Young Writers Society

Hello there, Angie. Since it's always sad to see something go unreviewed for several days, here I am to fix that.

Your title says this is an oratory for a debate, but a debate on what? A little bit of context would have been really helpful in reviewing this as I (and other potential reviewers) would have been able to tell you whether you were making the point you were supposed to be making really well, or if you strayed off a bit in a slightly different direction. As it stands, I'm assuming that your topic has something to do with admitting "I don't know", and so all my comments will be made accordingly.

With that said, you do a fair bit of idea jumping. One good example is the transition between your anecdote and the introduction society's mentality towards admitting "I don't know". Right now, the transition is quite abrupt and practically nonexistent, which makes for a bit of a non sequitur, something you should avoid in a debate. The best way to fix this rocky transition would be to tie the societal view more directly with your own situation. Right now, you take two sentences to tie together your anecdote to society's view of being uncertain, and making the connection with only one sentence would go quite a ways in more directly making the connection between the micro and the macro levels. Something as simple as "My situation is probably familiar to you as our society has become afraid..." would help smooth out the transition and make the connection more evident and logical.

The other main issue with this oratory was the condescension. Not only does condescension alienate part of your audience, it also bloats your language and distracts from your main points. The more distractions there are from your main points, the more likely they are to be missed, which is something you cannot afford in a debate, especially if the debate is spoken rather than written.

The worst case of condescension is this section:

Okay, so for those of you who don't know what that meant, I'll break it down for you. Simply put, our brain reacts the same to a broken heart as it would to a broken arm.

Condescension has no place in a debate, and you're getting points not for how fancily or technically you can argue a point, but how well you argue those points. Using simpler, less-technical language from the start allows for more people to understand your points without condescension, which can only help strengthen your arguments. Instead of stating all the technical terms for the brain regions and then dumbing down the explanation, the better approach would have been to explain the study's results in layman terms for the benefit of all. The fewer words you spend explaining a point or concept, the more words you free up to argue your points without increasing the risk of losing the attention of your audience.

The condescension also runs completely counter to your otherwise informal and inclusive tone, which is one of the strongest elements of this oratory since it effectively taps into the ethos of your audience.

Overall, watch your transitions and ideas more closely. You have quite a few non sequiturs, and they're quite distracting. All the ideas you express should either already have been mentioned earlier in the oratory, especially in your concluding statement, or be introduced as needed and in a way that directly ties into the ideas already presented. You also need to cut out all traces of condescension as such only harms this oratory.