the credibility of the analysis and demonstrate ample preparation. References are often referred to as a "cite" or "citation." Quality sources include newspapers like the New York Times and Christian Science Monitor, magazines like the Economist and Foreign Policy and journals like the Fletcher Forum on World Affairs and Foreign Affairs. For a speech dealing with a certain region's issues, say Africa or the Middle East, it is good to include regional sources as well.
During the speech, competitors are evaluated by way of comparison to the other speakers in a 'round' of competition. Generally, there are five to eight competitors in a given round. Judges give speakers time signals to help them pace their presentations. Judges rank all students in a room in order, with one being the best and the worst speaker ranked last (sixth, for example in a round of six competitors).
The National Forensic League (NFL), the National Christian Forensics and Communication Association (NCFCA) and the National Catholic Forensic League (CFL) host most Extemp tournaments. Both leagues have a national tournament at the end of every year, with the NFL tournament drawing a larger number of competitors. There is also the Extemporaneous Speaking Tournament of Champions, held each May at Northwestern University. In addition, there are highly prestigious "circuit" tournaments, as in Policy debate, Public Forum, and Lincoln-Douglas. These include the Glenbrooks in Chicago, the Invitational at Yale University, the Patriot Games at George Mason University, the Barkley Forum at Emory University, and the Invitational at Harvard University. There are also two major round-robins, held at George Mason University and at Montgomery Bell Academy (MBA).
Most high school level districts offer two kinds of extemp events. Usually, those are Foreign Extemp (FX or International Extemporaneous Speaking, IX]]) and Domestic Extemp (DX or United States Extemporanious Speaking, USX). Both kinds of event follow the same format but the questions which the speech is supposed to answer are concentrated on either foreign or domestic political/economic topics. Some states, like Pennsylvania, offer a different event called Extemp Commentary. In Extemp Commentary, the speaker, seated behind a desk, gives a five-minute speech about a topic rather than about a question. Extemp Commentary is also held at the National Speech and Debate Tournament as a Supplemental Event.
In college forensics, as well as at a number of large tournaments like the Tournament of Champions in Extemporaneous Speaking at Northwestern University, the Barkley Forum at Emory University, the Harvard Invitational and the NCFL National Championship, there is only one mixed category for Extemporaneous Speaking, referred to as simply 'extemp' (with the event code 'EX'). Mixed extemp can prove more challenging, because it requires the speaker to have broad awareness of possible topics ranging for questions about American culture to foreign policy or obscure international economic issues.
The structure of an extemporaneous speech varies widely depending on whether the competition is a high school or college tournament, and can often vary in style across the country. The most common method, exemplified in several high school and college national final rounds, follows a similar structure to the one described below.
It is common that Extemporaneous speeches will have good deal of structure. One of the most frequently employed speech structures will accommodate three contentions or points, each containing two or three sub-points. A popular and easy to follow method of composing contentions includes the three sub-points: Theory, Application and Case Study.
The conclusion is an opportunity to recap the ideas discussed in the speech and contains many elements of the introduction. A conclusion may look like this:
In this example, the first point is illustrated in detail.
Question: Will Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi win his campaign for re-election?
Answer: Yes, because he is seen as an effector of necessary reform.
First Point - Koizumi is placing emphasis on the privatization of the Japanese Postal System
Theory - When a candidate focuses their energies on a limited issue that the public supports, they have a greater chance for success.
Application - While Koizumi's approval rating often dips below 50%, his pledge to privatize the Postal System keeps him more popular than any other person or party.
Case Study - An Economist article date June 9, 2005 notes that The Japanese Postal System currently sits at ¥386 trillion ($3.6 trillion) in assets, making it the world's biggest financial institution. It continues to explain that Mr. Koizumi is now close to getting a vote on a bill that will—eventually—turn it over to the private sector.
Impact - Because Prime Minister Koizumi will so effectively reform the postal service he will be seen as an effector of reform which will easily win him the re-election.
The University Interscholastic League offers Extemp as a competitive event. [1] Although it sometimes varies, generally in a UIL tournament the speaker will either be Informative or Persuasive. The speaker may get a foreign or domestic topic. Regardless whether informative or persuasive the speaker will have a certain speaker number. This speaker number is the order in which the speakers speak to the judge (Ex: Speaker #1 will speak first and Speaker #3 will speak third). One speaker from each room will draw a topic every 7-10 minutes. When drawing a topic the speaker will draw 3 or 5 topic slips (Varies from tournament to tournament) and they will get to choose which of these topics their speech will be over. Once a speaker picks a topic and returns the remaining topic slips back to the envelope they may not change their topic.
The speaker is given 30 Minutes of prep time in order to construct up to a 7 minute speech on their topic. The speaker may use the following in preparing their speech[1]:
1)Magazines, newspapers, journals (Examples: Newsweek, Dallas Morning News, Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs that may be highlighted in one color)
2)Other published source materials (Examples: reference books, Facts on File, atlas, book of quotations)
3)Published speeches (Examples: the presidential State of the Union address, Vital Speeches)
4)Online materials (Examples: printouts of published material from computer online data services if not modified or in outline form that include the downloaded URL, the White House web site)
5)Index without annotation (Example: computer or hand-written list of subject titles/dates of magazines or folders included in the files)
The following materials are NOT allowed in the prep room[1]:
1)Outlines (Examples: multi-colored highlighted articles that could be interpreted as an outline, outlines from previous speeches, debate briefs, pre-prepared outlines on possible topics)
2)Prepared notes, extemp speeches, debate evidence handbooks (Examples: extemp subscription service analyses, database summaries of multiple sources on a specific topic)
3)Unpublished handwritten or typed material other than an index (Examples: one or more articles cut and pasted into a single document, previously used extemp notecards, flow of a debate round)
4)Computer or other electronic retrieval device (Examples: Palm Pilot, cell phone, lap top computer) Index with annotations (Example: title of article, with added comment, "great pro-con article on global warming")
NOTE:After the 2010-2011 school year the UIL will allow computers into the extemp prep room WITHOUT internet.