by D. J. Mendenhall | Apr 22, 2023 | Concept Analysis, DebateSmart, Lincoln-Douglas, Research Tips, Uncategorized
If you have been on the internet much at all recently, you have probably heard of the new AI, Chat GPT. It’s known for being able to produce text that follows remarkably specific criteria in a matter of seconds based on prompts that anyone could write, such as “write...
by D. J. Mendenhall | Mar 23, 2023 | Ethics Bowl, Lincoln-Douglas, Research Tips, Strategy, Uncategorized
Back in 2013, before I had ever done any speech and debate, and when my family was first considering joining the NCFCA, we had a meeting with the founder of the club we were going to join. During this meeting she went over lots of things concerning how debate works,...
by D. J. Mendenhall | Feb 23, 2023 | Lincoln-Douglas, Top Drills, Uncategorized
One thing I found when I was debating is that I often wanted more practice going up against debaters similar to my level, but often didn’t have the forethought to actually schedule practice rounds. While this was annoying, and I have no doubt I would have been a...
by D. J. Mendenhall | Jan 26, 2023 | Uncategorized
There are often two key abilities that enable someone to be a truly great debater: a strong grasp of the facts, evidence and logic relevant to the debate, and strong grasp of how human understanding works and how to communicate your point in a way your judge would...
by D. J. Mendenhall | Oct 27, 2022 | Soapbox
When I was debating in highschool one of the areas I tended to spend more time on than the average person was resolution analysis. I want to make sure my resolution analysis was airtight and that I could defend it in any debate round. In order to prepare to defend it,...