National Forensic League - Points

Points

Those who participate in competitive forensics earn points for their efforts. In the debate events, a win in a round is worth six points while a loss is worth three. In the speech events, there are three point brackets; original speeches, worth six points, interpretation events, worth five points, and speaking events, worth four points. Six-point events include Extemporaneous Speaking, Original Oratory, and Expository; first place in one of these rounds earns a competitor six points, second earns the competitor five, third earns four, etc. Five-point events include Prose, Poetry, Humorous Interpretation, Dramatic Interpretation, and Duo Interpretation. The four-point event category is reserved for events such as Impromptu Speaking.

National Forensic League Points (NFL points) are employed in the scoring system used by the National Forensic League to rank competitors' lifetime progress, and to determine how many competitors a school may register in an NFL District Tournament.

In debate events, the winner (or both members of the winning team) each earn six points, and the loser earns three. In speaking events, points vary with the speaker's place in the round. Competitors in events that involve creating original material such as: Foreign Extemporaneous Speaking (FX), Domestic Extemporaneous Speaking (DX), Original Oratory (OO), Lincoln-Douglas Debate (LD), Public Forum Debate (PF) and Policy Debate (CX) each earn more points than competitors in events that involve interpreting previously published material such as Prose (PR), Poetry (PO), Humorous Interpretation (HI), Duet Acting (DA), and Dramatic Interpretation (DI). The least expected points are categorized in "Speaking" events. These include Impromptu (Imp), and any other optional speaking events. In years past, Student Congress (StuCo) speeches given each received a score of up to six points. New NFL rules now allow up to eight points per speech. Commonly, more than one judge scores each speech in Student Congress, so in this case the scores of the judges are averaged and rounded up to calculate the speech score.

Prior to August 2010, members could only earn up to 750 points in each of the three areas of competition: debate, speaking events (original oratory, extemporaneous speaking and the interpretative events) and Student Congress. However, this point cap was abolished at the beginning of the 2010-2011 Season to encourage higher levels of competition.

Members can also earn "service points," which accrue for certain activities outside of speech competition. Delivering speeches before audiences of twenty-five or more adults, for instance, earns a fixed number of service points.

As members accumulate points, they earn NFL degrees. Each degree corresponds to the jeweling pattern of an NFL pin which the degree-holder is authorized to wear, and to a seal which will be placed on the degree-holder's membership certificate. The following are the Membership Degrees: