by Noah McKay | Nov 7, 2022 | Cross Examination, Lincoln-Douglas, Strategy, Uncategorized
Competitive debaters are trained to give good answers to difficult questions. So, we are profoundly uncomfortable when we don’t have an answer to a question. And, under most circumstances, we would never dream of refusing to try to answer a question. (Sometimes...
by Noah McKay | Oct 10, 2022 | Lincoln-Douglas, NCFCA, Strategy, Uncategorized
The moment this season’s resolution was announced, most NCFCA LD debaters doubtless rushed to the nearest copy of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations in search of arguments for economic liberty. That reaction was partly warranted: the most important...
by Noah McKay | Sep 12, 2022 | Lincoln-Douglas
Today, I want to discuss the role of real-world examples — known among LD debaters as “applications” — in debate rounds. Some coaches and competitors insist that every contention in an LD case requires an application; indeed, during rebuttals,...
by Noah McKay | Mar 23, 2022 | Lincoln-Douglas, Thinking Strategically
Many (probably most) Lincoln Douglas resolutions recommend “valuing” one of two things over the other. And most LD debaters don’t elaborate on what this means, despite its centrality to the round. The few who do typically appeal to a somewhat vague...
by Noah McKay | Mar 7, 2022 | Uncategorized
“Speaker points” is an appropriate but potentially misleading label for the individual scores debaters receive on their ballots. One widespread misconception (especially among LD debaters) is that the “speaker” in “speaker points” refers to the quality of a...
