Informative and Oratory

In both Informative Speaking and Original Oratory, your objective is to present an original piece to inform (info) or to persuade (OO). The great part is that you can decide what you want to talk about. The possibilities are endless! Even though both of these events require much up-front work, I know that once you start you will love speaking about topics you are passionate about!

For both Info and Oratory, your speech must be memorized, and therefore a script shouldn't be used. Additionally, your speech can't go over 10 minutes. There is also a word limit of 150 words that are direct quotes. This basically means that you can't have more than 150 words that aren't your own/are words used as evidence from other sources. With the script you have written, you must identify the quoted words, state the number of quoted words, include a work cited page in APA or MLA format, and both the speaker and the coach must attest by signature that the speech is the original work of the contestant. For Info only: you can include visual aids along with your speech.

Here are a few Informative and Oratory examples:

Aekta Mouli - Off Balance On Purpose - 2016 National Oratory Champion: Video

Andrea Ambam - America Without The Dream - 2014 National Oratory Champion: Video

Bharathi Arasan - A Fable On Labels - 2016 Informative Finalist: Video

Jordyn Allen - The Birds and the Weaves - 2017 Informative Finalist: Video

Here is a document that has a couple of tips for those beginning in both Info and OO:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HCDqujmmXfkMv070vaCrim8BRg6QOGU1tgW30L8_Khg/edit?usp=sharing