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The ideal extemp speech should utilize, on average, seven to ten sources. Most extempers get their sources from newspapers and magazines, but they fail to enhance their analysis by incorporating a diverse array of sources from different publications and/or geographic locations. Ensuring that your speeches have good source diversity can create more insightful analysis of your topic and also ensure that you are getting a variety of perspectives to consult in order to answer a particular question.
This strategy piece will discuss the importance of source diversity and provide tips so that you can make sure to avoid consulting only a few resources in a round.
The Importance of Source Diversity
Source diversity is an unappreciated art of extemporaneous speaking, but it is one that extempers that want to achieve high levels of competitive success should learn. With the Internet there are a variety of sources that extempers can consult for information: newspapers, magazines, think tanks, journal articles, blogs, public opinion surveys, etc. As more extempers move their files to digital format, replacing the paper filing of previous years, it becomes a lot easier to cut sources from a variety of locations without having to literally carry all the weight of what you have cut to tournaments. However, despite having more avenues of information open to them, I still see extempers struggle to diversify their sources when creating a speech on a domestic or international topic.
For example, I have seen extempers give a speech on Thailand where the only source that they consulted was The Economist. They may have had an article from The New York Times thrown in, but almost 80% or more of the speech was based on Economist articles. This is not to badmouth The Economist, which has been an excellent source for extempers for generations (I have always wondered how much money The Economist makes off of extemp programs on a yearly basis), but what do you think the problem is with an extempers only consulting The Economist at the expense of other sources? Well, the first problem is that when I am hearing this speech on Thailand I am only getting sourced information from one publication. What happens if that publication happens to be biased? What if its writers from Asia have a very anti-Thai government perspective? Another problem is that The Economist is published from Great Britain. Although it sends correspondents to Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and other regions, its editing board is based on Britain and is away from the action on the ground. Sources from Asia like The Asia Times, The Hindu, or The Bangkok Post might provide more insight on Thailand’s political problems because they are closer to the region. Granted, they might have a higher likelihood of being biased because of their proximity to the area, but if these sources are cited in a round I get the impression that the extempers has consulted regional information on the subject for a more balanced speech.
The same issue can apply to domestic speeches. I have seen extempers discuss a political event and only refer to The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Politico. Now, these are fine sources when covering national political events, but what about other sources that exist in the country that have decent domestic coverage and also have very detailed opinion-editorial pages? Why not also cite The Los Angeles Times for a West Coast perspective on the events in Washington? Why not also include The Chicago Tribune? Better yet, The Christian Science Monitor can provide insightful political analysis when it comes to daily newspapers and extempers rarely consult this source. Despite its name, The Christian Science Monitor is not an element of the “religious right” and it arguably has the best international coverage of any American news source. The East Coast does tend to dominate the news industry. Think about the sources published on the East Coast: The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, The Charlotte Observer, The Boston Globe, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, etc. However, you should make sure when you are planning on cutting sources that you include sources from the East Coast and the West Coast. After all, is it not better to cite The Los Angeles Times, The Sacramento Bee, and The San Francisco Chronicle if you are talking about California than The New York Times, which is farther from the action?
Extempers should also realize that they can incorporate a diversity of sources in terms of the type of sources that they consult. Very rarely do I see extempers incorporate books and this year when judging the Montgomery Bell Extemp Round Robin I only heard a book cited once in a speech, which is unusual. I highlighted how you can use books to aid your analysis in the last strategy piece and I urge extempers to follow its advice. Extempers can also incorporate journals like The Washington Quarterly and Foreign Affairs into their analysis. These sources can take longer to read, but they go much more in-depth than newspaper and magazine articles and they are often written by academics or prominent public officials. Think of it this way. If you were to give a speech on the current war in Afghanistan would it be more impressive if you were a judge to hear a “regular” newspaper article on the war from a traditional news source or would it make your ears perk up to hear an extempers reference an article on Afghanistan written by former Defense Secretary Robert Gates? The second source would not only have more credibility with the audience, but would also impress your judges and that can never hurt your ranks in a round.
Also, it is somewhat alarming to me that when extempers discuss political events that they never want to reference public opinion polls. There are a variety of websites that you can go to so that you can acquire this information for free. Gallup, Rasmussen, and the Pew Research Center provide excellent poll data that is presented in visual format or in quick write-ups. Since the midterm elections and the 2016 presidential election will appear as questions in tournaments for the next several seasons, extempers should continually reference these websites. If you are giving a speech on Hillary Clinton’s presidential prospects would it not be a good idea to cite a poll to show where she stands in relation to other Democratic candidates and potential Republican challengers? Similarly, with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie engaged in a traffic scandal you might be presented with a question about how it could impact his presidential prospects. To answer this question it would be a great idea to incorporate poll data to illustrate how national voters perceive the scandal and if it is hurting him against other Republican primary candidates.
Therefore, having source diversity can help make your arguments more convincing. By using a combination of polling centers (where appropriate), think tanks, journal articles, books, newspapers, and opinion-editorials you can appear like a more polished and informed speaker. Using a variety of these sources can also help you stand out from your competition and being unique and memorable in a round can greatly assist your ranks if you are placed in a tough room.
Tips for Incorporating Source Diversity
The most immediate way to incorporate more diversity in your speeches is to make sure that you are cutting the correct amount of sources. If you are on a large team, it is beneficial to establish a “clipping schedule” where each person on the team is responsible to going to certain websites and cutting sources. For example, one member of your team may have a weekly responsibility to go to The New York Times and The Asia Times and getting articles from those websites while another team member might cut The Los Angeles Times and Der Spiegel (an underrated source that is a German magazine). It is best to have your teammates cut one domestic and international source if you are in a state that does mixed extemp because that way all teammates get exposure to domestic and international news events. If you are in a state that splits the extemp categories then I would suggest assigning domestic sources to the domestic extempers and international sources to the international extempers. If you on a smaller team that means people may need to cut more sources to ensure that your file boxes are not overly reliant on a few sources, but you can rotate on a weekly basis what people cut to get around this. For example, one week someone may cut The New York Times and The Financial Times and then another week they might cut The Christian Science Monitor and MercoPress. You can also make people go to think tanks or public opinion websites, which have fewer articles than a newspaper website, and cut those articles for a given week.
Here is a quick listing of good sources to consult. This is not a comprehensive listing, but are some of the “greatest hits” that are out there:
Domestic Newspapers & Magazines:
–Foreign Policy
–Newsweek
–The Atlantic
–The Chicago Tribune
–The Christian Science Monitor
–The Los Angeles Times
–The New York Times
–The San Francisco Chroncile
–The Washington Post
–The Wall Street Journal
International Newspapers & Magazines:
–AllAfrica (this is a database with lots of African newspapers)
–Der Spiegel
–MercoPress
–The Asia Times
–The Economist
–The Financial Times of London
–The Guardian
–The Latin American Herald Tribune
–The Hindu
–The Jerusalem Post
–The Middle East Times
–The South China Morning Post
Think Tanks
-Foreign Policy in Focus
-The Brookings Institution
-The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
-The Council on Foreign Relations
-The Heritage Foundation
-The International Crisis Group
-The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
-Upside Down World (a leftist Latin American think tank)
Journals
–Current History
–Foreign Affairs
–The Global Policy Journal
–The Harvard International Review
–The Middle East Journal
–The National Law Journal
–The Washington Quarterly
Another way to make sure that you are incorporating diversity in your speeches is to make sure that you do not cite the same publication more than twice in your speech. This means that if you are giving your speech on Thailand and have lots of Economist articles that you should not use more than two of them in the speech and make sure to incorporate information from other sources. If you cannot do this, then you will have to use what you have in the round, but you should make a mental note to yourself that you need to acquire more sources on Thailand so that does not happen in the future. You can also make it a goal to incorporate at least two policy journal, think tank, book, or non-newspaper related citations in your speech for a round. This might not be attainable if you are talking about American agriculture and do not have non-newspaper sources to consult, but you should always make it a goal to incorporate non-traditional sources into your speech if the situation warrants it.
Keep in mind that you cannot read everything out there. There are only twenty-four hours in the day and you have other school and extracurricular responsibilities. However, you should make it a goal to read a variety of different sources over the course of the competition year. Push yourself to look at book reviews (consult our previous strategy piece for how to use these in a round), opinion-editorials (keep in mind that The New York Times will be liberal while The Wall Street Journal will be conservative), think tanks, and journal articles. You will quickly find that they will open up your mind to new perspectives and you can use the information in them to enrich your speeches and make yourself a more knowledgeable competitor.