by Ellie Harris | Jun 14, 2021 | Affirmatives, From Intermediate to Advanced, TP
The 1AR presents a unique challenge: responding to two speeches in one. It’s probably the most difficult speech to give in a debate round, but it can also be the most fun. I’ve been the 1AR for most of my time in debate, and it’s my favorite speech by far. Sure, I...
by Ben Brown | May 20, 2021 | Affirmatives, Debate Blog, From Intermediate to Advanced, From Novice to Intermediate, TP
What makes a good affirmative case? Aside from one that wins, most debaters look for policies that they believe should be implemented in the real world, and more specifically, ones that create the most benefits. For instance, if one course of action would...
by Ellie Harris | May 1, 2021 | Advocacy, Affirmatives, From Intermediate to Advanced, Negative
In Voting Issues Part I, we discussed three common problems surrounding voters and how to avoid them by not running voters at all. But this doesn’t mean you should never run voters! It’s important to understand how to debate without voters, but at the same time many...
by Ellie Harris | Mar 26, 2021 | Advocacy, Affirmatives, From Intermediate to Advanced
Carefully read a list of numbers, wait a minute or two, and then try to recall as many of those numbers as you can. It’ll probably be easiest to remember the first and last few numbers. That’s because your brain is wired to recall things in order of primacy and...
by Kyle Lee | Mar 17, 2021 | Best Resources, Debate Blog, From Intermediate to Advanced, Strategy, Technique, Thinking Strategically
In the last article (found here), we covered why over-practice is a real threat to competitive speech & debate success. That article wasn’t saying that practice is inherently bad. It isn’t. Practice is fundamental to improving at anything. But there...
by Ben Brown | Feb 18, 2021 | Debate Blog, 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...
