Interstate Oratory

Interstate oratory will be offered in addition to Persuasive Speaking.

a. Interstate Oratory, referred to as Original Oratory henceforth, will only be open to students representing a MAFA program in good standing. Persuasive Speaking will be open to all students, both MAFA and Non-MAFA programs. A student may NOT enter both events. They must choose one or the other.

b. The winner of Original Oratory will be the MAFA State Champion. The highest placing student representing a MAFA program entered in persuasion will be the MAFA State Persuasion Champion.

c. Sweepstakes points may be earned in both events, but in no case will alter the sweepstakes formula of a program maximum of 100 points in IE's.

d. Two critics will be used in preliminary rounds with the lowest ranking and rating and highest rating and ranking disregarded when deciding finalists.

e. A copy of each contestant's speech is required upon registration. Words and quoted materials will be verified as per event description in (IV). Students will be disqualified if there is an infraction concerning the number of words or percentage of quoted material. Coaches may email copies to MAFA President, Eric Morris (Ericmorris@missouristate.edu).

f. Should either of the winning orations not be able to attend the Interstate Oratory contest, the President shall assign alternates from MAFA member schools based upon their placement in the MAFA Championship Tournament.

Description: An oration written by the student, persuasive in nature and delivered without the aid of notes. No oration shall contain more than 1800 words. Although no minimum word limit is mandated, a 1500 word minimum is suggested. Quoted words are those written or spoken by a person other than the orator. Such quoted material should be limited to 20 percent of the total number of words in the oration. Direct disclosure, dialogue, or other stylistic devices within quotation marks created by the orator shall not be included in the 20 percent total. All quoted material shall be documented. There is NOT a time limit in this event.

Multiple critics will be used in the preliminary rounds with the worst preliminary round rank and rating disregarded when deciding finalists. A copy of each contestant’s speech is REQUIRED upon registration. (We recommend a cover/title page on which the number of words and the number of quoted words of listed along with the student’s name and school.) Words and quoted material will be recounted at the tournament and students WILL BE DISQUALIFIED if there is an infraction concerning the number of words or percentage of quoted material.

It is important for our state to be well represented in this historic tournament. Therefore, if you have a student place in the top two but do not intend to attend Interstate for whatever reason, please inform the MAFA President at the tournament so we can assign an alternate in their place. Alternates will be the next best Missouri student in the event until two Missouri representatives are confirmed.