Final Speeches

The final speech is your last chance to communicate your points to the judge – this is the only chance you’ll get to have the final say and convince the judge that you’ve won.

First, go for less. It’s virtually never strategic to “split the 2NR” in, given that the 2NR precedes the 2AR (which can collapse to whatever the 2NR missed. This is doubly true for the 2AR. These speeches are just too short to go for multiple arguments. The speech needs to go for one core “path to the ballot” and spend the rest of the time weighing it, along with answers to the other side’s core arguments.

Second, slow down! Debaters sometimes treat the final speech as a shorter version of their rebuttal, which is a mistake. This speech is about communication, because you don’t have another shot at getting your point across. If an argument is unclear in the final speech, it won’t ever become clear for the judge, at least not on terms favorable to you.