IX Finals

[KY_Extemper]

What do you all think of IX finals at NFL this past weekend? I thought the entire round was one of the best I've ever seen especially in that kind of a setting. The ranks were pretty tough all the way across the board. How did you guys see it?

[GateKeepR]

yes, but just why did Lisa get trashed by the finals judges? honestly, i put her second in the round (only to hemel, who completely OWNED the round.) yes, i suppose being cxed by dan is tough, but his questions weren't as tough as he could have made them. she did use UA to answer a very strange question (what is the international community?), and her fluency was about perfect. she was passionate, and really got into the speech (at least i thought so.)

[KY_Extemper]

I didn't think Lisa's speech was bad at all but I preferred to rank Dan, David, Josh, and Amaris above her because I felt a stronger connection with their speeches. Of course I might have some MBA bias involved in that decision but Lisa didn't give a bad speech at all. She definetly had a weird question about "what is the international community?" and Dan Hemel DEFINETLY could have been a lot tougher on CX. What he did was softball by nature of what he did to me on my South African poverty speech at MBA. I can't exactly explain why Lisa was "trashed" by the finals judges other than to say that preference might have played a role in that close round and they just preferred to rank other speakers that they might have had a stronger connection with or believed had better analysis of the issue at hand.

[CDEwinner1]

They ranked her last because she was the worst in the round. She gave the exact same intro and transitions in finals as she did in her 2nd quarter and both semis. Her intro didn't link to her topic. Her analysis was vague and didn't answer the question. Her fluency was good, but so was everyone else's. Other speakers had better analysis, topic specific intros, and were much more polished. And for the record, I had the round ranked in this order: Dan, Josh, David, Amaris, Justin, Lisa. The judges got it right.

[hallana]

So c'mon, who saw the Snake in final round of IX?? you know you did, cause by that i mean tennenbaum or however you spell the snake's name. and i dont mean a slippery, slimey, conniving, bite you in the *** kind of snake, like Faris (senate winner). I meant the snake in his pants while he was speaking. But ANYWAYS.

CDE kid, you're a sport, but an idiot. you criticize Lisa Mueller for her canned intro, yet you're a ****** bag because thats the only kind of intro CDE teaches!!!!!!!!!!!!! cde's great and the bennetts are cool, but YOU, my astute friend, are a numbskull.

as for topic specific intros? how about whatshisname's age old CDE intro... about going to heaven and **** and ****. c'mon. there was NO clear link there, yet your harsh words are only saved for speaker one, lisa.

let's talk about another aspect of final round here. Cross ex. Lisa was the ONLY person to give a valid CX that actually reflected the previous speaker's speech. meanwhile, everyone else threw softball questions that even that CDE forum kid could answer.

FInally, why did lisa not do so well?? was it b/c she didnt suck corperate shwann dick? no. instead, i would suggest that it's b/c she was the best all around speaker. while one was very funny, another very fluent, another very analytical, another very blonde, Mueller clearly encompassed all these in to her one style(not the blonde one), just not any one in particular to the extend of the other individuals.

so there you go. final round cleared up. NEXT time CDEwinner, why dont you tell me that you're going to write something asinine BEFORE you do it so that i can disable the functionability of your fingers and avoid having to write a clarification post.

With Love,
meteorwake

[NYdeb8]

I think the previous poster realy needs to have their head examined.

Not only was Lisa's speech completely non-responsive to her question, it was also nearly identical to the speech she gave in Round 11 for the question: "Is the UN RIP?" She offered the IDENTICAL two areas with the IDENTICAL citations. Of course she was fluent...it's easy to be fluent when delieveringwhat was essentially an OO. I find her action unethical at the best and completely antithetical to the whole idea ofwhat good extemp should be about. For all we know, she wrote the speech well before the competition started and usedit because it sort of touched on the right area...almost. And the intro was so canned I feared I would catch botullism just hearing it.

As for CX, the competitors were told to take it easy by the NFL people. That's why all the softball quetions were thrown. In fact they were told that they SHOULD NOT attack each other and that the judges would b instructed to down grade them for not following this warning. OF course this completely makes CX pointless so they shouldn't even bother.

As for Lisa being crossed, she gave non-responsive, over generalized answers, probably because she gave a speech that did not respond to the question which was prewritten so why would she know about the associated topic areas such as the ICC whih should have been in the speech. As for her cross, I believe the speaker she crossed did a good job of pointing out that her 3rd question was non-sensical and contradictory.

I think the previous poster needs to put his/her partison beliefs behind them and look at the activity objetively to see that Lisa's actions are inherently dangerous to an activity. The event is about the ability to think quickly and analytically on their feet and do so in a persuasive manner.

I think a way to fix this canning of speeches is to have competitors watch each other. By this I mean, when you finish your speech, you can sit down and watch the other speakers. I think the embarrassment of having the community know that people are effectively misrepresenting their speeches as extemporaneous will be enough to curb this disturbing trend as the info gets around that certain competitors are practicing this most dubious of methods.

As for the rest of the round, I think anyone who saw it could say that (barring certain things) it was one of the finest displays of extemp that has been seen in a while. Amaris, Dan, David and Josh (I don't remember the other guy's name) should be commended on an excellent round

[CA800]

OK, cool down. First, not only does the largest extemp camp, CDE, preach the usage of canned intros, transition quotes, etc... but using intros has become a more (or less apparantly) accepted practice. I don't see anything wrong with using an intro twice if the question is very similar. In addition, Lisa shouldn't be bashed for her analysis being "too similar" to her sems rounds. If a question that encompases the same general information the speech is obviously going to be similar. Especially because of the fact that the previous speech is still running through her head. Lisa's "similar" analysis should not be bashed at all. She was and has always been very fluent and has always had excellent delivery. If you are going to criticize intros or canning in its entirety, criticize what extemp has become. And it has become that way due to camps like CDE preaching quick solutions to cover analysis (maybe that's just my senitments on camps coming through though). Don't hate the player, hate the game.
And to the person who called Faris a snake needs to shut up. Faris is a great guy and I couldn't be happier for him and his successes.
Stop the bashing and take me off the defensive.

[GateKeepR]

i'm starting to think that cde was that jackass who sat in my semis round and acted like unprofessional freshmen and are now getting pissy because they didn't make it to finals. yes i realize that maybe UA doesn't perform too well (considering the two UA people got 6th and 5th place). but if you have the same basic topic, why write a new speech? and you talk about canned intros...there is no way Hemel could have written such an amazing joke in such a short time (however, i don't doubt his speaking ability for a split second i put him first in finals EASILY.)

everyone was fluent? not quite. the main reason i was so dissappointed with amaris' speech in finals was because she was abnormally stuttery. 4-5 in the speech and 2 in CX? she can do so much better than that.

honestly, what put lisa and justin at a disadvantage was because they had to compete with such big names as bone, david t, amaris and hemel. they were practical nobodies on the eastern/midwest regions, and they had to perform twice as well to make it anywhere. their reputation meant nothing.

and about intros. which is better, a boring "topic specific" intro, or one that actually gets the attention of the audience? who cares if it has been used before? that is why no judges are allowed to judge you twice.

[fxfiend]

HONESTLY....you guys need to pull the highlighters out of your azzes....If you were there to see Lisa speak, you would have recognized that she presented the complete package of what a real extemp speech should be. You criticize her "canned" intro, but that intro was culled entirely from her own mind. I know from speaking to after the round that she wrote that intro entirely on her own, and thus it was her own prerogative to use it twice if she wished. At least she didnt use one intro one time that was written by some zombie at CDE in like 1982. That vintage intro that the eventual champ used automatically destroyed a degree of his integrity...to a much greater extent than did lisa's "canned" (yet actually ORIGINAL) introduction. Lisa learned to read before the final round, so are u saying that she couldn't use THAT skill, either??? Geez, plz use some common sense. Lisa's intro reflected ONLY her own ability, and Lisa should be commended for that. Furthermore, Lisa was the only one to weave her metaphore THROUGHOUT her speech, which really reflects something special. A good conclusion is JUST as important as a great intro.

Also, in defense of Lisa's analysis, she was only working w/ what she could, given her EXTREMELEY vague topic. You'll notice that other speakers responded to comparatively narrow topics: revolution in Iran, Middle East, and war in Chechnya...which offered MUCH easier opportunities to expound upon specifics. To answer "What is the International community?" with ANY cohesiveness is remarkable. Lisa pulled that off impressively. Also, i was blown away by the wealth of outside info she brought into cx. Good job to her.

[mbareddog]

"What is the International community"? That is quite possible the vaguest, worst FX question I've ever heard off. Kudos to Lisa to what seemed to be a coherent speech, one that would have found me babbling gibberish at the craziness of that topic.