Extemporaneous

Extemporaneous is an event that tasks a competitor's knowledge of and ability to analyze current events.

General structure
Thirty minutes before a student is required to speak, they will go to the designated extemp prep room and choose one of three topics given them by the extemp room proctor. During the thirty minute prep time, they may use pre-prepared resources to put together their stance on the given topic. They may take notes on a 3"x5" card, which they may bring into the room with them. The speech is 7 minutes long.

Topics
Topics are chosen prior to the tournament and deal with newsworthy current events. Usually, the topic will ask the student to make a prediction of a future event based on their current knowledge, or assess the favorability of a certain course of action. They generally fall into one of three categories; Domestic, Economic, or Foreign. Normally, all of the questions in a round will be taken from one specific category.

Resources
Throughout the tournament season, competitors will file recent news articles from various sources for use at tournaments. Articles should be filed with the source, title, and date. It is also permissible to bring full magazines such as the Economist and newspapers.

Filing
There are many different filing systems in use by extempers. Traditionally, competitors used the hanging file system, in which articles are printed and placed in labeled hanging folders, usually by category and then alphabetically (as, Domestic: Airlines: Boeing). The NCFCA and Stoa now allow electronic devices in the extemp prep room, so most competitors today file articles electronically. This is typically done either through a shared folder accessible to everyone in an extemp club (in Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.), or via an automatic filing program like Extemp Genie.