come watch MIT students compete for prizes in the "MIT Can Talk: Speaking Competition" on Feb 2nd from 3-5pm in 6-120! Participants recite four to five minutes worth of material in English that relates to the competition theme for this year. This material can be original, or it can be an excerpt from a speech, a literary work, a poem, a story, etc. Prizes will be awarded by a panel of judges to those who are best able to deliver their material to a live audience. This event is open to everyone in the MIT Community, and audience members will also win door prizes!
Add yourself to the mitcantalk-announce mailing list for reminders about general upcoming events related to MIT Can Talk!
Competition Theme: "Proving Them Wrong"
Many engineers and scientists in the past were told by their contemporaries that their intuition was incorrect or that their ideas were impossible to realize. Perhaps these individuals lacked the necessary credentials to be taken seriously, perhaps their approach contradicted what was known at the time, or perhaps it was politics. Nevertheless, undeterred by these naysayers, they continued to persevere and to pursue their designs/experiments/theories, eventually proving their contemporaries wrong.
This is the theme of this year's competition: "Proving Them Wrong", and your material can speak to any aspect of this.
Eligibility
Any current MIT student is eligible to enter. You must register for the competition by midnight, January 27, 2012. Registration begins Dec 15, 2011.
The first 20 students that 1) register, 2) qualify for the preliminary round by attending the prerequisite number of workshop hours, and 3) participate in the preliminary round using the material they registered with, will get an "MIT Can Talk" Tshirt!
Winners of previous MIT Can Talk competitions are ineligible.
Prizes
Prizes of $800, $600 and $400 will be awarded to the top three speakers respectively. There will also be an Audience Choice Award of $300, so yes - someone could walk away with $1100!
Inspiration from the Literature
Need to get the creative juices flowing? There are plenty of examples of "Proving Them Wrong" - it doesn't have to be in the context of an engineer or scientist. For example, here are some sample ideas for material from literature (due to Tony Eng and Wyn Kelley):
Checklist
After registering, competitors should:
More on each below.
Workshops
Competitors are required to attend at least four hours worth of the MIT Can Talk workshops, but are encouraged to attend all of them. They address different aspects of speaking, so may help in your preparation for the competition.
Clinic Hours
The Clinic is an optional resource available to you should you want to do a no-risk dryrun and receive feedback. The Clinic will be staffed by individual(s) who are not involved in any of the judging. The Clinic will likely be held from 2:30-5pm in 32-144 on February 1st. Come anytime; no appointment necessary.
Preliminary Round
There will be a preliminary round of judging to narrow down the pool of competitors to the Top 15. Preliminary rounds will take place on Feb 1st, in the late afternoon/early evening, 6-9pm in 32-144. Judges are recent MIT Alumni and possible current graduate students.
You must fulfill the workshop requirement in order to qualify for the preliminary round.
Competititors will not be attending all three hours! Instead, you will be assigned a 30 minute block within this three hour period, and you must be present for the entire half hour block, as you will speak sometime during your assigned block (random order) and serve as an audience members for the other competitors speaking during the same block.
If you have a conflict with your assigned block, we will try our best to reschedule you, but there is no guarantee we can accommodate every request to reschedule. Competitors will be notified of their assigned block via email; this email will also contain instructions for whom to contact in case of conflict.
The Top 15 will be notified that same evening - i.e. you will know that you are in the Top 15, but not what ranking. All competitors in the Top 15 are expected to attend the Final Round, but NOTE THAT only those ending up in the Top 12 will actually be competing in the Final Round.
Final Round
The Final Round will take place on Thurs, Feb 2nd from 3-5pm in 6-120. Final Round judges include Professor Albert Meyer, Deputy Dean JoAnne Yates, Professor Alan Brody, Professor Lawrence Susskind and Professor Erich Ippen.
The Top 12 competitors will be competing in random order chosen the morning of the competition. If a competitor is not present when their name is called, they will be disqualified.
Once the Top 12 have competed, and while the judges have left to deliberate, the remaining competitors from the Top 15 have a chance to speak. Everyone in the Top 15 will have indicated beforehand if they'd be willing to speak should they not fall within the Top 12 - those that do would be eligible for the Audience Choice Award.
Judging Criteria
This competition emphasizes delivery more than content. Aside from the fact that a competitor's material must be appropriate and speak to the competition theme, judging focuses primarily on the competitor's ability to successfully deliver the material to an audience.
This is an exercise in direct address, not theatrical performance. In other words, the audience is not a spectator watching a dramatic performance; rather the audience should feel like an active participant because the competitor should directly engage and address the audience.
As a result, competitors should know their material - i.e. ideally, material should be recited without the use of notes. However, competitors will be allowed one 3x5 index card for notes, but be aware that holding a card already interferes with gesturing, that referring to the card will affect eye contact, and that excessive use of notes will certainly adversely affect both the audience's and the judges' experiences. Note that no one will be checking to see if your material is correctly recited verbatim; so if you happen forget a word or phrase, paraphrase and move on!
Things that the judges will look for include the following, in no particular order:
Competition Rules
Questions or concerns can be directed to the organizers at mitcantalk[at]mit[dot]edu.
Last Modified: Mar 29, 2012