This category lists informational sites about speech and debate, including theory, tips, and resource materials.
Sites about forensics competitions are listed in Society: Organizations: Student: Academic: Competitions: Forensics, and not here. That category lists sites such as those about:
- Leagues and Organizations
- Summer Institutes
Forensics refers to competition in various events involving public speech or debate.
Speech events involve performances in front of at least one judge, and in some cases, an audience. The speech categories have different formats, including:
Competitive debate is a "sport of the mind" in which two teams take opposite sides of a proposition such as "Resolved: Censorship is justified for national security."
While debates were a form of education and entertainment in the U.S. as early as the Revolutionary period, competitive debate as we know it originated in the Upper Midwest in the 1880s. Competitive debate began to focus on logic and policies, rather than wit and values, around 1900. High school and college leagues were formed about the same time. The debate movement in the U.S. had a profound effect on the development of the field of "speech" -- most of the 17 scholars who walked out of the English Teachers convention to form what is now the National Communication Association were debate coaches.
Competitive debate has four major formats:
Competitive debate can be found in England, Australia, Canada, and Japan, as well as the U.S.