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.
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...
Stop Losing Rounds to Abuse
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...
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...
The “Problem” With Judging, Examined
A couple of years ago, Harrison wrote a couple of excellent articles (here and here) delving into the different types of debate judges, and the pros and cons of each style. While we all understand the fact that there are different kinds of judges, it’s still very...
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...
Debate: Not Just a Mental Activity
Debate is not a sport. Debate is not a physical competition where the strength and stamina of your body is tested against that of someone else's body, rather, it is a test of your mind and communication skills. But with that being said, we need to remember that the...
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...
Your Reading Speed is Holding You Back; Here’s Why
I’ve always believed that my childhood love for reading was a foundational building block for my debate career. As I became increasingly engrossed in debate, I began to realize that my ability to read quickly was invaluable. Recently I became curious to see if I was...
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...