The national forensics league is a non-profit educational honor society. It is organized to ensure high school students across the United States a background in effective public speaking. Since its founding in 1925 the NFL has achieved a membership of over 1.4 million students and teachers. These students gain the competitive edge on public speaking and effective communications.

 Speech and debate helps you not only communicate effectively but it gives you the ability to convey your ideas. If you are looking to be an effective communicator speech and debate is for you! The NFL also gives you the knowledge that will help you in all of you other classes. It gives you the ability to write better essays and papers. It helps you be able to answer short answer questions effectively and it helps you communicate with your peers and teachers.

 Well there are obviously more aspects of your high school career that colleges look at, but if they see you are involved in a prestigious extracurricular activity that improves your critical thinking skills, you might get the edge over the person who doesn't.  Most colleges offer generous debate scholarships and most colleges have debate teams.

 There are many different events in debate that encourage open minded and independent thinking. A few events are outlined later in the presentation but if nothing catches your eye, don’t loose interest there will sure to be an event that you will!

 Lincoln Douglas: LD debate is a one on one debate focused on two conflicting values. It is a philosophy centered debate but is most recently being integrated with more evidence. It is a great event if you like to argue or like to debate different values!  Example of a topic: developing countries ought to prioritize environmental protection over resource extraction when the two are in conflict.

 Policy is a 2 on 2 debate. The topic is always about U.S. policy, alternating between foreign, and domestic.

 Policy debate is a two on two debate where you have a partner to help you. This debate is mostly all evidence oriented. The topics encourage debates of different government policies and plans that focuses on harms and how your case can fix them.

 PF is a two on two debate, with a partner, that is centered around values mixed with evidence. Unlike LD this category focuses on evidence and different governmental policies and standpoints.

 Oratory is a 10 minute prepared speech of your choice. Most people pick topics that are motivational or informative. If you like to speak or would like to learn to speak more effectively this event is for you!

 Impromptu is a speech event in which you have a total of 7 minutes to receive a topic, write a speech outline, and prepare the speech. Most commonly people use 2 minutes of prep time and 5 minutes to deliver your speech.

 DI is an event where you and a partner act out a particular script of your choice. If you are in drama or like to act this is for you!

 This event is the same as the previous except that you are on your own. You have just a few minutes to convince your judge that you are hilarious by acting out a script of your choice.

 Congress is a great event if you are interested in different bills, policies, or opinions. This event is based on the U.S. Congress and its processes.

 As a debate team we love to see new people, new talent, and new potential. Debate will give you an experience in effective communication that not very many clubs or teams can offer.