Speech & Debate is made up of (not surprisingly) speech and debate events. Collectively, we often refer to this activity as forensics--having to do with legal or judicial matters. What this means, then, is that speech and debate have been historicly grounded in matters of the court.
However, in modern practice, speech and debate events can be divided into two broad categories: Individual Events (for more information select the individual events tab) and debate (for more information select the parliamentary debate tab.
Individual Events can further be divided into three categories: limited preparation, platform, and interpretation. The limited preparation events (impromptu and extemporaneous) rely on the students' background reading and research and apply their knowledge to a current events topic or literary quotation. Because these topics are distributed at the tournament, students have limited time to prepare for them in advance of the competition. Platform speeches (persuasion, informative, communication analysis, and after dinner speaking) are prepared by the student in advance of the tournament. Students select the topics and write the speeches. Finally, interpretation events (drama, prose, poetry, duo, and programmed oral interpretation) are readings of literature that students prepare in advance. The student's task with these speeches is to "interpret," or help the audience find meaning in, the readings that have been chosen by the speaker.
There are several forms of debate that are practiced across the country. We focus on a style of debate known as Natinal Parliamentary Debate Association (NPDA). With NPDA style debate, students research current events before the tournament (much like in extemporaneous speaking) but do not know the topic in advance of the debate. Topics are varied by debate round and are announced just prior to the debate. Parliamentary debate is two-person debate. On occasion, some tournaments offer Lincoln-Douglas style debate which is individual debate similar to that practiced in high schools.
