When it comes to the sport of Speech and Debate, there are seven main events, and each is scored differently, and highly competitive.
There are two main categories: Speech and Debate. Emily Kunz, the director of Hillcrest’s Speech and Debate team, explains how the team works.
“Speech events are ones where you go into a round and you generally have between five and seven people that you are competing against,” Kunz explains. “You take your turn and you give your speech, and then the judge in the room will score you by ranking you one through seven or whatever it is.”
This is when competitors receive their feedback from judges. If the competition has a final round, Kunz explains how the competitors with the lowest scores are selected, a process known as “breaking and going to finals.” It is this round that determines the tournament’s winner.
When it comes to debate, it is a little different. Kunz took the time to break it down.
“You’re matched up each round with a competitor. Some events are 1v1, some are 2v2—you get to choose. Those events, you go in and there is a win-loss. The judge decides which side they felt did the best job. They also score you out of 30 on how well you spoke,” Kunz said. “At the end, they look at the win-loss records and the team with the best win-loss record, you win. If there is a tie, they look at the speaker notes to decide.”
Region and State are coming up in March this year. Kunz says they have a good-size group this year.
“We have about 30 students in the class. In class, I introduce different events and give students an opportunity to try them out. We practice skills and we actually practice each of the events. We talk about the skills you need to know, such as how to rebut arguments, how to make arguments sound more persuasive, how to write a good hook, and how to engage your audience.”
Even though Kunz has the debate class during fourth period, you do not have to be a part of the class to participate.
“For those students, we have labs where students can come find out about events, practice them, and get feedback from our veteran debaters.”
Bella Manuel and Varmen Ho joined debate to help their career prospects.
“Both of us wanted to major in law and a big thing in law is debating,” Manuel explained. “I also think that debating in general is a really good skill because you may not realize it but you use debate in everyday life,” Ho expanded.
Both Manuel and Ho have been to one tournament. Here is how they prepared for it.
“We were both so nervous. We were up all night texting about it, we did not sleep at all. But I feel like definitely making sure that you research, make sure you know what you know,” Ho stated.
There were a couple of tips that Manuel wanted to express to anyone interested.
“If you are nervous to do it alone, find a partner and do it with them. Do not use AI to write your speech. If you do not know your topic, you won’t do good at all.”
“I think everybody should try debate. I mean you can always stop, but I think it is a really good experience,” Ho stated. “We will win nationals.”
After school and before school, starting at the beginning of term two, debate would love to welcome anyone—no matter your experience—to come try out at their open houses!
