President’s Public Speaking Contest
To Enter the Contest- Please submit your name and UCO email to the following form: https://forms.gle/YuQN1vHwGdHBAqXN9
Contest Coordinator: Dr. Matthew Moore, Director of Speech and Debate, University of Central Oklahoma. email: mmoore3@uco.edu
Date: Finals, Wednesday, Feb 16, 2022, 2-5PM
Theme: Make UCO a Better Place
About the President’s Public Speaking Competition
The President’s Public Speaking Competition was founded in 2022 as a chance for UCO students to showcase their ideas and gain valuable public speaking experience.
Objectives of the Speech Competition
- To showcase the public speaking ability of the UCO student body.
- Provide competitive experience for students wishing to work on their public speaking skills.
- To educate students on the fundamentals of public speaking by observing their peers.
- To promote the UCO Speech and Debate Team and recruit new students to the program.
- To give students a sounding board for their experiences and concerns for the UCO campus community.
Speech Guidelines
The goal of the speech should be to persuade the audience to make UCO a better place. What issues you talk about are up to you. You can organize the speech however you want, but the judges will be looking for specific features common to most public speaking competition requirements.
Time Length: 10 Minutes Maximum
Mode of Delivery: Speakers are expected to present a high-quality example of public speaking. The speaker may have notes, but will be judged on presentation skills. Reading a manuscript will not be very effective.
Eligibility
To be eligible to compete in the President’s Public Speaking Competition, a student must meet the following criteria:
- Must be enrolled either full or part time at UCO.
- Must be able to compete at the scheduled final round.
- Must submit an entry video and entry form by 12PM CST, February 9, 2022.
Competition Rules
- Students must present an original speech. The speech can be the result of a previous class assignment as long as it addresses the major theme of the President’s Public Speaking Competition.
- Each student must first submit a video of their speech to be entered.
- Student videos will be judged on the content and performance of the speaker alone. We understand that not everyone has easy access to a space that can be staged for a public speaking performance. The purpose of the video entry is to ensure that you can put together a convincing speech and present it well.
- Once submitted, the judges for the competition will review the entries and notify the top 10 finalists by February 11th.
- Students will be asked to submit a bibliography of any works cited in their speech.
- Judging: Judges will come from the UCO campus community. Each judge will be asked to rank each of the speakers 1, 2, 3, etc from best to worst. Each Speaker will be awarder points on a 50 point scale. Judges may not award ties in rank or points. Contestants’ scores will be added up using ranks first. If there is a tie in rankings, points will be used to break the tie. If there is a tie in points and rankings, then the students’ best and worst ranks will be dropped, followed by points until the tie is broken. If there is an unbreakable tie for first place, then the scholarship will be split among the competitors.
- Scoring for the final round will be solely based on the live performance of the students. The rankings from their video submissions will only be used to determine if they qualified for the final round.
- The use of visual aids is encouraged but not required. The final round venue will have some capacity for visual aids, but students are responsible for making sure that they will work with the available technology at the final round site.
- All decisions of the judges are final.
