Common Rule Violations to Avoid
Certain aid mistakes recur every season and cost real points on the ballot. This lesson catalogs the most frequent violations so you can double-check your own aid against them.
Text and Content Violations
The most common violation is writing too much text on the aid, especially full sentences that mirror the speech's script, which judges may flag as reading from the aid rather than speaking from memory. A second common issue is including content that goes beyond what's verbally covered, which can look like padding rather than a targeted visual aid.
Physical and Logistical Violations
Aids that require someone else to hold or operate them, that need an outlet for power without invitation permission, or that are unstable and fall over mid-speech all create both rule and performance problems. Always test your aid's stability and self-sufficiency during a full rehearsal run, not just during quiet setup at home.
The Rule-Violation Audit
Before a tournament, experienced competitors do a formal 'rule-violation audit,' walking through the specific tournament's Info rules line by line against their actual aid and speech, since this catches subtle mismatches (like a slightly-too-large board size or a borderline power requirement) that a casual glance would miss.
A speaker rehearses her full speech in a mock round for the first time with her tri-fold board on an unfamiliar table.
The board wobbles because the table surface is smaller than her home practice table, and a page corner catches wind from the room's air vent. She reinforces the board's base with heavier cardstock and practices setting it slightly further back from the table edge, catching the instability issue in rehearsal instead of during an actual round.
1. What is the most common text-related violation with visual aids?
2. True or False?
"It's sufficient to test an aid's stability only during quiet setup at home before a tournament."
Answer all 2 to check.
Double-check your aid for excess text, unauthorized power needs, and physical stability well before competition day.