by Ben Brown | Feb 18, 2021 | From Intermediate to Advanced
Looking back on my freshman year of high school, I imagine that I and my partner were one of the most obnoxious teams in the region, perhaps the nation. We would run topicality almost every single negative round, not to mention starting virtually every single speech...
by Ben Brown | Feb 4, 2021 | Concept Analysis, From Advanced to National-Class, From Intermediate to Advanced, Negative, Strategy, Team Policy, Uncategorized
In part 1, we looked at the argument for net benefits being the superior framing as compared to the burden of proof in Team Policy. The short version is that 9 times out of 10, the burden of proof boils down to net benefits anyway. That is, first, if there’s a net...
by Ben Brown | Jan 21, 2021 | Uncategorized
Fact: during at least one of your affirmative rounds at every tournament you go to, the Negative team starts the 1NC by going over the burden of proof, if they didn’t already cover it during the preceding cross-ex. I myself went through this phase, giving the...
by Ben Brown | Jan 7, 2021 | From Advanced to National-Class, From Intermediate to Advanced, Negative, Research Tips, Team Policy, Thinking Strategically
Each year, my debate club requires every student to go through the NCFCA’s “Comprehensive Guide to Policy Debate” curriculum in the fall, regardless of experience level. Having read it multiple times before, I was skimming the week’s assigned chapter twenty or...
by Ben Brown | Dec 10, 2020 | Counterplans, From Advanced to National-Class, From Intermediate to Advanced, Negative, Team Policy
A few months ago, for the first time in my Team Policy career, I wrote a Negative brief which centered around a topical counterplan. Having never attempted this before, I had to sit down for a good while and think through the theoretical justifications for such...
