North Catholic Invitational

2020 — Hybrid/Pittsburgh, PA/US

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Oratory ASYNC

Event Description:

1. The orations must have been written by the contestants delivering them. The judges should consider thought, composition and delivery. However, since this is a contest in speech rather than in essay writing, the emphasis should be placed on the speech phase. Thought and composition should be considered primarily in the way they are employed to make effective speaking possible.

2. The orator should not be expected to solve any of the great problems of the day. Rather, he/she should be expected to discuss intelligently, with a degree of originality, in an interesting manner, and with some profit to his/her audience the topic she/he has chosen. Any appropriate subject may be chosen, but the orator must be truthful. Any non-factual reference must be so identified.

3. Although many orations deal with a current problem and propose a solution, the judge is expressly reminded that this in not the only acceptable form of oratory. The oration may simply alert the audience of a threatening danger, strengthen its devotion to an accepted cause, or eulogize a person, etc. the orator should be given free choice of subject and judged solely on the effectiveness of its development and presentation.

4. The composition should be considered carefully for its rhetoric and dictions. The use of appropriate figures of speech, similes and metaphors, balanced sentences, allusions and other rhetorical devices to make the orations more effective should be noted especially.

5. Delivery should be judged for mastery of the usual mechanics of speech – poise, quality and use of voice, bodily expression and for the qualities of directness and sincerity which impress the orations upon the minds of the audience. There is no minimum time but the maximum time is 10 minutes.

6. No particular style of delivery is to be set up as the one correct style to which all contestants must conform. Rather, each contestant is to be judged upon the effectiveness of his/her delivery, free to choose or develop whatever style will best give him/her that effectiveness with his/her particular oration.

7. No visual aids are permitted.