When we say “do your debate work,” what do we mean?
Read and research for your current assignments
For every tournament you attend, you will have assignments. The earlier that you start on them, the
easier the work will be, the more feedback you can get from us, and the better your contribution to the
team will be.
Read and research for your aff
The work on your AFF is endless. Your goal is to never lose to the same argument twice. That means you
constantly have to be re-working your frontlines and strategies against negative arguments based on the
arguments you have seen.
Tweak your 1AC for the upcoming tournament
Your 1AC is never static. The goal of the 1AC is to be so good that most, if not all, negative arguments
are defeated before they begin. This also means you should have different versions of your 1AC or
entirely different affs to read against certain teams, in order to maximize your efficacy against those
arguments.
Check the caselist for negative arguments to write 2AC blocks to
At a loss for what to do with your aff? You shouldn’t be – there’s an endless list of arguments that have
been run on the negative that appear on the caselist. Any team can run any argument at any time, with
the wiki just a few clicks away.
Check the caselist for AFFs that we need to prepare against
We always need to be up-to-date on the broad swath of affs out there, you can help us all by checking
around to see what folks have been running. Beyond the case list, you can email, FB, text, or use your
telepathic powers to communicate with your friends at other schools to discover what new biz is out
there.
Write Link Frontlines for your Ks to specific affs
Want to save yourself a lot of pre-debate time? Think about what Ks you would read against what affs,
then start writing up your link explanations and choose your link cards. This is one of the key analytic
moves that has to happen in every K debate, so do it in advance.
Write “K turns the aff” frontlines to specific affs
The second key analytic move for the block against virtually all affs is a discussion about how the
theory/philosophy of the K proves that the aff turns itself. This takes a lot of mental energy and is more
difficult to do immediately before a debate round. Spend your time before the tournament doing this
instead, save yourself a lot of headache.
Prepare rebuttal redos
We can talk at you all day, but you get better by doing. Every time you prepare a rebuttal redo, you get
better at that speech. Schedule time with us during the Wednesday meetings to give that speech and
you’ll get better yet. You can also just record that speech outside of meeting time and we will watch it.
Practice reading your 1AC, 2AC blocks, or negative blocks for timing and efficiency
You should always know how long your blocks take to read. One common mistake is to add and add and
add and now your block is too unwieldy to ever get used. Time and time again should be your motto.
Pre-flow your 1AC for the upcoming tournament.
This should never be something you spend time doing immediately before the debate or during the
round. Hell, just type the flow up in a narrow column in word and you can print out 8 aff flows before
the tournament… you’ll never need to flow the 1AC again.
Organize your files
No matter what you’ve been told about small and large squads, we are a medium-to-large team. That
means there are a bunch of files produced by folks on the team that are not you. If you simply know
what each file contains and where all of them are located, you are, no shit, ahead of 80% of debaters in
our activity. So save your files in a folder structure that makes sense, consolidate updates into your own
personal version of the file, and learn where all your evidence is.
Highlight your files
It is the responsibility of every team to highlight their own files. You can rely on other team’s
highlighting if you want, but there are several reasons that is a bad idea. For one, the ev was highlighted
by someone in an entirely different context – you have little idea what they were thinking was
important when they highlighted it. For another, THE key place that we learn about the topic is our
evidence. If you want to actually learn the material (either for your own edification or because you want
to stomp other teams), you need to read the evidence while you are highlighting it. Often, the cards
even need to have the underlining changed. Finally, you will be vastly improved at CX if you do this.
Watch your debates for areas to improve
You are your own worst critic. Upon watching yourself debate, you will see a myriad of things you want
to fix. As coaches, we are confined by both memory and time in our comments to you. We have to
choose the highest priorities to emphasize. You can frequently identify many things and start fixing them
just during the course of watching a single speech.
Watch other’s debates for areas to improve
Before the era of video cameras in all the debates, we could only watch elim rounds to try to get better.
Now you all can watch anyone that we record and learn how to mimic the best debaters. Make no
mistake, this is how the bulk of debaters have learned how to debate right over the years.
Be creative, come up with a new argument
Not all debate work involves producing evidence. Often times, the best strategies emerge from simply
reading and thinking. Deploying a Lovecraft Cthulhu affirmative last year is a classic example. Don’t be
afraid to step outside the box and find a creative argument that fits with how you want to engage
debate.
Read broadly for understanding arguments (particularly Ks)
Many of the arguments in contemporary debate are difficult to understand unless you read broadly and
for understanding. Not everything you read needs to be or should be turned into evidence. Some of the
best things you will read will not produce cards, but rather understanding. The coaches are always
available to steer you in the right direction for this stuff.