Novice Competitors and Public Address Preparation

In a time when forensics is trying to maintain traditions while not getting stuck in a performance rut, teaching incoming students competition norms can be a very sticky situation. The community is being constantly criticized for crediting students who follow the spoken and unspoken rules of competition. This can leave little room for individuality and can also make it very difficult to prepare incoming students for competition. Prepping new students in college events becomes a balancing act, trying to teach events, norms, and policies in a short amount of time to help prepare the student to be tournament ready. While students catch on to the rules they are asked to follow, more difficulty is found when trying to teach new students the unwritten norm they must follow. This paper aims to discuss the balance in finding how to prepare students for competition in a manner that does not overwhelm yet adequately makes them tournament ready for competition. The goal of a coach is to make sure their students are comfortable and prepared for their first competition and their forensics career. A bad first tournament has the potential to cause a student to leave the competition for good