From Intermediate to Advanced
Isaiah on Winning Outrounds
Learn from Isaiah McPeak how to improve your outround performance.
Lindsay See on Rebuttals
Rebuttals have two basic points: 1. Why you’re winning the arguments you’re winning, and 2. Why those ones are the most important.
Three Common TP Questions
Isaiah answers 3 top questions Team Policy debaters have.
Pugh/Bozarth vs. Kintzing/Kintzing
Flow this round write down 3 things you should improve in your presentation style as a result.
A Guide to the 1AR Part I: Preparation
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...
Why Worse Plans Make for Better Cases
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...
Voting Issues Part II: How to Run Voting Issues Well
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...
Voting Issues Part I: The Case Against Voting Issues
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...
Purposeful Practice: The Solution
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 are helpful...
Learning from Yourself: Using Outrounds as a Template for All Rounds
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...
Revisiting the Burden of Proof, Part 2
In part 1, we looked at the argument for net benefits being the superior framing as compared to the burden of proof in Team Policy. The short version is that 9 times out of 10, the burden of proof boils down to net benefits anyway. That is, first, if there’s a net...
Applications to Illustrate Principles
One of the first logical fallacies I ever learned about was the “Part to Whole” fallacy, arguing that one part of a larger category represents the whole category. For instance: “This tire is made of rubber. Therefore the vehicle of which the tire is a part is also...
Case Philosophies, the Why and the How
In almost every single video game, there is an objective. Maybe it's to capture the point, defend the base, take their flag, or even score a goal or a touchdown. Throughout the course of the game, it doesn't really matter how many kills you get, how accurate you are,...
Why Debate Resolutions Are Getting Too Big… And What to Do about It
Each year, my debate club requires every student to go through the NCFCA’s “Comprehensive Guide to Policy Debate” curriculum in the fall, regardless of experience level. Having read it multiple times before, I was skimming the week’s assigned chapter twenty or...
Intentional Impromptu Negative
Throughout my career in Team Policy Debate, I've always tried my hardest to brief every case I could and figure out all the cases at the tournament as soon as possible. I've spent late nights after tournament competition staying up to research cases and trading...
How to Use Double Binds Effectively
Debate is like a game of chess. In chess, positioning is everything. You can be ahead in pieces and still be losing the game. Sometimes, it's even worth it to sacrifice a rook or even a queen for a better position. You need to know which pieces to develop and at which...
Clarifying Questions
What would you say is the ideal cross-examination? Ideas like "a cross-examination that makes your opponents admit their faults" or "asking questions that strengthen your case" may come to mind. However, there's a unique feature of cross-examination that often goes...
Turning a Good Speech Into a Winning Speech (Without Changing a Single Word)
My family and I adore soy sauce. We have soy sauce with our rice, soy sauce with our stir-fry, soy sauce in our noodle soup, and even soy sauce on our desert. Chinese food, (like most food out there) is terribly bland without some form of seasoning to enhance the...
In Defense of Topical Counterplans
A few months ago, for the first time in my Team Policy career, I wrote a Negative brief which centered around a topical counterplan. Having never attempted this before, I had to sit down for a good while and think through the theoretical justifications for such...