by Stacey Chen
The Glenbrooks is one of the largest tournaments of the year in both speech and debate events, as well as one of the most fun! Extemp at Glenbrooks generally contains a fairly large and diverse pool of extempers from across the country. It is also “mixed” extemp, which may be different for extempers who come from districts that regularly split between “domestic” and “international” extemp. Although the size and quality of the field, as well as a possible switch to combined extemp, can be intimidating, there are a few things you can do to prepare well for the tournament and enjoy the experience rather than stressing out.
Preparation for the Glenbrooks was pretty standard for me because my district did not split between USX and IX. The rounds at Glenbrooks alternate between foreign and domestic topic areas, so it is important to prepare for both types of questions equally. Be sure to read and file articles from major publications like The New York Times, The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Boston Globe, The Economist, The Christian Science Monitor, etc as usual. Many questions will be drawn from the headlines of these papers in the few weeks leading up to the tournament. On the domestic front, it is also useful to find smaller regional papers for more specific issues (e.g. The Denver Post, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, etc). For international issues, also try to include source diversity with articles from news sources like Der Spiegel, AllAfrica.com, The South China Morning Post, The Council on Foreign Relations, etc. These publications should give you a solid base of background knowledge and recent events; for more advanced extempers, delving into journals ranging from Foreign Affairs to Current History to The Washington Quarterly will provide you with a deeper theoretical knowledge for analysis. If you are just beginning to extemp or do not have enough time to devote to searching for journal articles, however, it may be much more beneficial to focus on covering major newspapers first. Although it is always helpful to have detailed and specific articles, do not waste time on obscure happenings in, say, Moldova, when you could be bolstering your Iran file.
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Steven Elliott competed for Lakeville North High School for four years. He was an NCFL Extemp Finalist in 2008, a three time Minnesota state finalist, the champion of the Glenbrooks in 2009, and placed 4th in International Extemp at last year’s National Tournament. He was also a participant in the 2010 MBA round-robin. Steven attends American University in Washington, DC where he is majoring in International Studies.