by Nathanael Morgan | Oct 18, 2021 | From Intermediate to Advanced, Negative, Strategy, Technique, TP
2Ns, listen up. This blog post is for you. Most TP debaters see the 1AR as the most difficult speech to give in a TP round. You only have 5 minutes to respond to 13 consecutive minutes of Negative argumentation, and if you miss something or aren’t very...
by Ben Brown | Sep 24, 2021 | Negative, TP
It’s nearly impossible to survive in TP without being an unwavering pessimist when it comes to the subject of reform. Think about it: if you want to win nationals, you have to be able to argue that literally any topical reform is a bad idea. That is,...
by Anthony Severin | Jul 11, 2021 | Advocacy, Basics, Counterplans, Fiat, From Advanced to National-Class, Negative, Theory, Uncategorized
What must an affirmative team do to win a policy debate round? The affirmative should win if they convince the judge that the audience and the debaters are better off if the judge votes affirmative. Conversely, the negative should win if they convince the judge that...
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 Jeremiah Mosbey | Apr 10, 2021 | Debate Blog, From Intermediate to Advanced, Negative, Strategy, TP
You’ve just delivered the greatest 2NR of your life. Certain that you’ve just won the round, you sit back in your seat with a grin. There may be one more speech left, but the round is essentially over. You hammered in your points, and demolished the mediocre...
by Patrick McDonald | Apr 8, 2021 | Debate Blog, Negative, TP
“I voted for your opponents because lives are important.” Staring disappointedly at that solitary sentence, I felt overwhelmingly perplexed and perhaps even a tad disappointed. It has happened to all of us: you compete in a debate, you feel sure that you...
