by Noah McKay | Apr 25, 2023 | Communication/Rhetoric, Speaking, Technique
Pixabay.com, https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2017/01/31/17/58/bullhorn-2026013_1280.png Several students have come to me recently with variations on the same question: What should I do if judges complain that I speak too quickly or aggressively in debate rounds? (What I...
by Noah McKay | Mar 27, 2023 | Technique
Pixabay.com, https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2020/12/15/16/06/win-5834110_1280.png Regional and national championships are rapidly approaching. If you’re planning to compete, that means you’ll have to step up your game. Here are four ways good debaters can start to...
by Patrick McDonald | Mar 14, 2023 | Speaking, Technique
In every sentence, some words are more important than others. Each word is necessary to make the sentence meaningful, but particular words carry more meaning than others. Consider the sentence: “Some time ago, I went to the zoo and saw a gorilla with a spatula.” Each...
by Nathanael Morgan | Mar 7, 2023 | Concept Analysis, NCFCA, Negative, Speaking, Stoa, Strategy, Team Policy, Technique, Thinking Strategically
When I was just getting a good grip on how to debate well, I struggled with winning the judges over. Oftentimes the ballots blamed this on my aggressiveness, but looking back on it now, I realize that that was only one facet of the problem. Counterintuitively, the...
by Jala Boyer | Feb 20, 2023 | Affirmative, College Debate, Debate Leagues, Debate Resources, From Intermediate to Advanced, From Novice to Intermediate, NCFCA, Negative, NSDA, Research Tips, Stoa, Strategy, Technique, Uncategorized
I’m not joking, this is possibly one of the most valuable articles that I have published on the Ethos website. That is because this article is a list of different documents that I have made or have seen used by other debaters that became essential to my success. Each...
by Nathanael Morgan | Feb 6, 2023 | Concept Analysis, Research Tips, Technique, Uncategorized
According to data from Renaissance Learning, the average college freshman in the United States reads at a 7th grade level. Statistics like these don’t just appear overnight; this is one part of a larger trend of illiteracy among students in America—not illiteracy in...