How to Find an Original Oratory Topic That Actually Matters

Why choosing an issue isn't the same as finding an argument.

Every year, thousands of speech and debate students sit down to begin writing their Original Oratory with one very important question:

"What should I talk about?"

And every year, thousands of students come up with the exact same answers.

Social media. Mental health. Peer pressure. Perfectionism. Climate change.

All important issues. All worthy of discussion. All topics that have probably appeared in more Original Oratories than the phrase "According to a study conducted by Harvard University."

But here's the problem: having an important topic doesn't automatically mean you have an interesting speech.

In fact, some of the most compelling Original Oratories begin with subjects that seem completely insignificant.

A text message. An awkward conversation. A stranger who smiles at you. The strange discomfort of asking someone for help.

The difference isn't necessarily what you choose to talk about. It's what you discover beneath it.

1. Stop Looking for Problems. Start Looking for Behaviors.

One of the biggest mistakes students make when selecting an OO topic is beginning with an enormous societal problem.

Take loneliness, for example.

Loneliness is a serious issue. It affects millions of people, contributes to poor health, and has become a major subject of public discussion.

But what exactly is your argument?

That loneliness is bad?

Congratulations. You've successfully identified something that almost everyone already agrees with.

A competitive Original Oratory needs to do more than convince an audience that something unfortunate exists. It needs to explain why that problem exists, what we're misunderstanding about it, and how our own behavior might be contributing to it.

So instead of starting with loneliness, let's start with something smaller.

Imagine wanting to text an old friend, opening their contact, typing "Hey!" and then deleting the message.

Why?

Because you don't actually need anything from them.

Suddenly, we've discovered something interesting.

Why do we feel uncomfortable reaching out to people without a reason? When did friendship become something that requires a purpose?

Now we have the beginning of an argument.

Perhaps our relationships have become increasingly transactional. Perhaps we've learned to evaluate human connections based on what they provide rather than what they mean.

And perhaps that mindset is contributing to the loneliness we claim to hate.

Notice what happened.

We didn't abandon the issue of loneliness. We found a more interesting way to explain it.

The lesson: A topic tells your audience what you're discussing. An argument tells them what they're failing to understand.

2. Find the Contradiction

Some of the strongest OO topics emerge from a simple observation:

People say they believe one thing, but their behavior suggests something entirely different.

We celebrate individuality, yet desperately want everyone to approve of us.

We encourage vulnerability, yet treat asking for help as a weakness.

We demand honesty, yet become uncomfortable when someone tells us something we don't want to hear.

We claim to value human connection, yet hesitate to speak to people unless we have a reason.

These contradictions are valuable because they create tension.

And tension creates questions.

Why do we behave this way? What taught us to do it? Who benefits from it? What happens when everyone participates?

Consider the subject of independence.

A student might begin with:

"Americans value independence too much."

That's an opinion, but it's not yet a particularly compelling argument.

Now consider:

"We've become so obsessed with proving we don't need anyone that we've forgotten how to ask for help."

Suddenly, independence isn't the villain. Our misunderstanding of independence is.

That's a much more interesting argument because it challenges something the audience probably considers a virtue.

The goal isn't to tell people that everything they believe is wrong.

It's to make them reconsider something they've never thought to question.

3. Look for the Hidden Assumption

Behind many everyday behaviors is an assumption we've accepted without realizing it.

For example:

Behavior: We jump to conclusions when we don't have enough information.

Common explanation: People are judgmental.

Hidden assumption: Having an answer feels safer than admitting we don't know.

That last observation opens the door to an entirely different speech.

Imagine receiving a text message that says, "Can we talk?"

Three words. No context.

Within thirty seconds, you've convinced yourself you're getting dumped, fired, expelled, or investigated by a federal agency.

You haven't even responded yet.

Why does your brain do that?

Because uncertainty is uncomfortable. And sometimes, we'd rather believe a terrible explanation than tolerate not having one.

Now the speech isn't simply about judging others. It's about our psychological need for closure and how our discomfort with uncertainty can lead us to accept incomplete explanations as truth.

We've moved from a behavior to the mechanism behind it.

That's where strong OO arguments often begin.

Don't just ask what people are doing. Ask what belief makes that behavior seem reasonable.

4. Make Sure Your Topic Has Somewhere to Go

Not every interesting observation can sustain a ten-minute speech.

You might notice that people say "literally" when they mean "figuratively."

Interesting? Maybe.

Annoying? Absolutely.

Enough material for a meaningful Original Oratory? Probably not.

Before committing to a topic, test whether it can support four essential questions.

First: Why does this happen?

Can you identify a psychological, cultural, or social mechanism that explains the behavior?

Second: Why does it matter?

Can you connect the behavior to meaningful consequences beyond mild inconvenience?

Third: What does it look like in a real person's life?

Can you imagine a specific moment, relationship, or experience that reveals the human cost?

Fourth: What can we actually do about it?

Can you propose meaningful behavioral changes that address the underlying cause?

Let's return to transactional relationships.

• Cause: We've learned to evaluate relationships through usefulness and exchange.

• Harm: Genuine connection becomes harder when every interaction seems to require a purpose.

• Human experience: Someone wants companionship but avoids reaching out because they don't want to bother anyone.

• Solution: Practice reaching out without an agenda, stop keeping score in relationships, and make room for small, everyday connections.

Now we have an argument capable of supporting an entire speech.

If you can explain the cause but can't identify meaningful consequences, your topic may be too trivial.

If you can identify devastating consequences but can't explain the mechanism behind them, your argument may be too broad.

And if your only solution is "raise awareness," you probably haven't identified the problem precisely enough.

5. The Best Topics Often Make the Speaker Uncomfortable, Too

There's another quality worth looking for in a strong Original Oratory topic.

It should challenge the speaker as well as the audience.

It's easy to write a speech about how terrible other people are.

People are selfish. People are judgmental. People are addicted to technology.

Conveniently, the speaker is apparently the one person who has escaped all these problems.

But a more compelling speech recognizes that the behavior being criticized is often something we participate in ourselves.

Maybe you've ignored a friend's message because you didn't know what to say.

Maybe you've judged someone based on a single interaction.

Maybe you've insisted you were fine when you desperately needed help.

That recognition changes the relationship between the speaker and the audience.

Instead of standing above everyone and announcing what's wrong with society, you're standing beside them and asking why we keep doing something that's hurting us.

This creates room for humor, honesty, and eventually, genuine emotional impact.

And it gives your speech something particularly valuable: credibility.

6. The 3P Topic Discovery Exercise

Before opening a research database or searching for "best Original Oratory topics," try this exercise.

Step 1: Watch stand-up comedy. Seriously.

Some of the best observers of human behavior aren't psychologists or sociologists. They're comedians.

Think about what makes a great stand-up comedian funny. They take something completely ordinary, something we've all experienced a thousand times, and point out just how ridiculous it actually is.

Why do we say "no worries" when we're clearly worried? Why do we tell people "we should hang out sometime" when we have absolutely no intention of hanging out? Why do we rehearse imaginary arguments in the shower and somehow still lose?

Comedians hold up a mirror to society and expose the absurdity of our everyday interactions, habits, and decisions.

And that's exactly what a strong Original Oratory often does.

The difference is that a comedian might stop once the audience laughs. An orator asks why we behave that way, what it reveals about us, and whether the consequences are more serious than we realize.

As you watch stand-up, pay attention to the observations behind the jokes. Don't just write down what made you laugh. Write down what made you think, "Wait, why do we do that?"

Step 2: Watch documentaries, especially biographical documentaries.

Here's a difficult truth: most Original Oratory competitors are between 13 and 17 years old.

And while teenagers are perfectly capable of making insightful arguments about the world, there's only so much life you can experience in seventeen years. You've probably never had to navigate a forty-year marriage, raise a child, confront the loss of a lifelong career, or make decisions that affect an entire community.

That doesn't mean you can't write about those experiences. It means you need to learn from people who have lived them.

Documentaries, particularly those centered on individual lives, allow us to encounter perspectives that might otherwise remain completely unfamiliar.

A documentary about an aging athlete might reveal how deeply we connect our identities to achievement. A film about someone caring for a parent with dementia might challenge our assumptions about love, obligation, and independence. A biography of a public figure might expose the complicated relationship between success and personal sacrifice.

These stories help us recognize that human behavior is rarely as simple as good versus bad, right versus wrong, or strong versus weak.

And that nuance is essential to writing a meaningful OO.

Don't watch documentaries simply to collect sad stories for your harms section. Watch them to understand how people think, why they make difficult choices, and how their experiences complicate your own assumptions.

Step 3: List five ordinary behaviors that confuse, frustrate, or fascinate you.

Now that you've spent some time observing human behavior through comedy and exploring unfamiliar perspectives through documentaries, start looking at your own world.

They don't have to be important observations yet.

Examples:

• People apologize for asking questions.

• We feel guilty when we're not productive.

• We assume silence means someone is upset with us.

• We struggle to accept compliments.

• We avoid conversations that might become uncomfortable.

Step 4: Ask why each behavior exists.

Don't settle for "because society." That's not an explanation. That's what people say when they've run out of explanations.

Dig deeper. What social expectation, fear, psychological tendency, or cultural value might be influencing the behavior?

Step 5: Identify the contradiction or hidden assumption.

What do people believe that makes the behavior seem normal?

What might they be overlooking?

Step 6: Follow the consequences.

Imagine what happens when one person behaves this way.

Now imagine what happens when millions of people do.

Can you identify both an individual cost and a broader social consequence?

Step 7: Write your argument in one sentence.

Try completing this statement:

"We've been taught to believe ________, but that belief is causing us to ________."

This isn't necessarily your final thesis. It's a tool for discovering the argument you want to make.

For example:

"We've been taught that asking for help is a sign of weakness, but that belief is preventing us from getting the support we need."

Or:

"We've become so uncomfortable with uncertainty that we're willing to accept explanations we haven't earned."

If you can complete that sentence with a clear, specific, and defensible claim, you may have the foundation of a strong Original Oratory.

Final Thought: Find the Question Nobody Is Asking

The strongest Original Oratories don't necessarily introduce audiences to problems they've never heard of.

They introduce audiences to perspectives they've never considered.

Everyone knows loneliness exists.

But not everyone has considered whether our expectations about friendship contribute to it.

Everyone knows people make assumptions.

But not everyone has considered whether our need for certainty makes those assumptions feel necessary.

Everyone knows independence can be valuable.

But not everyone has considered what happens when independence becomes an excuse to avoid vulnerability.

That's the difference between identifying an issue and developing an argument.

So before choosing your next OO topic, don't just ask yourself what's wrong with the world.

Ask yourself what we've all learned to accept, and whether we should have accepted it in the first place.

Because sometimes, the most powerful speeches don't change what an audience sees.

They change what an audience understands.

3P Original Oratory Writing Academy | Lesson 1

Coming Next: Turning a Broad Topic into a Specific Argument

You found an interesting subject. Now how do you narrow it into one clear, defensible idea without trying to solve every problem in the world?