Productive Insights: Long-Term Benefits of Forensics

Alison Fisher Bodkin
Assistant Professor in Communication Studies
James Madison University

Ben Gaddis
Doctoral Student in Communication Studies
University of Texas at Austin

Those of us who were a part of a speech team, or seriously competed in individual events in high school or college (or in our respective cases, both) easily log 10,000 hours of participation. Malcolm Gladwell (2011) says that mastery of a skill takes 10,000 hours of practicing (i.e., a student who agrees to be in a suit by 7:00 AM on Saturdays). Participation in forensics provides opportunities for students of all creeds not only to explore their identities but also to decide what matters to them. This activity provides numerous benefits down the road. Between the individual practicing of events, coaching sessions, and researching, that goes into public address. Or reading potential literature, cutting, splicing, rearranging so that the tightly packed ten-minute seeds have some coherence by way of a dramatic arc, or trajectory.

Forensics programs across the country have lost funding or are cut entirely. Many of these programs have a difficult time justifying the high expenses that come with competition. It can be difficult because the short-term benefits are hard to justify to administrations. A particular team has to negotiate a series of budget items, such as travel, hotel rooms, visual aids, meals, and support staff or part-time coach compensation. These aspects can appear to be a high immediate cost to many administration officials. We believe that by emphasizing long-term benefits of speech education, this paper could help those programs. Speech is an investment, and in the case of the larger, older programs, one that is beginning to pay dividends in the form of scholarships, donations, and even endowed chairs. As former competitors and one current coach, we will discuss via bullet points the long-term benefits of forensics competition, specifically, how forensics operates as a site of long-term personal and professional growth.

What Forensics Teaches

How to research is something any “speechie” who’s logged 10,000 hours knows. Also, recent research matters. Because it exists, and if it didn’t then, do you have an irrelevant topic? It’s your job to be a boss about your topic via Google Alerts, or any other online media aggregator. This teaches you important life skills that could help in a variety of fields with skills such as:

  • How to research like a scientist,
  • How to write the prose of a TV lawyer,
  • Understanding a topic from multiple angles,
  • How to line-edit, or the art of word economy,
  • The real world skill of “bring me research on this” that is a part of any career,
  • How to synthesize research quickly; and how to provide comments on an issue, with limited time.

Aside from how to work, forensics teaches you how to take constructive criticism. Taking feedback from judges easily translates to real-world adulthood. Your employer is upset, or wants something different, incorporate that feedback into future “performance.” Like the judges who write them, ballots are a real crapshoot. So is academic publishing. Sometimes you feel confident that you won the round (or at least advanced with a “revise and resubmit’) and when you get your ballots, you see a reality is different than your perceived prophecy. Taking this a lesson for improvement and validating all opinions helps build successful habits for taking feedback from all sources and incorporating it.

We learn how to make do with what we have. Forgot visual aids? Having hair issues? Forensics teaches you to work with what you have, the approach of fix-it-and-forget-it; and if you can’t fix it, feature it. (e.g., pencil eraser is an earring-back, hairspray for a pantyhose-run, safety pins for buttons, electric tape on interp book spines, Velcro on visual aids, Band-Aids on blistered heels).

Forensics also teaches us more than making do with what we have. It teaches us a lifelong love for the spoken and written word. This includes:

  • Storytelling is an art form and goes into so many non-performance areas. How do I sell you on my product or service? Probably with a story.
  • How to notice the little things: such as an awkward stance with a foot askew, or how harsh a lipstick color is under fluorescent lights. You just know when something is off, or not right.
  • How to be a critical listener and recognize logical fallacies. The ability to locate where the problem with a message is; is it an analogy that’s needed, a more updated source, a tie-in to the point before?
  • How to be about something. For me, it was Margaret Atwood. Either through literature or researching a specific topic, forensics teaches us that there are different ways to live a life by considering questions such as: where do I stand on an issue? From where did this belief or position emerge? How do I trace my comfort with something? What is important to my worldview? What do I count as good or bad?

Former competitors also maintain a lifelong respect for forensics. Days start early and last late. And usually, such days mean navigating a campus terrain in uncomfortable shoes, stiff clothing, and literal baggage. The days are long regardless of if you win or lose. We learn how to work with others in a productive collaborative environment; we hug teammates at postings, regardless of breaking into final rounds. Also, “van talk” is real. It’s the only truly self-selected safe zone to vent. And gossip. Aside from days of competition, an ethic of pride gets cultivated to represent your school, and your school’s traditions.

We have learned to have empathy for difference. One person’s opportunity is another person’s privilege. Anyone who has logged over 10,000 hours has experienced emotional investment in oral interpretation or public address. Speech teaches us empathy for fellow humans of the world: fathers of dead children, alcoholic mothers, teenagers on the brink of coming out, and so on.

How to be hospitable. Forensics taught me that when a job candidate or any campus visitor first arrives on campus, they want to locate a restroom, information about parking, and understanding the general whereabouts of the place. Bonus hospitality points earned by providing possible lodging options (with various price points and amenities) and places for food and gas.

How to be unique. When forensics is at its best, people’s individuality shines in brilliantly nerdtastic and quirky ways. After 10,000 hours one knows that style matters. Style includes: how you hold yourself, what you wear, and especially the words you choose to say or write. You learn to have a presence, or how to properly walk into a room and “read the room” simultaneously.

In conclusion, forensics has many long term benefits that lead to job productivity and quality of life. In this essay, we have provided what we hope to be productive insights into the long-term implications of forensics competition, both personally and professionally.