As was done for the Catholic Forensic League (CFL) national tournament, Extemp Central provides you with this topic area analysis for the United States extemp portion of next week’s NFL national tournament in Kansas City, Missouri.
Since this is my third year writing a topic area analysis for the NFL National tournament for the website, I’ll rehash my thoughts about why I think United States extemp is more difficult than International extemp. These thoughts were printed in last season’s topic area analysis:
First, it is very difficult to write thirteen rounds of questions about the United States. Yes, we are a great country and many of the things that take place here establish policy that significantly alters the globe. However, trying to come up with nearly thirty questions per round about issues only in the United States is very difficult. This is compounded by a problem all extempers are familiar with at some local tournaments: a lack of quality questions. I remember senior year the first question I drew was “Why does the right hate public education?” I also have encountered questions about whether prisoners should have to work, questions about timber companies, and questions about water problems in Utah. All of these questions show that there is a depth to U.S. extemp that can get very nit picky and there might come a time in the tournament when an extemper is going to be forced to talk about an issue they may never have heard of or not have a lot of substantial material to support a speech in their file boxes.
Second, most judges are more familiar with topics found in U.S. extemp rounds than International extemp rounds. If an informal poll was conducted at the national tournament, I would be willing to bet that there are more judges who know about the current Supreme Court nominee than about Britain’s expenses scandal. This presents U.S. extempers with two issues. The first issue is that judges are going to be somewhat aware of what you are talking about so it is harder for those extempers to “b.s.” their way through rounds (although that may work to many educated competitors advantage). Another issue is that for some topics, such as abortion, affirmative action, etc. that are quite controversial, judges have biases that are tough to shake. I remember drawing abortion, Title IX, and slave reparations in round ten of NFL my junior year and I am convinced that the bad topic draw I achieved in that round and the biases my judges were bound to have, was part of the reason why my cumulative score took a hit.
As with the CFL topic area analysis, this topic area analysis is meant to provide some insight into the thirteen topic areas that United States extempers will encounter at the national tournament. According to some reports, a new batch of question writers will be putting together this year’s topics, which will hopefully eliminate the ridiculous questions seen in last year’s final round such as “Yes we can. Or can we?” Since I am putting together the USX and IX topic area analysis this year and because thirteen topic areas cover a lot of ground, this year’s topic area analysis will have a brief paragraph summary explaining each topic area and then there will be bulleted points detailing issues that extempers might confront in each topic area. Keep in mind, this topic brief is not sanctioned by the National Forensic League and I am not on any panels to write questions for the tournament. My analysis of these topic areas is through my years of experience competing at the tournament and judging rounds and merely predicts what you will encounter in the prep room in Kansas City. Unlike previous years this topic brief will not contain practice questions. This is because of the timing of the release of this topic area analysis and other constraints upon the writer. Instead, this week there will be thirteen questions for USX and IX, one for each topic area. Extempers can also look back at previous week’s questions on the site to help prepare them for the tournament. I apologize for any inconvenience that might cause.