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Most extemporaneous speaking questions will ask speakers to provide a yes or no answer to a given question. Examples of these types of questions are “Should the United States exit Afghanistan by the end of 2014?”, “Can Hillary Clinton win the presidency in 2016?” and “Does Vladimir Putin wish to reconstruct the old Soviet Union?” As part of our strategy piece series, we have already provided a strategy for breaking down “How” and “What” type of questions. For this, I piece I will explain why it is better to frame your answers to yes and no questions with a thesis. This means that you will not only tell your audience that your answer to the question is yes or no, but will provide a “because” statement that further clarifies your answer. So, instead of answering the Afghanistan question is “no” you would answer it with “No because the United States has yet to accomplish its goal of creating a stable Afghanistan.”
Why Use a Thesis?
One of the reasons that using a thesis is ideal for questions that demand yes/no answers is that you can provide greater clarification to your answer. When you answer yes or no to a can, is, should, does, do, etc. type of question you are giving an answer, but your answer will often fail to revolve around a central theme. Also, by providing a thesis you make your answer to the question much more argumentative. Instead of having a terse answer that is one word, you expand on your answer to include a definitive reasons why your answer ended up being yes or no for the given question. This provides a clear idea that you can link all three of your main points back to during the speech. So using a thesis can provide a great “glue” to keep all of your speech together.
Using a thesis also helps you stand out in a round where other competitors are deciding to only answer with yes/no. Granted, there are probably judges that will not award you extra points on the ballot for deciding to take a risk and use a thesis, but among more experienced judges they will recognize the difference. Having judged many rounds at the Montgomery Bell Academy Extemp Round Robin and a couple of years at the Extemporaneous Speaking Tournament of Champions, I can vouch for the fact that many experienced judges appreciate hearing a thesis from a competitor because it shows a high level of intellect. Therefore, in a close round using a thesis can make a world of difference.
How to Set Up a Speech With a Thesis
For our sample framework here, I will use the question “Have populist economic policies been beneficial for Latin American economies.” My answer for this question will be “No” and my thesis statement will be “because these policies have created hardship for the countries that have adopted them.”
With a thesis, you need to make sure that all three of your points are reasons why your thesis is a true statement. So for this question all of my points need to illustrate how populist economic policies have created hardship for countries in Latin America. Examples of these points could include how the nationalizations of populist countries (e.g. Venezuela and Argentina) have decreased foreign investment and hurt resource extraction, how these policies have led to increased inflation due to excessive spending, and how populist policies have failed to solve the region’s poverty trap and fueled crime. One could also make the point that populist policies have not made economic operations in the private sector more efficient and failed to reduce bureaucracy to make economic growth take off.
Another sample idea would be taking the question “Is Chris Christie the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination?” The answer you could provide for this question is “No because he does not have the support of the party’s conservative base.” Your three points could touch on Christie’s ties to the Obama administration after Hurricane Sandy, Christie’s unpopular positions on social issues (e.g. the DREAM Act, climate change and gun control), and the distance he has placed between party conservatives and his tenure as New Jersey governor (e.g. campaigning with Susanna Martinez in the 2013 New Jersey gubernatorial election rather than party conservatives like Ted Cruz). In fact, you could also make a thesis along the lines of “No because of Christie’s unpopular stand on social issues that are important to the conservative base” and then use each of your points to describe a social issue that Christie does not have the “right” view on that would make him unpopular among the Republican electorate.
This type of speech, which uses a clear thesis of “No because he does not have the support of the party’s conservative base” comes off much better than just saying “No” for the question. It establishes a central idea that can be linked back to over the course of the speech and gives a clearer road map for the audience about where the speaker is going. It also makes the argumentation much clearer than opting to say “yes or no.”
Practicing Thesis Statements
Using a thesis structure is very difficult if you have never tried it before and I highly recommend practicing it several times before you take it out on your local circuit. You will realize that to craft thesis statements you have to know a lot about the issue you are speaking on. If you have to talk about India’s upcoming election and you do not know a lot about it, then you are not going to be able to create a very good thesis statement. Acquiring content knowledge is something that builds up over time in extemporaneous speaking, so using thesis statements is not something that I immediately recommend extempers adopt if they are new to the event. So if coaches are reading this strategy piece, I highly recommend that you do not implement this idea with extempers until their sophomore year. However, some extempers come along faster than others and in that case, coaches should use ample discretion about when to have their students begin using this idea.
I have found that one of the best ways to teach yourself to do thesis statements is to take a series of extemp questions (and our HotTopics for USX and IX are ideal for this) and write outlines for them with a thesis structure. Coaches can assign this as homework for their extempers during a week if they choose to do so. Extempers should take a question (remember that it should be one that calls for a yes or no answer), provide a thesis answer for it, and then provide what three points would be to answer the question (making sure that they serve as a reason why the thesis is true). Repetition is the key to learning any skill and by practicing outlines and speeches with the new thesis structure you can begin improving your answers to extemp questions.
Using thesis statements will help you make your answers more analytical and will help you stand out in rounds where your opponents opt for “easy” yes/no answers. They will also strongly bind your three points to your answer since each of the points will give a reason why your thesis is true. However, I would highly suggest practicing the structure with your coach through speeches and outline form before you take it out on the circuit.