Advocacy is the core of an Extemp speech. When you are speaking in the final round of the TOC or NSDA, with hundreds or thousands of people listening to your opinions on the border conflict between Turkey and Greece or the midterm elections, your purpose is transformed beyond just getting a one because you have the power to make a difference. If you make an impassioned speech and advocate for an issue or a solution that you genuinely believe in, even if only one person in the audience is convinced, your plea could help to change the world by making sending people out into it who are more aware of problems, solutions, and their place in the systems that hold us together then they were when you walked on stage. This power, though, doesn’t just exist in final rounds but every time that you speak to an audience or connect with a judge. From prelims of your local circuit to a round that could win you a national championship, you are always in front of at least one person, which means that you have the ability to change the world for the better.

Now, this is not to say that advocacy takes precedence over answering the question, convincing your judges, and winning the round; that is a decision for you to make. However, by engaging in genuine advocacy, your competitive chances will be boosted as well because if you can make the judge care about your speech or give them a new perspective on an issue that they have never faced (especially if they have had to sit through four or five rounds in the tournament already), you will most likely be rewarded with the one. This intersection of real-world impact and in-round utility makes advocacy one of the most effective skills that you can develop Extemp.

Good advocacy permeates through your speech, which makes thinking about it as you start prep essential. With almost every question, you can find the people, and by framing their struggle in your answer, you can tap into the heart of a compelling narrative. For some questions, this will be easy (like in US healthcare rounds), but for others, you will have to do more work (like in international econ rounds). If you are ever stuck on the human connection, ask yourself who benefits and who is harmed. Even on mundane questions like global trade routes, by thinking about the structure’s implications, you will find people whose lives are affected (for example, workers in the transportation industry whose jobs are at risk). That example brings up another crucial application of finding the people; once you have the story, terminalize to basic necessities and rights, not just anything that impacts them (jobs aren’t goals in and of themselves, they help people feed their families).

Once you have your thread of advocacy, there are simple steps that you can take in structuring your speech to make sure that you tell their story cohesively. First, pick a specific story to use as your AGD and continue to tell the audience about them through your transitions. Putting something shocking at the start of your speech (followed by context) will draw listeners in, and explaining details relevant to your points during transitions will draw out the narrative thread. If you decide to tell someone’s story, you should return to it in the conclusion and tie it in with your analysis so that your audience has some closure. Second, frame your answer around the people. Even little reminders (for example, we must do XYZ to put the people first), keeps the focus where it matters, and makes sure that your advocacy is serving the communities in need that you want to target. Third, every point should end with a power line that ties the importance back to the people and question in a succinct way. If you have structured the rest of your advocacy correctly, this step should be fairly straightforward, as it is just connecting your B to the people in a rhetorically snappy way. Finally, if the question that you are answering is broad, making your Bs about specific cases can be very helpful. This is usually structured by a general claim followed by an illustrative example (for example, China is leaving countries out to dry like Kazachstan, which is waiting on billions to finish bridges). Not only does it help to show the tangible impact of your analysis, but it shows the real-life implications to people and makes coming up with those power lines easier.

While giving a speech, your presentation should communicate as much about your values as the content on your flow pad. Don’t be afraid to get a bit loud or sound disgusted when hammering home an impact line about a dictatorial government abusing their people. Vocal modulation and hand gestures are one of your most powerful tools, so use them to hit home the parts of your speech that matter. While your analysis of the Belt and Road Initiative’s impact on the economic realities of supply chains can be fairly measured, when you go into a discussion of the people who are losing their livelihoods, showing emotion, moving quickly, and hitting lines harder, will show what part of the speech the judge should take away.