August 6, 2024 • 16 mins
6:6 - Camp One Clap 2024: Day 6
For notes and details about the episode, check out the website here:
https://www.oneclapspeechanddebate.com/post/camp-one-clap-2-episode-6-yuyu-yuan-on-picking-and-writing-the-speech-you-like
Unlock the secrets to crafting speeches that leave a lasting impact and that will be personally exciting and satisfying with YuYu Yuan, a seasoned speech coach and Stanford senior. Join us at Camp One Clap as YuYu breaks down the art of selecting a topic that's not only relevant and relatable but also original and impactful. Dive into practical strategies for thorough research and personal engagement, transforming your chosen topic into a powerful narrative that resonates with your audience. Packed with actionable tips and motivating stories, this episode is your guide to unlocking your unique writing style and continuously improving your work.
If you’d like to join the discussion here at One Clap Speech and Debate, shoot me an email at lylewiley@gmail.com or reach out here on the website.
You could also contact me on social media:
Facebook: @oneclappodcast
Instagram: @one_clap_podcast
TikTok: @oneclapspeechanddebate
YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCyvpV56859lLA-X-EvHVYUg
Your voice matters!
Get your cool One Clap Speech and Debate merchandise here (now featuring hats!): https://www.bonfire.com/store/one-clap-speech-and-debate/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
well, hey, campers, I love the smell of podcast in
the morning.
You're here at day six of campone clap two on the one clap
speech and debate podcast and,even though we're smack dab in
the midst of the clapocalypse,we've got some great content
from Cheyenne East alum andco-star of the half-hour podcast
, uuun.
I'm your camp director and hostof the One Clap Speech and
(00:31):
Debate podcast, lyle Wiley.
I hope everyone is prepared toconfront any terrors that come
their way so that they can havea great season this year.
Hey, quick reminder, check theOne Clap socials for today's
social media challenge.
It's been so fun to seeeveryone checking into the
challenges.
Please keep it up.
It's given me a lot of energyto keep this camp rolling.
All right, let's learn moreabout UU.
(00:54):
Uuun is the assistant programdirector and coaches platform
speech at Palo Alto High School.
She's a senior at Stanford,majoring in both ethnic studies
and anthropology.
Uu competed at Cheyenne EastHigh School in public forum,
debate, original oratory,extemporaneous speaking program,
oral interp and poetry.
She's a three-time nationalqualifier, getting to out rounds
(01:16):
in PF and the top 30 in oratory.
She's a state champion inoratory and public forum and an
NIE TOC semifinalist in oratoryDuring her free time.
Yu Yu enjoys dancing withStanford Chinese Dance, free
writing, baking, crocheting andbinge-watching shows on Netflix.
Today, yu Yu is here to sharesome smart and helpful thoughts
(01:39):
on platform speeches,specifically selecting the topic
you like and writing the speechthat you like.
So it's time let's sit back andlearn from Yu Yu.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Hello speech and debaters and welcome to the
clapocalypse.
My name is Yu Yu and you mayknow me from the Half Hour
Extent podcast, or you may haveseen me floating around like a
ghost at the tournaments thatyou've been to this past year.
But if you don't know me, I'man East High alum and a speech
coach at Palo Alto High Schoolin California and, for my part,
(02:11):
in this survival guide, I wantto give you tools you can use to
attack your biggest monstersPicking a topic that you like
and writing something that youlike Emphasis on something that
you like.
Writing something that you likeEmphasis on something that you
like.
And as I've been spending thispast summer fighting my own
demons to figure out how towrite, compose and put together
an honors thesis, I've also beenthinking a lot about writing
(02:35):
composition in general,specifically what makes a good
speech, and rethinking the waysthat my own speech curriculum
could be better for next year'sapocalypse.
After some thought andconversation with a bunch of my
writing friends, here's whatI've come up with and I hope
that this will be helpful to you, but if not, it's just me
yapping.
But anyway, this podcast episodewill be organized into two
(02:58):
parts.
First, we'll explore the insand outs of choosing a topic and
answering the age-old questionhow in the hell do you pick a
topic that you could stick withfor a whole year?
And then we'll talk about mybiggest fear and my demon that
I'm battling right now isturning the topic that you've
chosen into a speech or an essaythat you can be proud of.
(03:18):
But first, how do you pick atopic?
And before we can answer thatquestion, we need to think about
the core aspects of speechgenerally.
You can find on the NSDAwebsite that they will train
judges to judge based on threethings Relevance, relatability
and originality, and I thinkthese three things are the core
(03:39):
aspects of writing a speech.
So before you go and pick anyrandom topic that you see that
interests you, think about howrelevant that topic is to
today's world.
In any case, you should be ableto answer the question why
should we talk about this topicnow and not five years ago, or
not in the next two years?
Why now?
You should also pick topicsthat can affect other people as
(04:02):
well.
Remember that this is speech.
It's meant for an audience tolisten to, and if they can't
relate to a topic because it'shyper-specific to your own
experience, then they won't feelconnected to your speech.
And lastly, I'm not saying thatyou have to come up with some
novel idea in order for thespeech to matter or to be
competitive, but I am sayingthat you should think about how
(04:26):
you can contribute to thebroader public's understanding
of the topic that you've chosen,and this requires a lot of work
.
This requires asking questions,doing research and seeing what
other people have already saidabout this topic and thinking
about how you can add to it inyour own way.
And this is how you make thespeech original by incorporating
(04:46):
the information that you foundwith your own understanding of
the topic.
So, yes, nothing is trulyoriginal or novel.
At least nothing you hear inthe speech and debate world is
going to be, but that's okay,and it's not what we're aiming
for anyway.
What we're aiming for isfiguring out how you can
understand topics and how youcan share that understanding to
(05:08):
an audience.
So now that that's out of theway, how do you actually choose
the topic?
In this age of brain rot?
It's safe to say that there's alot of information out there
that you're absorbing within amatter of minutes, and while the
tidbits of information we'relistening to are mildly
interesting enough to keep ourattention for two seconds before
moving on.
Did you know that those twoseconds could turn into hours if
(05:32):
you go down the rabbit hole?
The point is, there shouldn'tbe a moment in time where you
feel like you have nothing totalk about or choose from.
You should actually feel likethat there's too many topics to
choose from.
So if you're thinking thatthere's nothing out there that's
interesting enough, importantenough or worth asking questions
about, I need you to keepreading and keep scrolling until
(05:54):
you find something and realizethat there's a lot of
information that you have accessto.
Okay, okay, I'm just kidding.
I don't actually want you torot your brain too much, but
this does take us to the secondpiece of advice I want to share
with you.
Many people have differentprocesses in how they get to a
topic.
They can either start with acase study, a personal story
(06:15):
that they've read online, ortake inspiration from a personal
experience and go from there.
But if you're not even at thestep, I would encourage you to
find three topics, stories ormoments in your life that
provoke you.
Basically, topics that make youask questions about the hows,
whys, whats, etc.
This way, it keeps you engagedand curious throughout a whole
(06:36):
year.
So how do you know when you'vechosen a topic that you're
satisfied with?
Well, even if this is cheesy,I'm still going to say it,
because when you know, you know,and what I mean by that is when
you get to a point where thequestions start to connect back
to the world and the societythat we're living in and starts
to show importance.
(06:56):
That is the topic.
This topic will make youconsider how it affects our
relationship with other peopleand you get to a point where you
know that this is a topic thatis significant and you can't
wait to share to everyone elsewhy this topic is significant
and why they should care.
You can also start with thequestion how does or how has
(07:17):
this topic impacted me?
From here, ask yourself thequestion does it impact other
people in the same way?
Is there a broader topic that Ican connect it back to?
But if you're stuck at threetopics or seven topics or no
topics, keep reading and findingthings that interest you.
I recently read a piece by RuthBehar, an anthropologist at the
(07:38):
University of Michigan, and heradvice to writers is to read
more, write less, which meansthat you can only write as well
as what you read.
Yeah, sit on that for a littlebit.
If you feel like that.
The topic you've chose isoverdone or there's not much
more to it, chances are youhaven't read enough or found
(07:58):
enough information to add to theconversation, meaning you
haven't found enough informationto form your own opinion about
it.
So while we're all dreadinghaving to read more and would
rather watch TikTok videos allday why not go down a rabbit
hole of information and explorea topic more in depth to see
what else there is that you canwrite about and comment about
(08:20):
and form an opinion about?
And at this point it's a perfecttransition to part two of this
episode and my worst nightmarehow in the world do you write a
good speech?
There's so much that I couldsay about composition and
writing, because it's beenhaunting me for the past couple
of months okay, in all honesty,it's been haunting me since I've
(08:41):
started doing speech and debatebecause I just can't write for
the life of me.
I feel like my ownperfectionist tendencies
prevents me from being able towrite something, and I just get
so overwhelmed that I stop, andI just don't want to do it
anyway.
So, in my opinion, writing isone of the hardest things to do
(09:03):
well, and writing a speech thatresonates with a wider audience
is even harder.
I'm sure by now that you mayknow the general tips of writing
a speech, for example, writingit in an essay format with three
body paragraphs, anintroduction and a conclusion.
Or writing with an audience inmind, knowing that your judges
are probably going to be parents, and writing just to get the
(09:26):
words out.
All of which are amazing tipsand things to think about when
you're writing.
So instead of repeating thesethings, as I'm sure I and other
speechies have rambled aboutthem in other OneClap episodes,
I want to tell you something alittle different.
Instead, let's talk about whatto do after you've researched
and picked out all of the piecesof information you want to
(09:48):
include, or what to do onceyou've completed your first
draft.
I'll say, always start out witha first draft, or even just
free writing.
So, once you've collectedenough information to be able to
form a coherent opinion aboutthe topic, just yap on the page
and I mean literally write whatcomes to your brain for 20 to 30
(10:09):
minutes, and after time's up,you're left with something that
is new could take you to newerplaces for your speech, give
different directions and reallybring your attention to things
that you haven't consideredbefore.
But, most importantly, you havewords on a page.
It's a good start and usuallyafter 30 minutes I know I can
(10:29):
type about a thousand words,which means you should basically
be finished with your speechAlmost.
Obviously, it needs a littlebit more TLC, but it's a good
start.
When the ideas are there, youcan now start thinking about
composition, and I want you tothink about writing a speech
like composing music if you're amusic person, but if you're not
(10:49):
, think about writing a speechas if you were writing a story
or a narrative, with thebeginning, a rising action, a
climax, a falling action and aconclusion.
This is because a well-writtenspeech requires good pacing.
I think this is something thatall of us have heard whispers
about but may not have talked indepth about.
I know I saw this happening onthe national final stage this
(11:12):
year when I was watching OratoryInfo and while listening to
their words and seeing theirperformance, it hit me that
pacing has a lot to do with howwell the audience is receiving
your message.
Let's face it sitting throughan Oratory or Info round can be
so excruciating because they'relong, the information can be
heavy and our attention spansright now can't handle it,
(11:35):
especially after we've beencompeting the whole day.
So when you're composing yourspeech and figuring out what
parts go where, think about howyou want to capture your
audience's attention andremember that these next 10
minutes is your time to playwith.
So if putting two veryemotional stories next to each
other is too much to handle allat once, break it up into
(11:58):
different chunks and put intodifferent parts of your speech.
If you're giving too muchcontext and taking too long to
get to the point, then thinkabout shortening your
explanation or phrasing it in adifferent way.
Are there too many jokes goingon all at once?
Does the joke not even belongin this section?
Do people even understand thejoke, etc.
A good way to figure out wherethe slow points of your speech
(12:21):
is or where part of your speechdoesn't make sense is to just
ask your teammates, coaches oreven friends and family members
to listen to your speech andhave them count however many
times they started to daydreamor got distracted by something
else happening in the room.
I'm also a big advocate forrecording yourself performing
and watching yourself perform.
I know it's cringy and I knowwe never want to do it, but I
(12:45):
think that this is the best wayfor you to improve your own
performance, because you canalso give an opinion on what
worked and what didn't work.
And my last piece of advice onwriting is that everyone has
their own style.
It's like a thumbprint.
No two essays about the sametopic is going to sound the same
, I mean, unless they're bothwritten with the help of ChatGPT
(13:07):
.
But use this to your advantageyour own writing style, not chat
GPT.
If you say you suck at writingor think that other people write
better than you do, that's notnecessarily true.
They just have a differentstyle that suits them better.
And I'm not talking aboutmaking grammar mistakes or
anything similar to that,because if your writing is
(13:28):
convoluted or has mistakes ormakes no sense or you don't have
the right grammar, your friends, coaches and teachers and
literally anyone listening toyour speech can tell you that,
and it's an easy fix.
I'm talking about the way thatyou construct your sentences,
the way that you explain thepieces of information that you
found and the way you analyzeyour topic.
That is unique to you and yourwriting style.
(13:50):
Also, know that your writingstyle can change throughout the
year because as you hear otherspeeches and gain more feedback
and read other things, you'llrealize that there could have
been a better way to phrasecertain sentences to get the
message across clearer.
And at this point I'll also tellyou to read your past speeches,
read your old writingassignments from English classes
or other piece of writing thatyou've done to get a better
(14:13):
sense of how you are as a writer.
Then, when you've figured it out, hone in on your style of
writing and play around with it,change it up, use it to your
advantage, because, as everyonearound you in speech and debate
will tell you, your voice isyour own and the way you explain
things will bring new andexciting questions to the table,
(14:33):
because it's you and you areyour own unique person.
Well, that's it, folks.
If you have any questions orcomments you would like to share
with me, please, please, please, feel free to reach out to me
through email, which you canfind on my Tabroom Paradigm page
, or even through Instagram.
I promise I'll answer.
I will always answer, because Ilove talking about writing and
(14:57):
how to write well, even thoughit sounds really nerdy, but
that's just where my life hasbrought me.
So, other than that, I want togive a big thank you to Lyle for
the One Clap Camp series andall the work that you've been
doing on the podcast andespecially inspiring this
episode.
I also want to thank Addy, ella, brianna, josh, lindsay and
Marky, as well as my friendsfrom California, eric and Kai,
(15:19):
for sharing with me their wisdomand processes on speech writing
.
That's all from me, and I hopeyou can survive the clapocalypse
.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Oh my gosh.
Thanks so much to Yuyu for herwork here at Camp One Clap.
It's great to hear you usethoughts on writing platform
speeches and learn from her hereat camp one clap.
What's new at camp tomorrow?
Well, friend of the podcast,josh Thompson, is back to chat
about facing fears and speechand debate.
You're not going to want tomiss that.
Remember social mediachallenges are live for every
(15:48):
day that.
We have camp this August andwe'll see you tomorrow campers.
Oh yeah, and sorry about allthe dumb jokes.
I know, I know I've been makingapocalypse jokes like there's
no tomorrow.
My bad For Camp One Clap.
This is Camp Director Wileysigning off.
well, hey, campers, I love the smell of podcast in
the morning.
You're here at day six of campone clap two on the one clap
speech and debate podcast and,even though we're smack dab in
the midst of the clapocalypse,we've got some great content
from Cheyenne East alum andco-star of the half-hour podcast
, uuun.
I'm your camp director and hostof the One Clap Speech and
(00:31):
Debate podcast, lyle Wiley.
I hope everyone is prepared toconfront any terrors that come
their way so that they can havea great season this year.
Hey, quick reminder, check theOne Clap socials for today's
social media challenge.
It's been so fun to seeeveryone checking into the
challenges.
Please keep it up.
It's given me a lot of energyto keep this camp rolling.
All right, let's learn moreabout UU.
(00:54):
Uuun is the assistant programdirector and coaches platform
speech at Palo Alto High School.
She's a senior at Stanford,majoring in both ethnic studies
and anthropology.
Uu competed at Cheyenne EastHigh School in public forum,
debate, original oratory,extemporaneous speaking program,
oral interp and poetry.
She's a three-time nationalqualifier, getting to out rounds
(01:16):
in PF and the top 30 in oratory.
She's a state champion inoratory and public forum and an
NIE TOC semifinalist in oratoryDuring her free time.
Yu Yu enjoys dancing withStanford Chinese Dance, free
writing, baking, crocheting andbinge-watching shows on Netflix.
Today, yu Yu is here to sharesome smart and helpful thoughts
(01:39):
on platform speeches,specifically selecting the topic
you like and writing the speechthat you like.
So it's time let's sit back andlearn from Yu Yu.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Hello speech and debaters and welcome to the
clapocalypse.
My name is Yu Yu and you mayknow me from the Half Hour
Extent podcast, or you may haveseen me floating around like a
ghost at the tournaments thatyou've been to this past year.
But if you don't know me, I'man East High alum and a speech
coach at Palo Alto High Schoolin California and, for my part,
(02:11):
in this survival guide, I wantto give you tools you can use to
attack your biggest monstersPicking a topic that you like
and writing something that youlike Emphasis on something that
you like.
Writing something that you likeEmphasis on something that you
like.
And as I've been spending thispast summer fighting my own
demons to figure out how towrite, compose and put together
an honors thesis, I've also beenthinking a lot about writing
(02:35):
composition in general,specifically what makes a good
speech, and rethinking the waysthat my own speech curriculum
could be better for next year'sapocalypse.
After some thought andconversation with a bunch of my
writing friends, here's whatI've come up with and I hope
that this will be helpful to you, but if not, it's just me
yapping.
But anyway, this podcast episodewill be organized into two
(02:58):
parts.
First, we'll explore the insand outs of choosing a topic and
answering the age-old questionhow in the hell do you pick a
topic that you could stick withfor a whole year?
And then we'll talk about mybiggest fear and my demon that
I'm battling right now isturning the topic that you've
chosen into a speech or an essaythat you can be proud of.
(03:18):
But first, how do you pick atopic?
And before we can answer thatquestion, we need to think about
the core aspects of speechgenerally.
You can find on the NSDAwebsite that they will train
judges to judge based on threethings Relevance, relatability
and originality, and I thinkthese three things are the core
(03:39):
aspects of writing a speech.
So before you go and pick anyrandom topic that you see that
interests you, think about howrelevant that topic is to
today's world.
In any case, you should be ableto answer the question why
should we talk about this topicnow and not five years ago, or
not in the next two years?
Why now?
You should also pick topicsthat can affect other people as
(04:02):
well.
Remember that this is speech.
It's meant for an audience tolisten to, and if they can't
relate to a topic because it'shyper-specific to your own
experience, then they won't feelconnected to your speech.
And lastly, I'm not saying thatyou have to come up with some
novel idea in order for thespeech to matter or to be
competitive, but I am sayingthat you should think about how
(04:26):
you can contribute to thebroader public's understanding
of the topic that you've chosen,and this requires a lot of work
.
This requires asking questions,doing research and seeing what
other people have already saidabout this topic and thinking
about how you can add to it inyour own way.
And this is how you make thespeech original by incorporating
(04:46):
the information that you foundwith your own understanding of
the topic.
So, yes, nothing is trulyoriginal or novel.
At least nothing you hear inthe speech and debate world is
going to be, but that's okay,and it's not what we're aiming
for anyway.
What we're aiming for isfiguring out how you can
understand topics and how youcan share that understanding to
(05:08):
an audience.
So now that that's out of theway, how do you actually choose
the topic?
In this age of brain rot?
It's safe to say that there's alot of information out there
that you're absorbing within amatter of minutes, and while the
tidbits of information we'relistening to are mildly
interesting enough to keep ourattention for two seconds before
moving on.
Did you know that those twoseconds could turn into hours if
(05:32):
you go down the rabbit hole?
The point is, there shouldn'tbe a moment in time where you
feel like you have nothing totalk about or choose from.
You should actually feel likethat there's too many topics to
choose from.
So if you're thinking thatthere's nothing out there that's
interesting enough, importantenough or worth asking questions
about, I need you to keepreading and keep scrolling until
(05:54):
you find something and realizethat there's a lot of
information that you have accessto.
Okay, okay, I'm just kidding.
I don't actually want you torot your brain too much, but
this does take us to the secondpiece of advice I want to share
with you.
Many people have differentprocesses in how they get to a
topic.
They can either start with acase study, a personal story
(06:15):
that they've read online, ortake inspiration from a personal
experience and go from there.
But if you're not even at thestep, I would encourage you to
find three topics, stories ormoments in your life that
provoke you.
Basically, topics that make youask questions about the hows,
whys, whats, etc.
This way, it keeps you engagedand curious throughout a whole
(06:36):
year.
So how do you know when you'vechosen a topic that you're
satisfied with?
Well, even if this is cheesy,I'm still going to say it,
because when you know, you know,and what I mean by that is when
you get to a point where thequestions start to connect back
to the world and the societythat we're living in and starts
to show importance.
(06:56):
That is the topic.
This topic will make youconsider how it affects our
relationship with other peopleand you get to a point where you
know that this is a topic thatis significant and you can't
wait to share to everyone elsewhy this topic is significant
and why they should care.
You can also start with thequestion how does or how has
(07:17):
this topic impacted me?
From here, ask yourself thequestion does it impact other
people in the same way?
Is there a broader topic that Ican connect it back to?
But if you're stuck at threetopics or seven topics or no
topics, keep reading and findingthings that interest you.
I recently read a piece by RuthBehar, an anthropologist at the
(07:38):
University of Michigan, and heradvice to writers is to read
more, write less, which meansthat you can only write as well
as what you read.
Yeah, sit on that for a littlebit.
If you feel like that.
The topic you've chose isoverdone or there's not much
more to it, chances are youhaven't read enough or found
(07:58):
enough information to add to theconversation, meaning you
haven't found enough informationto form your own opinion about
it.
So while we're all dreadinghaving to read more and would
rather watch TikTok videos allday why not go down a rabbit
hole of information and explorea topic more in depth to see
what else there is that you canwrite about and comment about
(08:20):
and form an opinion about?
And at this point it's a perfecttransition to part two of this
episode and my worst nightmarehow in the world do you write a
good speech?
There's so much that I couldsay about composition and
writing, because it's beenhaunting me for the past couple
of months okay, in all honesty,it's been haunting me since I've
(08:41):
started doing speech and debatebecause I just can't write for
the life of me.
I feel like my ownperfectionist tendencies
prevents me from being able towrite something, and I just get
so overwhelmed that I stop, andI just don't want to do it
anyway.
So, in my opinion, writing isone of the hardest things to do
(09:03):
well, and writing a speech thatresonates with a wider audience
is even harder.
I'm sure by now that you mayknow the general tips of writing
a speech, for example, writingit in an essay format with three
body paragraphs, anintroduction and a conclusion.
Or writing with an audience inmind, knowing that your judges
are probably going to be parents, and writing just to get the
(09:26):
words out.
All of which are amazing tipsand things to think about when
you're writing.
So instead of repeating thesethings, as I'm sure I and other
speechies have rambled aboutthem in other OneClap episodes,
I want to tell you something alittle different.
Instead, let's talk about whatto do after you've researched
and picked out all of the piecesof information you want to
(09:48):
include, or what to do onceyou've completed your first
draft.
I'll say, always start out witha first draft, or even just
free writing.
So, once you've collectedenough information to be able to
form a coherent opinion aboutthe topic, just yap on the page
and I mean literally write whatcomes to your brain for 20 to 30
(10:09):
minutes, and after time's up,you're left with something that
is new could take you to newerplaces for your speech, give
different directions and reallybring your attention to things
that you haven't consideredbefore.
But, most importantly, you havewords on a page.
It's a good start and usuallyafter 30 minutes I know I can
(10:29):
type about a thousand words,which means you should basically
be finished with your speechAlmost.
Obviously, it needs a littlebit more TLC, but it's a good
start.
When the ideas are there, youcan now start thinking about
composition, and I want you tothink about writing a speech
like composing music if you're amusic person, but if you're not
(10:49):
, think about writing a speechas if you were writing a story
or a narrative, with thebeginning, a rising action, a
climax, a falling action and aconclusion.
This is because a well-writtenspeech requires good pacing.
I think this is something thatall of us have heard whispers
about but may not have talked indepth about.
I know I saw this happening onthe national final stage this
(11:12):
year when I was watching OratoryInfo and while listening to
their words and seeing theirperformance, it hit me that
pacing has a lot to do with howwell the audience is receiving
your message.
Let's face it sitting throughan Oratory or Info round can be
so excruciating because they'relong, the information can be
heavy and our attention spansright now can't handle it,
(11:35):
especially after we've beencompeting the whole day.
So when you're composing yourspeech and figuring out what
parts go where, think about howyou want to capture your
audience's attention andremember that these next 10
minutes is your time to playwith.
So if putting two veryemotional stories next to each
other is too much to handle allat once, break it up into
(11:58):
different chunks and put intodifferent parts of your speech.
If you're giving too muchcontext and taking too long to
get to the point, then thinkabout shortening your
explanation or phrasing it in adifferent way.
Are there too many jokes goingon all at once?
Does the joke not even belongin this section?
Do people even understand thejoke, etc.
A good way to figure out wherethe slow points of your speech
(12:21):
is or where part of your speechdoesn't make sense is to just
ask your teammates, coaches oreven friends and family members
to listen to your speech andhave them count however many
times they started to daydreamor got distracted by something
else happening in the room.
I'm also a big advocate forrecording yourself performing
and watching yourself perform.
I know it's cringy and I knowwe never want to do it, but I
(12:45):
think that this is the best wayfor you to improve your own
performance, because you canalso give an opinion on what
worked and what didn't work.
And my last piece of advice onwriting is that everyone has
their own style.
It's like a thumbprint.
No two essays about the sametopic is going to sound the same
, I mean, unless they're bothwritten with the help of ChatGPT
(13:07):
.
But use this to your advantageyour own writing style, not chat
GPT.
If you say you suck at writingor think that other people write
better than you do, that's notnecessarily true.
They just have a differentstyle that suits them better.
And I'm not talking aboutmaking grammar mistakes or
anything similar to that,because if your writing is
(13:28):
convoluted or has mistakes ormakes no sense or you don't have
the right grammar, your friends, coaches and teachers and
literally anyone listening toyour speech can tell you that,
and it's an easy fix.
I'm talking about the way thatyou construct your sentences,
the way that you explain thepieces of information that you
found and the way you analyzeyour topic.
That is unique to you and yourwriting style.
(13:50):
Also, know that your writingstyle can change throughout the
year because as you hear otherspeeches and gain more feedback
and read other things, you'llrealize that there could have
been a better way to phrasecertain sentences to get the
message across clearer.
And at this point I'll also tellyou to read your past speeches,
read your old writingassignments from English classes
or other piece of writing thatyou've done to get a better
(14:13):
sense of how you are as a writer.
Then, when you've figured it out, hone in on your style of
writing and play around with it,change it up, use it to your
advantage, because, as everyonearound you in speech and debate
will tell you, your voice isyour own and the way you explain
things will bring new andexciting questions to the table,
(14:33):
because it's you and you areyour own unique person.
Well, that's it, folks.
If you have any questions orcomments you would like to share
with me, please, please, please, feel free to reach out to me
through email, which you canfind on my Tabroom Paradigm page
, or even through Instagram.
I promise I'll answer.
I will always answer, because Ilove talking about writing and
(14:57):
how to write well, even thoughit sounds really nerdy, but
that's just where my life hasbrought me.
So, other than that, I want togive a big thank you to Lyle for
the One Clap Camp series andall the work that you've been
doing on the podcast andespecially inspiring this
episode.
I also want to thank Addy, ella, brianna, josh, lindsay and
Marky, as well as my friendsfrom California, eric and Kai,
(15:19):
for sharing with me their wisdomand processes on speech writing
.
That's all from me, and I hopeyou can survive the clapocalypse
.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Oh my gosh.
Thanks so much to Yuyu for herwork here at Camp One Clap.
It's great to hear you usethoughts on writing platform
speeches and learn from her hereat camp one clap.
What's new at camp tomorrow?
Well, friend of the podcast,josh Thompson, is back to chat
about facing fears and speechand debate.
You're not going to want tomiss that.
Remember social mediachallenges are live for every
(15:48):
day that.
We have camp this August andwe'll see you tomorrow campers.
Oh yeah, and sorry about allthe dumb jokes.
I know, I know I've been makingapocalypse jokes like there's
no tomorrow.
My bad For Camp One Clap.
This is Camp Director Wileysigning off.
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