by Harrison Durland | Dec 11, 2020 | Soapbox
Government team: “The purpose of debate is to have civil discussions about the topics before us.” Opposition team: “No, the primary purpose of competitive debate should be fair competition.” And so I listened as the teams spent chunks of the debate trying to debate...
by Harrison Durland | Dec 31, 2019 | Soapbox, Speaking, Technique
When you are trying to teach or argue for something—whether in a debate, speech, lecture, or blog article—you should present the points as uncontroversial, perhaps even intuitive (so long as you aren’t being misleading); after all, you want the audience to believe...
by Harrison Durland | Nov 24, 2019 | Soapbox, Uncategorized
‘Tis the season for turkey, family, and all the conversations that come from families getting together to eat turkey. At least for me Thanksgiving tends to be a fun holiday and I enjoy visiting with family, but I also have seen how discussions can sometimes get a bit...
by Harrison Durland | Nov 6, 2019 | Soapbox, Team Policy
When we were on the affirmative, my old high school partner and I would often live or die with The Block—that is, the negative block in team policy: If the negative delivered most of their strongest arguments in the 2NC speech (as opposed to in the 1NC), then we were...
by Harrison Durland | Sep 9, 2019 | For Alumni, Judging/Judges, Soapbox, Team Policy
In the previous article in this series, I broadly described hybrid and purist judging approaches, but I didn’t dive into comparing the approaches’ pros and cons. Thus, I will devote this article to outlining some of the main arguments I see for and against each...
by Harrison Durland | Aug 16, 2019 | For Alumni, Judging/Judges, Soapbox
Yes, I absolutely used to sneer at community judging—as well as anything else that I didn’t see as very flow-heavy and “objective.” Thus, in high school I resolved that when I returned to judge policy debate I would be a righteous and noble flow monk, steadfast in...
