Style is a crucial component of success in competitive forensics, whether debate or individual events, and one of the greatest benefits students get from participating in such events is the opportunity to develop a sense of style. In keeping with the classical canons of rhetoric, style (as it relates to forensics) can be limited to a consideration of word choice and arrangement. Not only does style affect every mode of persuasion, language may be the most significant of the available means of persuasion because it is the basic vehicle through which nearly every other means operate. Among the ways in which participation in forensics can help a student learn how to effectively manage the resources of language are: (1) forensics helps a student to discover that the essence of good writing is revision; (2) the more or less rigid time limits imposed on debate and individual events help students to develop and appreciate economy of style; (3) through forensics a student can learn much about how the impact of an argument is largely a matter of language; (4) forensics drives home the point that good style must be appropriate; and (5) what students get out of forensics is a more sophisticated view of the relationship between style and content. Students who engage in competitive forensics are less likely to lose sight of the fact that style is nothing but meaning. (Contains 12 references.) (RS)