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According to the rules of extemporaneous speaking, a speaker has thirty minutes to organize their thoughts in a central “preparation” room in order to outline their speech and practice before heading to their competition room. As all extempers can attest, thirty minutes when one is under pressure goes by in a flash and to become a proficient speaker, one must be able to maximize the thirty minutes allotted during this time. This strategy piece will provide a few tips on how an extemporaneous speaker can maximize the thirty minutes of their prep time.
Tip #1: Figure Out an Outline Method that Works for You and Do Some Pre-Outlining Before Draw
How do you prefer to outline your speeches? Some extempers prefer to do their outlines on legal pads, while others prefer to use notecards. The reason that some extempers and coaches argue for preparing speeches on notecards is that it forces a speaker to write less and put an emphasis on quality of information over quality. Personally, I preferred to outline speeches on legal pads because I write big and it was easier for me to read and memorize a page of information rather than having to use a smaller surface.
I would typically outline my speeches with the following format:
Intro (This is where I would write a quotation for an AGD device or come up with a big idea to use as an AGD and write it here)
Significance (This is where I would write out a few words for a significance statement that I would use during the introduction. If you are not sure what a significance statement is, please check our strategy piece on them in the premium content section)
Q (This is where I wrote the question given to me in draw)
A (This is where I would write my answer to the question)
I. (This is where I would write the point tag for point 1 and then underneath it I would begin listing sources with the information that I wanted to use. For example “ECO 11/1 – The U.S. GDP dropped from 0.7% to 0.4% last quarter)
Each speaker usually chooses to outline their speeches differently and there is nothing wrong with that. However, I would recommend that whatever method you use that you give a decent amount of space between the different parts of the outline. Do not smash all of your information close together. This will make it difficult for you to read, but also difficult for your mind to process and memorize for use in the round. Research studies illustrate that people memorize information better when it is presented in chunks (which is why phone numbers and Social Security numbers are split into chunks of digits like 841-0914 or 389-41-001).
State and national-level rules prohibit having pre-prepared materials in prep. This includes any outlines you may have done prior to the tournament or for past speeches. However, you can avoid wasting time by putting the skeleton of your outline together before draw. For example, with the format I presented above, I would write on my legal pad (spaced apart) “Intro,” “Significance,” “Q (Question),” “A (Answer),” and “I,” “II,” and “III” for my points. Since I was not putting any factual information onto this outline, this is a legal way of having an outline before you draw your question.
You might say, well why does this matter? The reason is that by going ahead and putting the skeleton of your speech outline on paper, you do not have to waste the thirty minutes allotted to you during prep to write all of the information I included in the last paragraph. The can easily save you 30 seconds to a minute of preparation time. Remember, we want to maximize time and not waste it.
Tip #2: If You Still Use Physical Files, Clean Up Your Files After Each Round
This one is rather self-explanatory, but if you still use physical files and have a large team, you know that the files can get very spread out and messy after one round. Before the next draw, you want to put the files that have been taken out of your box to be placed back to their location. You never know if you might need to reference them later in the tournament and nothing is more frustrating than needing a file and for it not to be there. If you have to search for a file, then it wastes your time. Have someone who is not doubling or tripling on your team clean up the prep area after a round has finished, or do your part and put the files back in the box where they belong.
If you have digital files, close out all of the files that you opened in anticipation for the next round. You don’t need to have a million screens in your face when you are searching for information for the next speech.
Tip #3: Develop a Form of Prep Shorthand
A common mistake of novice extempers is that they write too slowly or write out each and every word. You do not need to write big blocks of text. After all, you are putting together a speech outline and aside from you, no one is probably going to read it. As a result, the writing and abbreviations that you created do not need to make sense to anyone except for you. In my opinion, all extempers need to create their own version of “prep shorthand” that can speed up their writing of crucial information. Also, keep in mind that the less you write, the more likely you are to remember what you write as well since it is less information for your mind to remember.
So, what are some examples of this shorthand? For sources, here are some recommendations:
ECO – The Economist
WP – The Washington Post
NYT – The New York Times
AUST – The Australian
DS – Der Spiegel
For other items, I recommend some of these other tools:
Ø – Negative symbol that means (no, not, can’t, won’t, etc.)
=/= – Does not equal/not the same
P.O. = President Obama
WH = The White House
As you can see, you can play around with all kinds of fun versions of shorthand that make sense to you. Using shorthand, which is something that debaters already learn to do when they “flow” rounds, can maximize your time by reducing how much you write.
Tip #4: Have a Watch or Some Legal Device to Time Yourself
Another mistake extempers make is that they are not aware of how much prep time they are using and how much they have left. When I used to run prep rooms, I would typically advise speakers when they had ten minutes remaining and when they needed to leave the prep room and head to their rounds. Other people that run prep rooms will not be as experienced or as nice.
That said, you should not rely on other people to let you know how much prep time you have left. You should know exactly how much time you have throughout the thirty minutes you are given. You should start this time immediately after you approach the draw table and are given the signal to choose a question. By timing yourself you can help your pace your way through prep time and know when you need to stop outlining and at least practice certain parts of your speech.
Tip #5: Develop a Routine and Figure Out How Much Time You Need to Prepare
All extempers need to develop a routine for using prep time. Routines help to ease nerves, train your mind to memorize and process information, and get you to perform at a high level. Some extempers prefer to do their entire preparation standing up. Others prefer to do all their preparation time sitting down (feeling that the whole “pacing around the room” performance that extempers do worthless). Some prefer to do their preparation in a certain part of the room. Whatever it is that makes you comfortable, you should do in preparation time. Do not just go with the crowd and mimic other people. Find something that works for you and stick with it.
You should also look at your past performances and uses of preparation time and consider how much time you need to pull off a good speech. Some extempers can memorize information quickly and efficiently, so they only need to actually go over parts of their speech verbally for five or ten minutes. This allows these extempers to spend more time reading through their files and outlining information. Other extempers struggle with this, though, and they need to commit more time to memorization. Find how much of a balance you need between preparation of the speech and preparation for delivery during prep time and then be consistent with that model. If you know that you need to develop twelve or so minutes to going through your usual routine of memorizing information, then when your watch tells you that you have used eighteen minutes of preparation time you need to divorce yourself from your files and begin the memorization process.
Tip #6: When Memorizing Your Speech Do Not Give the Entire Speech
The best piece of advice that I can give a speaker when they are preparing their speech is not to run through their entire speech in prep. You should not finish your outlining and then proceed to give your entire speech from the introduction to the conclusion. This does nothing but waste time (seven minutes worth in fact!). This also creates what I refer to in Elements of Style for the Modern Extemper as a “ghost effect” whereby you might give a great version of the speech in prep and then go into the round and mess up as you try to recreate it word-for-word. When you are in the actual round, there are no mulligans, and if something goes wrong you may start to freak out because things are not going as well as they did during prep.
The way to avoid these problems is to run through elements of your speech in isolation. This is extemporaneous speaking and no two speeches on the same topic that you give will ever actually turn out the same. When you practice your speech you should go through what your point tag is and then proceed to recite aloud what your sources are and what they say. You need to remember your sources, so going through this routine is crucial. Do not worry about saying the entire point word-for-word with transition language between sources and going into long explanations of them. Just go through your point tags and the substance of your sources over and over again. Do not worry about reciting your conclusion, but if you can come up with a powerful closing sentence in prep then you should try to memorize that as well. For the introduction, devote your time to memorizing the question and your answer and make sure that you have a good general idea of your opening sentence and significance statement. By focusing on parts of your speech in isolation you can avoid the “ghost effect” and pay attention to memorizing the details that really matter in the speech.
Tip #7: When Practicing, Give Yourself More than Thirty Minutes of Prep Time
A typical extemporaneous speaking practice will see a student draw a question, prep for thirty minutes, and then give the speech to their coach. However, this does not always mimic actual tournament conditions. As readers of these strategy pieces know, one of the concepts that I emphasize a lot is to practice as you would compete. Tournaments are susceptible to delays and rounds do get backed up as judges are too slow to write their ballots or show up late. It is not uncommon for an extempers to actually get thirty-five to forty minutes of preparation time instead of the usual thirty. This is also more likely to happen in tournament final rounds because there are three judges and a small audience on hand for those rounds. If the prep room does not stagger speakers in ten minute intervals for these rounds and opts for the usual seven, pileups and delays are inevitable for everyone but the first speaker, who I always feel is at a disadvantage in final rounds because they have to go in first without the possibility of a delay, which is not true for the fifth or sixth speakers.
Therefore, I highly recommend that you practice getting more than thirty minutes of preparation time, but prep as you would if had thirty minutes. What this means is that you should not add time to your outlining of a speech, but should add time to how long you have to memorize. Speakers that are not used to having twenty minutes to memorize their speeches can have a hard time staying focused. By practicing longer wait times to give your speech, you can develop ways to deal with this situation.
Maximizing prep time is all about being aware of time and thinking of new ways to speed up what you do without sacrificing quality. I hope that these tips can help you further maximize your use of prep time and improve the quality of your speeches in the long run.