Month: June 2021 Page 1 of 3

The 2021 National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA) National Tournament wrapped up on Saturday, concluding five days of intensive competition and crowning two new national champions. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the NSDA was forced to host the national championships online for the second consecutive year.

Pranav Pattatathunaduvil of Plano West Senior High School (TX) won the International Extemp National Championship, defeating Extemp TOC winner Mukta Dharmapurikar of Durham Academy (NC) by six ranks. Dharmapurikar won the final round by eight ranks over third place finisher, MBA Champion Katherine Rollins of the Potomac School (VA). After the two high and low judges were removed from composite rankings, she was able to cut six ranks from Pattatathunaduvil’s lead but it was not enough to claim the title. The split between the overall national champion and final round national champion is the first in International Extemp since 2017.

Pattatathunaduvil’s win marks an amazing streak of wins for Plano West in International Extemp, which has had three of its competitors win the category over the last four years. It is also the fourth straight year that the winner of International Extemp comes from Texas, a streak that is two years longer than any other state.

In United States Extemp, Laurel Holley of Riverside High School (SC) gave the state of South Carolina its first-ever extemporaneous speaking national championship. Holley mounted a comeback in the final round, winning it by an adjusted nine ranks and vaulting from fourth place in the pre-finals rankings to first. Holley’s final round showing was enough to win a tiebreaker over Gabriel Frank-McPheter of Gabrielino High School (CA) as both competitors ended the tournament with identical composite scores of 102.

William Chien of the Harker School (CA) led the competiton going into the final round, but fell back to fourth after finals ranks were added in.

CFL National Champion Ananth Veluvali of Edina High School (MN) was denied a chance to win CFL and NSDA national championships in the same season, a feat that has not been done since 2011. He finished fourth but took second in the final round.

Eight of the twelve finalists were non-seniors, earning qualification to next year’s national tournament in their respective category. They are indicated in the results listing in blue.

Here are the results of the 2021 National Speech and Debate Association National Tournament (Click here for tab sheet):

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Although we await the final placings in International and United States Extemp later this evening, NSDA has already named the exact placings of the semi-finalists in International and United States Extemp.

Included below are the rankings for the semi-finalists in International and United States Extemp at this year’s national tournament. Competitors that are highlighted in blue are non-seniors who have the option of automatically returning to next year’s national tournament in that same extemp category.

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The 2021 National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA) International Extemp final round is done. Here is Extemp Central’s brief summary and analysis of this year’s final round. Awards are scheduled to begin at 6:00 p.m. CST this evening and they will be streamed at this link.

Analysis of this round is provided by Logan Scisco and Jacqueline Wei. Analysis from Tanner Jones will come later when he is able to view the final round as he had a technical problem for the first half of it.

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The 2021 National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA) United States Extemp final round is in the books. Here is Extemp Central’s brief summary and analysis of this year’s final round. Awards are scheduled to begin at 6:00 p.m. CST this evening and they will be streamed at this link.

Analysis of this round is provided by Jacqueline Wei, Tanner Jones, and Logan Scisco.

Jacqueline competed for Plano West Senior High School in Plano, Texas, and graduated in 2019. She is the 2018 & 2019 NSDA USX national champion & President’s Bowl winner, the 2019 MBA champion, the 2018 Texas and 2019 UIL State champion, and the 2019 Northwestern Extemporaneous TOC champion. She currently attends Harvard University.

Tanner competed on the national extemp circuit for Edina High School for two years. He was the only extemper to reach both NCFL and NSDA national finals while he was in high school. He has privately coached UKTOC finalists, NCFL finalists, and MBA invites. He now coaches extemp for his alma mater, Edina HS. He is the camp director for Extemp Institute — sign up today! https://www.extempinstitute.com.

Reader’s Note:  Since Tanner coaches Ananth Veluvali, his ranks only include five competitors so he does not rank his own student.  However, his comments about his own competitor are listed for readers.

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The National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA) recently released the order of its extemp topic areas for this year’s national tournament, which kicks off tomorrow and will take place online for the second consecutive year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  Extemp competitors will start this year’s tournament with a round zero at 10 a.m. CST on Tuesday.  The tournament will break to the top 102 competitors in international and United States extemp on Wednesday afternoon following five preliminary rounds.  Extemp Central hopes to provide some live coverage of the tournament based on the information that the NSDA releases about outround participants.  We are planning to do some live coverage of the final rounds on Saturday as well.

The order of this year’s extemp categories can be found below.  Extempers are encouraged to use the R&Ds that were posted over the last two weeks to bolster their files and reading for the competition.  These can be more easily accessed by clicking on the R&D, International Extemp, and/or U.S. Extemp categories on the right.

Extemp Central wishes the best of luck to all of the extempers competing in this year’s nationals and congratulates them for qualifying.

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Today’s R&D is brought to you by Prepd (pronounced “prepped”). Prepd is building debate technology that helps extempers and congressional debaters research, practice, and compete. Visit www.prepd.in to learn more.

As part of the leadup to the 2021 National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA) National Tournament, Extemp Central will be providing daily research & development (R&D) posts for each of the tournament’s fourteen topic areas.  These will include links to important articles about each. It is hoped that these will aid in extempers preparation for this year’s national tournament.

Canada’s Trudeau says he discussed border with Biden, but no deal https://t.co/pQw0GzpEgX pic.twitter.com/Ed36HvQcxE

— Reuters (@Reuters) June 13, 2021

Some fear that Mexico’s president may try to advance his agenda by calling for small referendums, or by going after judges https://t.co/FvU3om6Axx

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) June 13, 2021

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Today’s R&D is brought to you by Prepd (pronounced “prepped”). Prepd is building debate technology that helps extempers and congressional debaters research, practice, and compete. Visit www.prepd.in to learn more.

As part of the leadup to the 2021 National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA) National Tournament, Extemp Central will be providing daily research & development (R&D) posts for each of the tournament’s fourteen topic areas.  These will include links to important articles about each. It is hoped that these will aid in extempers preparation for this year’s national tournament.

U.S. President Joe Biden is embracing an economic nationalism unheard of since the Cold War—only this time, the bogeyman is China, FP’s @michaelphirsh writes. https://t.co/py2NOKfTDL

— Foreign Policy (@ForeignPolicy) June 11, 2021

Biden’s decision reflects his foreign policy for the American middle-class paradigm, which focuses on domestic considerations over international ones. The irony, though, is that the American middle class largely doesn’t care about Afghanistan. https://t.co/XVjaKZ8GTM

— Brookings Institution (@BrookingsInst) June 7, 2021

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Today’s R&D is brought to you by Prepd (pronounced “prepped”). Prepd is building debate technology that helps extempers and congressional debaters research, practice, and compete. Visit www.prepd.in to learn more.

As part of the leadup to the 2021 National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA) National Tournament, Extemp Central will be providing daily research & development (R&D) posts for each of the tournament’s fourteen topic areas.  These will include links to important articles about each. It is hoped that these will aid in extempers preparation for this year’s national tournament.

U.S. jobless claims declined to a pandemic low last week, a sign companies are hesitant to lay off employees as the U.S. economy quickly recovers. https://t.co/ooV8eSVTMH

— Real Time Economics (@WSJecon) June 13, 2021

Heard on the Street: Jobs are hard to fill and wages are rising, but other factors will persuade the Federal Reserve to hold off on raising interest rates for now https://t.co/ZlZXhsAnEI

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) June 4, 2021

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Today’s R&D is brought to you by Prepd (pronounced “prepped”). Prepd is building debate technology that helps extempers and congressional debaters research, practice, and compete. Visit www.prepd.in to learn more.

As part of the leadup to the 2021 National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA) National Tournament, Extemp Central will be providing daily research & development (R&D) posts for each of the tournament’s fourteen topic areas.  These will include links to important articles about each. It is hoped that these will aid in extempers preparation for this year’s national tournament.

Our global conflict tracker #CrisisWatch helps decision-makers prevent deadly violence by keeping them up-to-date on 70+ conflicts and crises.

Here are some of this month’s highlights. ⇊ 🧵https://t.co/EA0c5ixL0z

— Crisis Group (@CrisisGroup) June 4, 2021

The coup has reignited conflicts between ethnic armed groups and the government, threatening to destabilize swaths of Myanmar’s borders with China, Thailand, India, and Bangladesh. https://t.co/NO2FJG2c1k

— Foreign Policy (@ForeignPolicy) June 8, 2021

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Today’s R&D is brought to you by Prepd (pronounced “prepped”). Prepd is building debate technology that helps extempers and congressional debaters research, practice, and compete. Visit www.prepd.in to learn more.

As part of the leadup to the 2021 National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA) National Tournament, Extemp Central will be providing daily research & development (R&D) posts for each of the tournament’s fourteen topic areas.  These will include links to important articles about each. It is hoped that these will aid in extempers preparation for this year’s national tournament.

How the gas tax could help pay for a $1 trillion infrastructure proposal https://t.co/F0xVdifNbZ

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) June 12, 2021

A group of five Republicans and five Democrats reached an agreement on a proposed infrastructure spending bill https://t.co/VW9nPS24VT pic.twitter.com/5QQsQ9ZhMz

— Reuters (@Reuters) June 11, 2021

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Today’s R&D is brought to you by Prepd (pronounced “prepped”). Prepd is building debate technology that helps extempers and congressional debaters research, practice, and compete. Visit www.prepd.in to learn more.

As part of the leadup to the 2021 National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA) National Tournament, Extemp Central will be providing daily research & development (R&D) posts for each of the tournament’s fourteen topic areas.  These will include links to important articles about each. It is hoped that these will aid in extempers preparation for this year’s national tournament.

“The Palestinians are getting much more global sympathy, but in the region itself, this trend is reversed,” Ibrahim al-Assil, a Middle East analyst, told Foreign Policy. https://t.co/PARlZ5cPts

— Foreign Policy (@ForeignPolicy) June 12, 2021

It is unlikely that Iran would agree to longer-term limits so long as it was the only regional power thus constrained. The goal should be to have countries around the Persian Gulf agree to the same strict nonproliferation standards. https://t.co/3YadCaAqIm

— New York Times Opinion (@nytopinion) June 12, 2021

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Today’s R&D is brought to you by Prepd (pronounced “prepped”). Prepd is building debate technology that helps extempers and congressional debaters research, practice, and compete. Visit www.prepd.in to learn more.

As part of the leadup to the 2021 National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA) National Tournament, Extemp Central will be providing daily research & development (R&D) posts for each of the tournament’s fourteen topic areas.  These will include links to important articles about each. It is hoped that these will aid in extempers preparation for this year’s national tournament.

NASA is heading back to Venus. What do scientists hope to discover? https://t.co/UxkgZNPgPn

— The Week (@TheWeek) June 12, 2021

With $171 billion marked for R&D, President Biden’s proposed 2022 budget hands a starring role to applied science. https://t.co/TpjPL9M41Q

— News from Science (@NewsfromScience) June 8, 2021

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Today’s R&D is brought to you by Prepd (pronounced “prepped”). Prepd is building debate technology that helps extempers and congressional debaters research, practice, and compete. Visit www.prepd.in to learn more.

As part of the leadup to the 2021 National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA) National Tournament, Extemp Central will be providing daily research & development (R&D) posts for each of the tournament’s fourteen topic areas.  These will include links to important articles about each. It is hoped that these will aid in extempers preparation for this year’s national tournament.

.@KeithBradsher writes that rising prices in China, by far the world’s biggest manufacturer and exporter, could be felt around the world – prompting warnings that a wave of inflation could threaten the global economy. https://t.co/39Ah09eTda

— NYT Business (@nytimesbusiness) June 9, 2021

Global economy set for fastest recovery for more than 80 years https://t.co/otLn1F90C2

— Guardian news (@guardiannews) June 8, 2021

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Today’s R&D is brought to you by Prepd (pronounced “prepped”). Prepd is building debate technology that helps extempers and congressional debaters research, practice, and compete. Visit www.prepd.in to learn more.

As part of the leadup to the 2021 National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA) National Tournament, Extemp Central will be providing daily research & development (R&D) posts for each of the tournament’s fourteen topic areas.  These will include links to important articles about each. It is hoped that these will aid in extempers preparation for this year’s national tournament.

The growth of the racial justice movement has brought great visibility, but also difficult questions over how to sustain it and how to effect meaningful change. https://t.co/hhVAcz0MbH

— NYT National News (@NYTNational) June 6, 2021

George Floyd’s death powered a wave of activism among white Americans, and data suggests it dramatically changed public opinion on racial justice issues https://t.co/xi9l6c6muS

— POLITICO (@politico) May 26, 2021

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Today’s R&D is brought to you by Prepd (pronounced “prepped”). Prepd is building debate technology that helps extempers and congressional debaters research, practice, and compete. Visit www.prepd.in to learn more.

As part of the leadup to the 2021 National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA) National Tournament, Extemp Central will be providing daily research & development (R&D) posts for each of the tournament’s fourteen topic areas.  These will include links to important articles about each. It is hoped that these will aid in extempers preparation for this year’s national tournament.

If the Chinese government uses trade as a weapon when it does not like a country’s political stance, liberal democracies should pursue this breach of international rules through the @wto’s arbitration mechanism, argues Chris Patten. https://t.co/ZxX7XFHXeU

— Project Syndicate (@ProSyn) June 11, 2021

“Unlike past meetings that produced more documents than meaningful diplomacy, this year’s assembly will shape the fight against an ongoing pandemic and the future of global health in international relations,” writes @D_P_Fidler in @ThinkGlobalHlth. https://t.co/lXkkdZQ85x

— Council on Foreign Relations (@CFR_org) May 27, 2021

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