If forensic oral interpretation selections are to communicate to audiences, forensics educators must first help their students discover the messages that exist within texts and are communicated through programming and performance. The concepts of relevancy, significance, and depth of insight provide a general background for which aesthetic communication can effectively occur. Relevancy refers to the pertinence a performance has to current social forces. Significance is the yard stick to rule out trivial or inconsequential themes or topics. Depth of insight provides a personal meaning for the audience member, who leaves the performance enriched with a new understanding about the human experience. A criteria relating to the quality of message provided by the performance (selection of literature, programming, introduction, and performance) serves as a beginning to message-based interpretation evaluation. If forensics is to be truly educational, then educators must insist that their students utilize literature as a means of discovery, recognizing the messages that exist through significant, relevant and insightful experiences. (RS)