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by Logan Scisco
Although extemporaneous speaking is an analytical event that requires extempers to read about current events, draw conclusions from a variety of sources, and communicate the facts of the day to an audience that may or may not be proficient in the ways of the world, the delivery aspects of the event are sometimes lost in the shuffle when it comes to preparation and coaching. Competitors become so nervous about remembering the growth rate of the Thai economy, the history of the Second Amendment, and the names of miscellaneous Obama administration officials that they forget to make their delivery stand out in a round. Using your brain to remember information and regurgitate it on cue is only one element of extemporaneous speaking and the analytical nature of the event is not an excuse to not take a few cues from the interpretation world in refining one’s delivery to accompany one’s analysis. This strategy piece will discuss the importance to three areas where “interping” one’s extemp can be valuable: facial expressions, pacing, and vocal tone.
Facial Expressions
Speed and fluency excluded, using effective facial expressions is one of the biggest delivery faults of the average extemper. As indicated in the introduction, extempers tend to obsess so much about remembering sources, names, dates, and other information that they do not use their face as a tool to engage the audience. This “dead face” sees an extempers deliver lots of information to their audience in seven minutes, but they fail to use their face to emphasize important parts of the speech. For example, an extemper might discuss the ethnic violence in Nigeria and fail to let their eyebrows show that this is a really serious situation. They may also crack a joke in a round about the legalization of marijuana, but they fail to smile or use a light hearted expression to cue the audience in that they need to laugh. As an extempers whose brother competed in interpretation events, I saw firsthand how facial expressions are vital in interp rounds as far as characterization and delivery. A character that is stern needs to wear a stern expression and one that is goofy needs to wear a similar expression. Granted, interpretation tends to favor more exaggerated forms of behavior, but extempers can still use facial expressions to emphasize important elements of their speech.
The most effective way to use facial expressions it to make sure they really come across for impacts in your speech. If you are comparing a casualty figure to a previous conflict, listing the human rights abuses of a nation, or just discussing why an issue matters and why the audience should care about it (this is important in one’s significance statement), then you need to make sure that your face really sells the idea that these things are important. You can close up parts of your eyes, make your eyebrows go lower, and/or raise your cheeks. Your vocal tone, which will be discussed later in this piece, can complement this as well. You do not want to make your facial expressions too exaggerated because doing so makes you look like a cartoon character, but you need to show your audience that you do care about the subject and are engaged in it. Keep in mind that many judges, especially parents and lay judges, will not write very much on your ballot and will take in all seven minutes of your speech. Therefore, you need to use facial expressions to engage them, much like American presidents use facial expressions to communicate their attitude toward certain policy positions in press conferences and televised addresses (this is why extempers should watch some of these speeches).
A way to improve your facial expressions is to remind yourself mentally that you need to use them. Extempers often do not use facial expressions because they simply forget. Have your coach or whomever is watching your speech tally the number of facial expressions you are using and take notes of when in a speech you are using them. Videotaping yourself can be of great importance here as well, although people hate watching themselves on tape. The more times that you use facial expressions in your speeches the more the behavior will appear natural. Psychologically, you can also remind yourself that you need to convince your audience of your position. A good extemp speech does not necessarily have to convince a judge to change their entire worldview, but it should plant at least a small seed of doubt. Acting as if one’s life depends on convincing a judge of their position on the question drawn helped me incorporate more facial expressions in rounds.
If you are an extempers that wears glasses, you really need to exaggerate your facial features even more. This is because the glare that comes off of one’s glasses can obscure one’s eyes during a speech, so your eyebrows and cheeks become more effective tools than your eyes for the audience. Some extempers will prefer not to wear glasses so that the audience can see their facial expressions more clearly. However, if you are near sighted and do not want to wear contacts, glasses may be necessary because doing a speech without being able to see time signals is not advisable! Therefore, if you require glasses for your performance you need to keep in mind that you will have to put even more effort into your facial expressions than your competitors.
Finally, it never hurts to smile once in a while in an extemp speech. Some topics do not lend themselves to smiling (e.g. a genocide taking place in a particular nation, world hunger, etc.), but if you do have a joke in a speech it is never a bad idea to smile (just do not laugh at your own joke). Similarly, if you make a sarcastic comment about someone, you can smile as well. Behavioral research shows that humans often reciprocate a smile, so it can create a greater bond between you and your audience. However, showing a really corny smile before you have even begun to speak is not necessarily advisable unless you get a really cheery audience member who loves judging 8:00 a.m. extemp rounds.
Pacing
Speed definitely kills in extemporaneous speaking. I lost my chance to get back to the final round of the 2004 NCFL Grand National Tournament due to speeding up in my quarter-final round and I have seen other friends lose state and national championships because of the speed issue. As I have stated in other strategy pieces, competitors typically speed up when they feel they need to cram a lot of information into their speeches and/or they get nervous. If you struggle with speed, I’d highly recommend an approach that focuses on videotaping (so that you can see how fast you are going and why some judges do not find it desirable), reminding yourself that you need the best information instead of the most information in a speech, and having your coach stop you in speeches when you are going too fast. The speed issue is the biggest mental barrier many extempers face and some never get over it. However, you can do this.
The pacing issue that I am emphasizing in this piece, though, deals with speeding up and slowing down deliberately in parts of your speech. David Kensinger’s 1988 speech in the United States Extemp final round is a perfect example of pacing and if you find this speech then I would suggest watching it. In that speech, which is one of the greatest extemporaneous speeches I have ever seen, Kensinger discussed how the United States policies toward unwarranted wiretapping and he concludes the speech by describing how constitutional violations could lead the United States down an unwise path. As he wrapped up that speech Kensinger had a powerful quotation to the effect of “the day we have lost that ethic [the ethic of protecting the Constitution] is the day we have lost our soul.” As we said these words, Kensinger deliberately slowed down his pacing and as he spoke slower and slower he had the audience completely wrapped up in what he was saying. He also allowed for a few seconds to pass before he wrapped up he speech after he said the word “soul.”
One of the troubling features of modern extemp is that speakers tend to use pacing very sparingly. It is rare that I will come across a speaker that manages to use pacing as a tool. Ashesh Rambachan and Lily Nellans did this rather well in last year’s International Extemp final and although neither of them won, their control of their speaking pace is one of the many reasons that they ended up in that final round. Just like facial expressions, extempers often forget about trying to pace their speech because they just do not think about it. Since so few extempers actually pace themselves to slow down in certain places to add emphasis to certain items, if you manage to do this you can stand out in a round. It won’t necessarily guarantee you a first place rank, but I can guarantee that it will make you more memorable.
So when are some good times to play with pacing? First, if you are giving a list of facts in an extemporaneous speech, you can speed up or slow down. If you are emphasizing how stupid something really is like Dan Hemel in his 2003 NFL final round speech in International Extemp, where he listed corruption in the Afghan government, then you can speed up. If you are going through a list of events that just get worse and worse, like the collapse of mines in China and their death toll, then you can gradually slow down and intentionally set up the list so that the minor incidents go first and the worst incidents go last. Also, you can slowly deliver a quotation from your evidence if it is something really outrageous. An example of this might be a world dictator that brushes off the use of violence against his population or a politician that says something really offensive. When you deliver this you can also use your face to sell how outrageous or idiotic a certain statement is. The bottom line for speeding up or slowing down deliberately is that you want to select a few places to do that during a speech. What are the big moments of your speech? Think about your speech as if you are a professional speechwriter and try to pick out some moments that you really want to linger with the judge after the round. That should influence where you decide to speed up or slow down.
Extempers could also use more pauses in their speeches. Pausing in a speech allows the audience to catch their breath and it can also allow you to reboot your speed if you are going too quickly. I always recommend that extempers provide “beats” (imagine someone beating a drum with their fist and when they hit it you move or count to one second in your head) and pause when they are giving each point in their preview statement (so the audience can get it down) and on the last line of each part of the speech before they transition to the next one. If you tell a joke, you should pause to take into account audience laughter because if you keep talking the audience will instinctively not laugh so that they do not disrupt you. You should also pause after pointing to a really ridiculous fact, statement, or something that you really want to stand out. Remember David Kensinger’s speech, which I talked about in the last section? After he said the word “soul” he took a good two seconds before wrapping up the speech. It felt like an eternity before he spoke again, but it effectively got his point across in a way that no other speaker in the round could do. Just because you have seven minutes of your speech does not mean that you have to filibuster for all seven minutes. Use pausing and deliberate pacing to add power to your rhetoric and make it linger long after you have left the room.
Vocal Tone
The tone of your voice can add to, or detract from, your speech. When I began extemporaneous speaking, I was under the impression that louder was better (after all it is better to show emotion than none, right?) so I had a tendency at times to practically yell at my audience. I thought this was the proper way to show emotion and it caused me to lose the first tournament on my local circuit sophomore year. One judge, who ranked me lower than the other two judges, came up to me a week later and told me that they did not rank me highly because I was much too loud. They explained that as a teacher they had students yell at them every day and that when they watched a speech round that is the last thing they wanted to hear. From that day forward I endeavored not to yell at my audience again. The trick of not being too loud is to recognize the acoustics of the room you are speaking in. Some rooms will carry your voice to the back rather easily, while some will not. A trick for this, as I noted in Elements of Style for the Modern Extemper, is to cough as you enter the room if you are unsure of its acoustics and that will give you an idea of how loud or soft you need to make your voice. Like pacing and facial expressions, tone is something that you have to control mentally. If you feel that you are yelling at your audience, you probably are, so tone is down.
Tone works really well with pacing in the sense that if you start slowing down what you say, you may also want to make your voice a little softer. Not so soft that people in the back of the room cannot hear you, but a little lower than the “normal” voice that you use for most of the speech. I can guarantee that this is going to peak the interest of your audience because they are going to sense that you are speaking in a lower tone of voice and that will cause them to listen to what you have to say. Again, to go back to David Kensinger’s line “the day…we have lost…our…soul.” In that sentence, you want to deescalate your voice in a soft, yet firm tone so that when you hit the word “soul” the impact and importance of the word can be felt.
Other times of the speech may cause you to raise your voice. There is a fine line between yelling and raising your voice, but if you deliver a really sarcastic line then raising your voice a little is warranted. An example of this would be then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad telling Yale University students a few years ago that there were no homosexuals in Iran. Another might be South African President Jacob Zuma insisting that he was not HIV-positive because he took a shower after engaging in a tryst. Raising your voice or feigning outrage draws attention to the statement and distinguishes it from your normal tone that is used for delivering sources and transitional language during the speech.
Your tone of voice should also reflect the content you are covering as if you were a broadcaster. If you are discussing the possibilities of war between China and Japan, you need to have your voice communicate the dire nature of the situation. If you are touching on the unrest in Ukraine and take an advocacy of pro-opposition, you need to have your voice emphasize why events on the ground are a good thing. Similarly, if you touch on the undemocratic nature of Zimbabwe’s government, your voice should communicate some elements of disgust and despair. The key here is that you need to have your voice match the content you are covering. Do not stick with a normal voice for the entire seven minutes. Use your voice as a tool to sell your message.
In closing, all of these elements of delivery – facial expressions, pacing, and tone – all work together. An effective and powerful delivery will use them to facilitate a persuasive argumentation about the topic you have chosen to speak on. By being mindful of using these tools, just like an interper or oratory speaker would, you can take extemporaneous speaking to another level. If you have never done interpretation or oratory, I would highly recommend it as well. Branch out of the limited prep world and experience new events because the skill sets you learn from those other events can be incorporated into your delivery and you can distinguish yourself from your opponents.