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Speech Contest FAQ
1. What's all this about speech contests?
Toastmasters clubs hold speech contests in order to provide competition for members who enjoy competitive speaking and in order to showcase the best. Each contest starts at the club level and works its way up from Area, Division, to District. The International Speech contest goes on to Regional and then to the World Convention each August.
The contests are:
• Tall Tales - 3 to 5 minutes in length. A tall tale, which must be original (you can't use someone else's material). Goes as far as the District level in most Districts.
• Table Topics - 1 to 2 minutes in length. Impromptu speaking. All contestants are taken out of the room and brought back one by one to speak on the same topic, which should be general in nature without requiring specialized knowledge which some contestants might have while others might lack. Since no contestant hears the topic before his or her turn to speak, you can judge the contestants' impromptu speaking abilities by the way each individual's effort compares with the others. Goes as far as the District level in most Districts.
• Evaluation - 2 to 3 minutes in length. A target speaker gives a speech which all the evaluation contestants are to evaluate. The contestants are taken from the room and given five minutes to prepare their evaluations and notes. Then their notes are taken away, and they are brought back into the room one by one (at which time each contestant gets the notes back) to deliver their oral evaluation of the target speech. Since no contestant hears what another says about the target speech, the judges can compare the analytical abilities of the contestants. Goes as far as the District level in most Districts.
• Humorous speech - 5 to 7 minutes. Humorous speaking. The speech must be original. Year after year people hear the rules and then present Bill Cosby routines, but then are puzzled when they're disqualified. It's supposed to be a speech, not a monologue, and it must be original. It should also be "clean". "Blue humor" will get you zero points in the "appropriateness" column of the judges' guide and ballot. In other words, it should be a five to seven minute speech with a lot of humor, but also displaying good speech-making abilities. Goes as far as the District level in most Districts.
• International Speech - 5 to 7 minutes. Any topic at all, as long as it's original. Can be funny, serious, or whatever. It should be the best speech you can give, and it must be original. Did I mention that it must be original? Don't do what so many speakers do and "borrow" at length from someone else's work and then expect that no one in the audience will detect it. The reason this contest is called "International Speech" instead of "General Speech" or "Miscellaneous Speech" is because it's the only one of the five contests that goes as far as the International level, the World Championship of Public Speaking. Each August, winners from the eight Regions and the Overseas clubs (9 contestants in all) compete at the World Convention in the World Championship of Public Speaking.
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