“Breaking” is the NCFCA slang term for advancing to elimination rounds. The number of students who break—that is, advance to elimination rounds—in both speech and debate is determined by how many competitors competed in the event for the tournament. Students who advance to elimination rounds in a particular event are qualified to participate in that event at the Regional Championship, and they will be recognized during the award ceremony.

Break announcements generally happen right before each elimination round takes place, but speech break announcements may happen at the same time as debate breaks at the end of morning announcements. The Tournament Director or Tournament Coordinator will announce the names of the students who will be competing.

As individual names are announced for each event, the audience claps once—a clap we refer to as the forensics clap—so that the next name can be read promptly. When all names have been announced for the event, we take a moment to celebrate with ordinary applause before moving on to the next event.