Giving a Final Focus

General Format:

Final Focus is the last speech of the Public Forum Debate round, making it especially important as not only a summary of the round, but also is pivotal for framing a debate. Speeches are two minutes, and given by second speakers following the grand crossfire. 

Technical Debate Strategy:

At the beginning of every final focus, make sure to GIVE A FULL EXTENSION of Uniqueness, link and impact on your case. 

Next, focus on weighing and metaweighing, this is where many tech judges look to evaluate the round. This must be extended in final focus for a judge to vote on, especially in tech debate. Use and respond to the weighing mechanisms addressed in summary and explain why yours should be prioritized or why your impacts are larger. For tech debate, prioritize prereqs and short circuits where you gain more offense. 

Prioritize offense, which gives the judge places to vote off of your case. You can collapse on any turns that your opponent drops, or any uncontested contentions. In final focus, quality is better than quantity, it is better to fully flesh out an argument than to spread all 5 turns and 3 contentions. You can reexplain and clarify any points critical to your case. Ideally, you should collapse in summary, but it is even more important in final focus when speech times are shorter. Final focus should be focused on the most essential arguments of the round.

It is also important in final focus to extend your terminal defense in their case. Focus on delinks that take out their case, but only defend arguments that appear in summary. For tech judges, anything dropped in summary isn’t evaluated, so it only wastes time to extend dropped arguments. 

For technical debate, do not introduce new arguments, final focus is where you show the judge where to vote and why you win the round. 

Second Final:

The second final is why people prefer to flip second in rounds, since it gives you the last word in the round. This is where you make your lasting impact and it’s the final arguments in the judge’s minds when they vote. Your opponents also don’t get a chance to respond to the arguments, meaning you get the last word, giving you the space to frame the round in your favor. However be careful as you cannot introduce new offense or distort the round since tech judges will be flowing. 

Prep time: 

Generally save 30 seconds of prep on tech final focus, because there’s no new arguments and you are just wrapping up the round and extending all arguments. If you have more prep time left over, USE ALL OF IT. It’s the final speech, so there’s no reason to save any. 

Lay Debate Strategy:

You should still give a full extension of your case to refresh the judge’s mind, but on the lay,  focus on breaking the clash. Use analogies and have strong rhetoric to start and finish each speech; lay judges eat it up.

Focus on Voting Issues, which are points of clash, and direct the judge on where they should place their ballot and why you win the argument. Since many parent judges don’t flow the round, you don’t need to win every argument and every line. Focus on the core issues and also extend any uncontested arguments and explain why you win them. 

Judges love it when you tell them what to do; it makes their job easier, so use ballot directive language, and tear up your opponent’s case.

Lay judges don’t vote on offense, they vote on aura and confidence. Emphasize arguments that your opponents drop and extend your impacts to make them relatable for the judge. Numbers are your best friend, but explain how they are applicable to the people, make them tangible. 

Most lay judges also vote off of crossfire, so you should also be addressing points from grand cross since it directly proceeds final focus, especially for first final. 

In lay final focus, it is even more essential to collapse on the most important points and voting issues, since Final focus is the last and shortest speech. You won’t be able to address every point in the round, so prioritize being slow and clear over hitting more arguments. The last 10 seconds matter disproportionately. 

Ballot Framing: 

Use direct language to tell the judge why they should vote for you. First, explain what a vote for your case means in terms of impact in the real world. Reiterate your strongest points and tell the judge where and what they should be voting on, your best points of offense. Lay judges prefer to vote for stories rather than numbers or statistics. 

Prep: 

Again, USE ALL remaining prep time. Generally save 45 seconds to make sure your rhetoric is strong unless you can just pop analogies off the top of your head. I would argue that lay final focus is harder, since you need to go beyond just extending arguments, you need to sell them to the judge. 

Extra Tips:

It’s the last speech, make sure you don’t drop anything and just aura farm. 

If you run out of prep time, for final focus (you shouldn’t) first speakers can take the lead on grand cross while second speakers prep if necessary. 

Here’s a general template if you don’t know how to start, but Final Focus is generally a flexible speech. 

Off-Time Roadmap

Order will be our case, their case, then weighing

Don’t give an offtime roadmap on the lay since it may sound robotic

Overview (10 seconds)

[Your Team] wins the debate because we outweigh on (types of weighing = probability, magnitude, scope, timeframe):

On the Lay, sum up the round with a flashy analogy.

Now, onto our Case (~1:15)

Our case: extend + frontline (respond to their responses on your case)

First, on _______ (name of first contention)

if you want to concede, We won’t be going for this contention, instead focus on our other contention(s)

On the lay: The most important contention of this round is: (second contention) just ignore the first

Second, on ________ (name of second contention)

THEY SAY - _____________ (short summary of their response #1), BUT

1. AUTHOR DATE says (extend argument from summary that answers this)

2. Prefer our evidence because (insert card comparison)

3. This doesn’t matter because (Insert explanation)

CONTINUE THEY SAY as necessary with each extended response. You don’t need to respond to any dropped responses that they do not bring up in summary

Now, onto their case (~1:15)

Their case: extend rebuttals, elaborate, explain

First, on ______(name of OPPONENTS first contention)

EXTEND Rebuttal #___ (pick the number you want to extend) -   AUTHOR DATE says claim because warrant/data.

THEY SAY - _____________ (short summary of their 1st refutation to your rebuttal #1), BUT

1. (insert refutation / Card Comparison)

THEY SAY - _____________ (short summary of their 2nd refutation to your rebuttal #1), BUT

1. (insert refutation / Card Comparison)

EXTEND Rebuttal #___ (pick the number you want to extend) -   AUTHOR DATE says claim because warrant/data.

THEY SAY - _____________ (short summary of their 1st refutation to your rebuttal #2), BUT

1. (insert refutation / Card Comparison)

THEY SAY - _____________ (short summary of their 2nd refutation to your rebuttal #2), BUT

1. (insert refutation / Card Comparison)

Second , on ______ (name of second contention)

EXTEND Rebuttal #___ (pick the number you want to extend) -   AUTHOR DATE says claim because warrant/data. This means ____ (impact your rebuttal to explain why it matters in the debate).

THEY SAY - _____________ (short summary of their 1st refutation to your rebuttal #1), BUT

1. (insert refutation / Card Comparison)

THEY SAY - _____________ (short summary of their 2nd refutation to your rebuttal #1), BUT

1. (insert refutation / Card Comparison)

EXTEND Rebuttal #___ (pick the number you want to extend) -   AUTHOR DATE says claim because warrant/data. This means ____ (impact your rebuttal to explain why it matters in the debate).

THEY SAY - _____________ (short summary of their 1st refutation to your rebuttal #2), BUT

1. (insert refutation / Card Comparison)

THEY SAY - _____________ (short summary of their 2nd refutation to your rebuttal #2), BUT

1. (insert refutation / Card Comparison)

Finally, Weighing on (weighing mechanism used in summary)

EXTEND Weighing mechanism #1 (probability, timeframe, magnitude etc) -   Our impact is___. This means ____ (explain why it matters in the debate).

THEY SAY ____ people are affected/happens, but our impact affects more people

THEY SAY - _____________ matters more, BUT

2. (insert refutation / metaweighing)

weighing: don’t use jargon for lay, just say how you are comparing both arguments in terms of:

Probability = chance of it happening

Magnitude = the amount of people affected

Scope = the scale of the effects

Timeframe = your case happens before their case; you have stronger long term impacts

Link ins/prereqs/short circuits = How your impacts are worse for their case or prevent it from happening, therefore should be prioritized in the round

Severity = how severe the impacts are, death, suffering, health