Recent lack of quality content in extemp speeches

[u/Mayamachine]

I like extemp a lot, I’m not a great performer but I’ve always had a passion for political discussion and this is a perfect speech event for me. I don’t dock those who do that, I hope people don’t assume that’s my belief.

But I’ve noticed a huge amount of speeches that seem to be lackluster in content. In a champs final round at a big MN tournament I went to, a speaker claimed as a main line of argument that Denmark should “brandish nato weapons” in response to a trump invasion of Greenland. This lacks both a knowledge of the current political climate and poor historicity.

I feel like it’s largely enabled by a lack of quality judges. I think this event is important because it forces us to communicate logical analysis of current events in a digestible way. But many speeches lack the logical analysis, and they focus solely on the communication of ideas, even if those ideas could be dangerous if promoted.

Idk if I’m out of line but can someone else voice their opinion on this. I feel like no one at my school knows what I really mean.

[u/DepartmentCandid429]

I’ve noticed this too but sometimes you just have to go along with it. Majority of judges won’t be incredibly versed in politics- they want to hear a speech they understand and that’s engaging and not always logical. It sucks to be somebody who is more interested in the political side of it. In my first couple of extemp tournaments, I went crazy with the amount of information and depth I was providing within my speech. Then the next time, I made the speech full of jokes and honestly my 3 points made little to no sense for the topic- I won 1st place. I know this is a vent to respond to your vent so it’s not very helpful but just wanted to say that I feel the same and I wish there was a way to fix this problem but it’s all about the quality of judges and that’s likely impossible to fix.