Extemporaneous Commentary

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Extemporaneous Commentary (or ex-temp com. for short) is a branch off of normal extemporaneous speaking, an area of competition in high school forensics. As in ex-temp, students participating in extemporaneous commentary are given thirty minutes to prepare a five to seven minute speech (with a thirty second grace period) on a topic relevant to modern politics. However, students in commentary deliver their speeches while sitting down, usually on the opposite side of a table as the judge(s). Students are score based on oration skills, speech organization, and use of sources, and are ranked by the judges in comparison to the other competitors who give speeches in the same room.

At the beginning of a tournament, students participating in this event are brought to a holding room, where an order is assigned (usually by picking numbers at random). The first student then draws three topics, chooses one which s/he finds best, and then is given his/her thirty minutes of preparation. The remaining students draw their topics at five minute intervals to insure that no student gets extra time to prepare. After all the students have given a speech, the judges will rank the students in order of who they believed performed the best based on the categories above.

Originally, extemporaneous commentary topics were more general and more focused on opinions than extemporaneous topics were, making extemp commentary an almost "halfway point" between impromptu speaking and normal extemp. However, the success of those who integrated more sources into their speeches, plus the trending of the topics to mimic extemp's, has blurred the line between extemporaneous and extemporaneous commentary, so much so that in most national forensics leagues (like the NCFL), the only definitive difference between extemp and extemp commentary is the position in which the speeches are given (standing as opposed to sitting).

For more information, visit the National Catholic Forensics Leagues homepage at [1]