Basic Terms
Ballot – The piece of paper on which judges write comments, rankings, and the decision of the round
Blocking – any movements made during a performance
(to) Break – to advance to the next round; local tournaments are usually four rounds with no break; national level tournaments usually break to elimination rounds
(to) Cut – to take only selected sections from a piece. To cut to make time limits or to cut inappropriate material
Double Entered – entered in more than one event in a tournament
Ethics – rules or standards that govern conduct
Extemporaneous – speaking without the benefit of a prepared or memorized manuscript
Finals – an elimination round involving the top two teams in debate or usually the top six competitors in IE’s
Forensics – Refers to competitive speech and debate and public speaking
(not dead bodies!) .
Introduction – The introduction to a piece, usually found in interp, extemp, etc. Intros are written by the competitors and are memorized or given extemporaneously, depending on the event.
Junior Varsity – a competitor in their first or second year of competition (used at tournaments; JV categories are not common in North Carolina)
Novice – a competitor in their first year of competition (used at tournaments) or a division in a tournament involving only first year competitors
Open – specifying that all levels of experience will be competing with each other in a tournament, a division
Pattern – events sometimes are divided into “Patterns” and run at different times during the course of a round, usually there are two patterns in a tournament; Pattern A events, Pattern B events, and Debate.
Piece – the literature selection (title and author) you are performing in I
nterpretation events: DI, HI, DUO, Prose, and Poetry
Round(s) – a complete debate or round of individual events; most one day tournaments will have four (4) rounds of competition, that is, a student will have four opportunities to compete.
Time Signals – Hand signals, usually given by a judge, showing how much time you have left; debaters often carry and use their own timer
Varsity – a seasoned and experienced competitor