The Frank W. Kelly Papers chronicle Professor Kelly's activities in the Notre Dame Speech Department during the 1940's. The arrangement of the collection was imposed on it by the arranging archivist; there was no order to the materials when they arrived in the archives. The collection is now split into two series, Class Records and Course Materials.

The Class Records consist of registration cards, (arranged by class day and time when years are not evident) exams and theses, and student speeches and outlines. The latter is broken down to the item level to allow access to individual student speeches. Oratorical contest files are also included as students were expected to critique the contestants.

The Course Materials series contains mostly printed material presumably used as examples and possible source material for student assignments. Two boxes of blank phonograph disks used to record student speeches are found in the artifact collections (OFWK). One recorded disk has been recovered and digitized (see AFWK 8560).