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Help! How do I shorten my debate speech?

I doing a debate on who fired the first shot at Lexington and my speech can only be 2 minutes long. It is about 30 secs. too long! There is nothing to take out and I am already reading very fast! Any tips?

Post your speech and we’ll take a look!

Tip – DO NOT just speak faster – will make you sound nervous, unrehearsed and out of control.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 5th, 2010 at 7:34 pm and is filed under debate speech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

13 Responses to “Help! How do I shorten my debate speech?”

  1. Summarize.
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  2. Take out anything that doesn’t directly relate to the main points. Other than that you may have to increase your rate of speach.
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  3. throw w/e you have in the garbage and go up their say " N’sync baby!!!" you will receive an A… i guarantee it
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  4. Where’s the speech?
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  5. Post your speech and we’ll take a look!

    Tip – DO NOT just speak faster – will make you sound nervous, unrehearsed and out of control.
    References :

  6. Todos ojos en mí on March 6th, 2010 at 3:02 am

    i know how you feel! try condensing phrases into single words and TRY VERY HARD to read through the speech and take out anything that is not as powerful as the rest of your points.
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  7. change some phrases into words… will make it out shorter and it will make you sound smarter :)
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  8. try shortening the speech by changing the way you word sentences. Search for any sentences that might not need to be addressed, and hopefully that should help alot. Since I dont know what exactly you wrote, this is really all I can do to help you. Good luck with the speech!
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  9. either you give few points with good example or all the points that you have without any example.
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  10. Work towards the irreducible minimum. Make sure every word is significant.

    Read Lincoln’s Gettysburgh Address as an example. It reads for only about 5 or 6 minutes, but it covers topics ranging from the Revolutionary War to the Declaration of Independance to the Civil War to the Battle of Gettysburgh to winning the Civil War and the survival of the country.
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  11. I don’t 30 secs will kill you. It’s certainly better than being too short.
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  12. Slow down (If you speak too fast you won’t be understood and will get zero points from the judges).

    List each sentence separately. Then prioritize each sentence by its importance and likely impact (your greatest impact statement may be the last one).

    What’s important is the IMPACT of your speech, not its length.
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  13. barefootmodel on March 6th, 2010 at 5:53 am

    take a few lines from the begining, a few from the middle and end and only say the most important parts. summarize and don’t talk to fast, good luck
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