Communication & Expressive Arts

4-H Radio PSA Contest

• Radio PSA’s will be submitted on tape two weeks prior to the Regional Contest.
• The time limit for PSA’s is 60 seconds.
• The 4-H’er must enter the PSA Contest located in the district where they reside.
• Radio PSA’s must be submitted on cassette tape or a CD (which is playable on a CD player, not a computer).
• The P.S.A. must be on some aspect of the 4-H program and be general enough that it could be used any place in Nebraska.

The field of broadcasting continues to influence a much wider array of career possibilities. With the expansion of radio station formats and cable TV, people need broader communications skill at an earlier age to fit into today's job market. The ability to write and deliver a message which conveys a complete thought in sixty seconds or less is the reality of both broadcast and personal communications. For this reason, some counties and districts have added a Public Service Announcement division.

For the Public Service Announcement (P.S.A.) division of public speaking the emphasis is on the presentation of a P.S.A. for radio. For that reason, scoring is based on the content of the material and the delivery. Appearance and gestures do not enter into the judging at this time.

Written notes for preparation of P.S.A.'s*

1. Type on one side of the paper only.
2. Double or triple space, and don't type in all capital letters as they are hard to read in quantity.
3. Never continue a paragraph or sentence from one page to another.
4. Never split words or hyphenated phrases from one line to the next.
5. It's best not to use abbreviations as the word they represent may not come to you as they are being spoken.
6. Use contractions whenever possible. Your talk should be given in conversational style, as if you were speaking to just one person. NOTE/EXAMPLE: Contractions should not be used when you wish to emphasize a certain word. But don't shy away from them where appropriate.
7. If a title is to be used for a person mentioned in the talk, give the title first. It's usually best to use the title the first time only when mentioning a person's name.
8. Don't include middle initials unless they are widely known by initials as part of their name. (For example, more people would know the poet e. e. cummings by that name than if a first name were spelled out.)
9. It's important that you be able to pronounce everything correctly. Use phonetic spelling for difficult words.
10. Balance your sentences and keep them simple. Avoid long ones or short choppy ones.
    Simplify numbers or statistics by using generalizations such as: about, nearly, almost, at least.
11. In general:
• Catch the listener's attention with a striking or interesting statement.
• Elaborate or clarify this statement.

-Adapted from "Some tips on Writing Radio Copy" Swanson, Harold B. Information Service Series #29, MN Ext. Service, 1977.