Staying Precisely on the Question Through the Speech
It is possible to answer the question well in the thesis and then drift into generally interesting but tangential territory during the points; staying on-question requires discipline throughout. You will be able to check each point against the exact wording of the drawn question.
The Wording Check
Before finalizing an outline, a competitor should reread the exact wording of the drawn question and verify that the thesis and each point's claim use language that responds to that specific wording, not a nearby but different question. If the question asks 'should,' the speech should argue a value or policy judgment; if it asks 'will,' the speech should predict; conflating these is a common way speeches drift off-question.
Avoiding Interesting Tangents
A competitor might have a fascinating piece of evidence that does not actually answer the specific drawn question, and including it anyway just because it is interesting can pull a whole point off-target. The discipline of cutting a great piece of evidence that does not serve the specific question is one of the harder skills to develop, but it is essential to a tightly on-question speech.
The Devil's-Advocate Re-Read
In the final minute of prep, some competitors do a rapid devil's-advocate re-read of their outline, imagining a skeptical judge asking 'but does this actually answer what was asked?' after each point, which catches subtle drift that a friendlier first read-through might miss.
Question drawn: "Should the United States raise the federal minimum wage to fifteen dollars an hour?"
A competitor has a great statistic about automation trends in fast food that is interesting but actually addresses a different question about the future of low-wage work generally, not whether the wage should be raised to fifteen dollars specifically. She cuts it, keeping only evidence that directly speaks to the wage increase itself, such as employment effects studies and regional cost-of-living data.
1. What should a competitor check before finalizing an outline?
2. True or False?
"Including a fascinating piece of evidence is always worth it even if it does not directly answer the specific drawn question."
3. What is the purpose of a devil's-advocate re-read of an outline?
Answer all 3 to check.
Staying on-question requires checking the exact wording of the drawn question against the thesis and every claim, and cutting interesting evidence that does not serve that exact question.