Dr. Andrew Wood, Communication Studies

Handout One: Thesis Development in Impromptu Speaking

here is no secret to impromptu speaking, but there are some techniques that are worth learning if you plan to compete on the national level with this event. This handout is designed

to introduce you to a philosophy that stresses both the educational and competitive aspects of impromptu speaking through a discussion of how you can develop a thought-provoking thesis statement which will guide you through your speeches. We begin with this core belief: the best impromptu speaking reveals useful insight about the human condition. This approach is somewhat different than the traditional strategy used to succeed in impromptu speaking. Most of your colleagues from other schools have been taught that success in this event requires you to memorize several obscure and somewhat heady paragraphs that can be used to connect a speech to virtually any topic. To inexperienced competitors (and, sadly, a few judges) this approach is impressive. However, if you’ve competed in this event for a while, the subtle sound of a ‘can’ being opened almost always accompanies this style of impromptu speaking. We can do better. Topic Matrix How then do we learn to speak on virtually any quotation without canning? First, before you even think about competing, conduct an inventory of what you know. Experienced impromptu speakers are aware of their strengths and weaknesses. They constantly attempt to expand on those areas in which they are comfortable and build areas about which they know little. It all starts with a topic matrix. Start working on yours with the space provided below. Down the first column, write major topic areas such as “politics,” “sports,” “modern dance,” “literature,” etc. Remember that these areas should be fairly broad, yet you should be able to draw specific examples from them and share them with an audience. In each row to the right of each topic area, you’ll note that there are three fields; within them, list examples from your topic area about which you could speak for about one minute.

T

Political Philosophy

Aristotle’s Politics

Machiavelli’s Prince U.S. Constitution

Dr. Andrew Wood, Communication Studies

Having completed your topic matrix, your next goal is to expand the number of rows and columns. Can you speak about more topics more deeply? Your ability to sift through your brain’s database is a necessary skill in impromptu speaking. Note: your goal is NOT to memorize these examples, or to memorize anything else. In this event, it’s not ethical; moreover, it’s not necessary. This exercise is merely designed to provide an assessment of your “memory bank.” (The first row shows you what I mean. Notice that each topic area should have at least three specific examples.) Interpreting the Quotation: Playing the Game of Threes One you have begun to outline your knowledge base, you have mastered an essential skill in impromptu speaking. It is necessary to know first what you know. After that, you should begin to assess what you believe. Impromptu speaking is concerned primarily with questions of value – what is good and best, what is true about human nature? Even the most banal quotations -- at heart -- reveal a stance on a significant debate about

management and purposes of our lives. Your task, therefore, is to learn the art of interpretation so that you can dig deeply past the surface level meanings of a quotation to unpack and reveal the underlying theme. Is there only one useful truth about any given quotation? You’ve probably guessed, “no,” and you’re right. Within seven minutes, it’s pretty hard to provide the ultimate truth about anything. Instead, you strive to provide an informative and plausible set of arguments designed to uphold the claim that your interpretation about the quotation is best. How, then, can you dig into a quotation and reveal a fundamental statement about human nature if you only have two minutes (or less) to prepare a five (or more) minute speech?

The answer may be found when you play the game of threes. This approach toward argumentation assumes that even the most complicated quotations can be boiled down to a simple claim about some value – a three-word phrase. The purpose of this exercise is to help you decide quickly what you believe to be true. If it’s a simple phrase, you will more easily remember it and return to it in case the rush of a particular speech gets a bit confusing. In other words, at any point you’re wondering, “what am I doing here?” You can recall, “the point of this speech is to prove a simple claim about the human condition. These examples will support these arguments as long as they support my three-word thesis.”

Dr. Andrew Wood, Communication Studies

Here’s an example of how the game of threes can help you isolate a useful meaning from a potentially unwieldy quotation. The quotation is, “Almost everything comes from nothing,” by Frederic Amiel. What do you do with an abstraction like that? Your goal is to isolate a human value and connect it to a statement of belief that is debatable. Thus, I might distill Amiel’s claim into the following thesis: “Persistence is good.” Sure, it’s a simplistic claim. You might wish to “dress it up” a bit for your audience. But at the heart of every clever statement and turn-of-phrase must be a simple idea – one that is convincing because of its elegance. Let’s explore how one might develop this three-word thesis. In the game of threes, you analyze a quotation, first, from the perspective of a value. All of us tend to evaluate the world from a constellation of abstractions that are meaningful to us. I might view the world and its people from the perspective of “courage,” “vision,” and “compassion.” You might think that “discipline,” “power,” and “risk” are primary lenses for viewing our experiences in the world. While we all don’t share the same value system, most of us can at least understand the implicit debate found in a word like “courage.” To some, courage is a primary means to “prove ourselves.” To others courage is a foolhardy, unnecessary extravagance. Who knows? But most of your audience members are aware that courage plays a role in many people’s value systems. So, as a speaker, I selected a value, “persistence,” that appears to motivate the quotation “Almost everything comes from nothing.” You might have selected the concept, “courage,” or “love,” and you could make a convincing case that such a value is more useful, more insightful, than “persistence.” But within two minutes, you should work from a value system with which you’re most comfortable. I’ve thought a fair amount about the value of persistence, and I’ve chosen to begin with that concept. At this point, I’ve crystallized a somewhat abstract quotation down to a discussion of a human value that can be debated. At this point, it’s necessary to state a specific claim that will be justified throughout the speech. In short, you must answer two questions:

• What does this quotation say about persistence? • Do I agree with the author’s statement about persistence?

Remember that my thesis is “persistence is good.” Here, I interpret Amiel’s quotation to meaning that persistence is necessary to create things. How, otherwise, could “everything come from nothing?” Trees must demonstrate persistence in order to grow from acorns (an approximation of nothing); companies from demonstrate persistence in order to grow from “mere” ideas (nothing, in a physical sense). Merely interpreting Amiel’s quotation in this (or some other) manner isn’t enough, however. Your next goal is to argue that the quotation author is correct or incorrect, right or wrong, ethical or unethical. You choose, but you must take a stand.

Dr. Andrew Wood, Communication Studies

You could disagree with the sentiment expressed in the quotation in the following manner: “Amiel is trying to convince us that ‘persistence helps us grow anything from nothing.’ I disagree. In this speech, I will argue that one cannot create without a large amount of raw materials, that merely being persistent will get you nowhere; almost everything comes from something else – and frequently those resources must be taken by force. You and I might not like this claim, but it is a fact of life...” If you’re curious, this claim might be argued to derive from a loose reading of Machiavelli. In the Prince, he argued that some leaders fashion governments from their ideas alone, but that most of them take from existing forms. While I do not suggest you take on his philosophy as your own, I do suggest that you examine political and philosophical texts to explore various value systems that might inform your arguments. By now, you might be thinking that this impromptu speaking is heady stuff. Can’t speeches be funny, simple, and practical? Of course they can, and they should. However, we should start from a perspective that seeks to uncover a significant question about the human condition. The ideas that emerge from the game of threes are designed to be simple enough, yet rich enough, that you will be able to develop an effective impromptu speech with confidence. In the next handout, we will explore the development of arguments. Here, your topic matrices become essential. The goal in impromptu is to support your thesis claim with two or three arguments that are organized persuasively. Those arguments will build upon one another to defend your claim about a particular value (and the quotation author’s stance toward that value). Each argument will be organized according to the various topics that you’ve chosen to develop. For example, you might use examples from the topic “American League baseball teams” to support the argument “athletes demonstrate that you can rise from nowhere to accomplish anything,” defending the thesis “persistence is good” that serves as your interpretation of the quotation “almost everything comes from nothing.” It may sound complicated, so start with what you’ve learned already. Develop your topic matrix and start playing the game of threes.