<p>This is a serious question. I've been wondering. How does one go about winning those debate competitions? Or speeches?
Like American Legion? Tournament of Champions? Nationals? How? What does it take?
Just curious..any experienced debaters wanna share their opinions?</p>
<p>Normally you’d have to win state to advance to nationals.I think if you’re a NFL member you get invited to special meets, which could get you into different types of competitions.</p>
<p>To qualify for the national tournament sponsored by the National Forensics League, you have to qualify through district tournaments. For the Tournament of Champions, for policy debate at least, I think you have to get two “bids”, which you can get by doing well at certain, designated tournaments.</p>
<p>In where I live, it’s different. Regarding NFL debate tournaments, there is state, and there’s national qualifier. One involves everyone from across the state, the other is only for regional debaters. Thus it’s a lot easier to go to nationals than to win state. The rest of the season is comprised of tournaments at various locations. They have no implications.</p>
<p>I went to National Forensics League tournaments for 3 years under Student Congress.
This was my last year but I did place 3rd in state at 5A.</p>
<p>If you want some help just pm me or post in this thread.</p>
<p>But the question is: how does one develop such speaking/debating skills to perform so well in these debate tournaments? Is it all practice and research? Is there a hidden skill?</p>
<p>^ Well, having natural talent helps, but the key is practicing like, a lot and knowing your arguments well enough that you can say it backwards. I know there are summer programs for speech and debate, like there’s this prestigious one at Northwestern.</p>
<p>um what event do you do? yeah lots of people go to debate camp in the summer, especially for policy debate</p>
<p>Not to hijack your thread but, is Public Forum better than Classic? I feel like switching from Classic to PF.</p>
<p>oh i dont debate, i was just curious as to how they do it ya know ;]</p>
<p>For the ToC you have to do well at national-wide tournament like Harvard, Emory, Yale, Glenbrooks, etc. For the qualification to NFL’s you must compete in a district tournament but if I’m not mistaken, it’s too late to get any qualifications for NFL’s, CFL’s, or ToC.</p>
<p>what do you guys mean when you say “classic”?</p>