By Logan Scisco
This weekend extempers will converge on Omaha, Nebraska for the 2010 Catholic Forensic League Grand National tournament. Each year, Extemp Central provides an analysis of the topic areas that will be used at Catholic Forensic League and National Forensic League Nationals. These analyses are meant to help extempers identify issues that could arise during a round and offer a few tips on dealing with each topic area. Also, the analyses provide practice questions so that extempers can do practice outlines or speeches for each topic area before the tournament.
Before going into each topic area, it is important to give an overview of the tournament for extempers who have never been before. CFL Nationals takes place over two days, with four rounds of competition on each day. On the first day, four preliminary rounds are held and each round is adjudicated by three judges. The forty-eight extempers with the lowest cumulative scores advance to octo-finals the next day and the field is halved over another three rounds until a final field of six is set. All outrounds, with the exception of finals, are adjudicated by three judges. Finals has five judges. The tournament is not cumulative until finals. To determine the winner, CFL has an interesting formula where preliminary ranks do not matter (like NFL), and extempers earn a “rank” for octos, quarters, and semis. What this means is that if you go 1-2-2 and have the best score in your octo-final round you earn a 1 (and if you went (2-1-3 in that round and finished behind the speaker who earned a 1-2-2 you would earn a 2). All of the judges scores in finals count into your cumulative score so the extemper who has the lowest cumulative score across eight ballots wins. Keep in mind that with this formula it is important, but not necessarily vital, for you to win all of your elimination rounds. As an example, when I was in the 2003 CFL final round, I had finished third in my octofinal round and then second in quarters and semis. Other competitors in the round like the eventual winner Greg Wagman had won their octo, quarter, and semi rounds. Therefore, entering the final I was already four ranks behind. If you win all of your elimination rounds heading into the final you will have a slight advantage, but if you bomb the final round, where over sixty percent of your scores come from, then you won’t walk out of Omaha with the national championship.
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