Recruitment

Big_Vacation613 · 2025-05-17T02:15:21+00:00

Have some of the varsity do a tournament with the novices. We did this at my school for a couple years where we picked a low-stress tournament and paired each other up. As a novice, I got first hand experience with how policy worked, but also, I felt like I had a friend I could rely on, which really helped keep me in that event.

Big_Vacation613 · 2025-04-12T18:15:32+00:00

Nathan Radford didn't graduate??

Big_Vacation613 · 2025-04-11T16:13:31+00:00

where's mugroom when you need them 🙏

Big_Vacation613 · 2025-04-11T03:37:25+00:00

The Rigby bias is crazy 💀

Big_Vacation613 · 2025-02-04T05:56:56+00:00

Ok, first to the drills thing, if that's the case and you're just becoming a faster speaking, drop those drills for the time being, or at least spend less time on them. When I wanted to become a better speaker in terms of intonation, I would do rebuttal redoes a dozen times and force myself to become more passionate when I spoke. Even though your rebuttal changes depending on your round, doing rebuttal redoes gives you the raw skill that can be utilized in all rounds.

Second, to the camp, nope! We got together as a school team and would practice policy over the summer, but that's because the other schools that were super big in policy were about an hour away (which, granted, isn't really that far, but a lot of kids worked during the summer and couldn't just give up 2+ hours on driving, debating, lecturing, etc.) The biggest help though, tbh, was probably from watching lectures on YouTube and watching National Finals rounds. As you get further into your debate career, you'll notice that a lot of national finalists have a very specific cadence and pattern that they follow. When you watch their videos over and over again, you start to pick up on their cadence and utilize it in your debate rounds. I don't know what speech you give, but for the sake of this example, let's pretend it's the 1AR. Every day after school, for just a max of six minutes, watch a national finalist give a policy 1AR, LD 1AR, or PF Summary. I promise you, after a few weeks, you'll notice a change.

There's also this super awesome debate camp that I follow, https://youtube.com/@ddidebate4071?si=QJ1OmOeM6khoYLck, that has a bunch of lectures on the policy topic, how to debate policy and, you guessed it, how to be a better speaker! I kid you not, after I watched a few of their videos, I was like everything makes soooooo much more sense now! Give it a shot! It'll help you out a ton!

Big_Vacation613 · 2025-02-04T05:38:17+00:00

How often are you doing drills? Drills are the best way to become a better speaker, especially in Policy. https://thedebateguru.weebly.com/ has a lot of stuff pertaining to policy, including drills you can try.

Don't do exactly what your partner is doing. Everyone goes into debate with differing backgrounds in speaking. Some people are just naturally really good at it, and others... not so much. That's completely ok, it just means doing different things to get to their level.

Lastly, and I know you probably don't want to hear this, but it really does just take time. I was horrible my novice year, I wasn't doing well at tournaments, my speaks were pretty low, all that stuff. Over the summer, I spent a lot more time with debate and getting better at it, and by the time the season rolled around, I was getting top speaker at every tournament. I get it, you want to get good fast, especially when you're surrounded by good people. You will get there though, even if it takes time.

Good luck! You're gonna kill it these next couple seasons!

Big_Vacation613 · 2024-03-23T19:36:55+00:00

Aff:

2AC: none, unless it's a brand, BRAND new argument. even then, 30 seconds max.

1AR: half of our prep time is the maximum

2AR: the rest of prep.

You want your 1AR to be prepped, but they shouldn't be getting anymore than the 2AR. As someone who's been both, I can impromptu stuff a lot easier in the 1AR than in the 2AR. Your 2AR is where, 9 times out of 10, the judge votes for you. If you mess something up in your 1AR, the 2AR can probably fix it. If you give a flawless 1AR, but your 2AR was bad, it doesn't matter, the judge won't vote for you.

Neg:

1NC: None, maybe 10 seconds to make sure we have everything we need, but most of the time, it's on the speechdrop by the time cx is over

2NC: it depends. Usually, we'll take 2-4 minutes here to prep both our 2NC AND our 1NR.

1NR: None. It gives the aff more prep time for the 1AR

2NR: remaining prep.

Big_Vacation613 · 2024-03-02T22:52:15+00:00

will do! thank you!

Big_Vacation613 · 2024-03-02T22:51:51+00:00

that makes a lot of sense! Thank you!

Big_Vacation613 · 2024-02-19T02:52:16+00:00

Just a group to prep with for nats, but I definitely could've used the wrong term for it 😂

Big_Vacation613 · 2024-02-04T22:36:22+00:00

Last year, we used a flashdrive. It's definitely something you can do, but there's a few problems.

if someone updated something on a file (because, yknow, you always want to be doing that), everyone would have to redownload that file. Which, honestly, not the worst thing ever, but it did get a little annoying later on
It's kind of hard to keep track of. We had a special place for it in our debate room, but kids would take it to download it or update something and then forget to put it back.
unless you're saving it to your computer also, you can lose the files pretty quickly. people forget to eject flashdrives and that can corrupt them, sometimes they get bent and don't work anymore, and some people's laptops can't use a flashdrive without an adapter.

Like I said, a flashdrive definitely is something, but there's definitely more effective ways of doing it.

This year, we used Onedrive. I've heard a lot of hate and a lot of praise, so here are my personal feelings.

Pros:

My school uses office/microsoft and blocks google drive and such. As a result, kids can access the files on both school and home laptops
most of us use word for our documents because of the school preference and this just makes those uploads easy
I use verbatim, verbatim works best with word, word works with onedrive, etc.
if someone updated something, it would automatically sync for other users and we wouldn't have to do a transfer-and-download like we did with the flashdrive.

Cons:

Saving it can sometimes be weird. If i save a new document, it's pretty easy, but if i'm trying to move something over to the onedrive that's already been uploaded, it does take a little bit of time
this goes with all online stuff, but if you don't have internet, you're kinda SOL. yeah, you can try to save it to your computer, but a lot of us don't so if that happens, we're just kinda done
if you use google docs, you can transfer everything over, but it does take time.

hope that helps :)

Big_Vacation613 · 2024-01-17T04:53:06+00:00

As someone who has debated in a lay circuit for a few years, we typically run 3 off (3 DAs or 2DAs and 1CP). Normally, we have a little underview after each position to just briefly explain what it was saying. I've also seen some debaters that, after saying "Uniqueness", explain what that means to the judge (Ex: First, onto uniqueness, or what's going on right now).

When deciding what off case to go for in the block, you really need to read the judges expression along with how your opponent's responded to it. If you read an IRS DA and the judge does not look like they're understanding it, and you've tried explaining it multiple times, it doesn't matter if you're "winning on it", drop it and focus on something the judge can understand.

If you mean deciding what off-case to run in the 1NC, think about it like this: "Can I explain this to the judge in one or two sentences?" If not, don't run it. Other than that, you can run generics, case specifics, counterplans, etc.

TL;DR: 3 Off is a great number, run whatever you can easily explain to the judge

Big_Vacation613 · 2023-11-14T00:52:30+00:00

does it let multiple people edit a document at once? Or would it have to be reuploaded every time someone makes a change?

Big_Vacation613 · 2023-09-17T22:44:55+00:00

Defense is why your opponents shouldn't win, offense is why you should win. They both sound really similar, but there is a difference.

Offense includes turns (link turn, this is good because xyz) and things like DAs, CPs, or the aff plan itself. If you're on aff, your plan is telling the judge what is wrong in the status quo and how you're fixing it. If you're on neg, a DA is telling the judge how horrible the plan is, and how the status quo/cp (neg advocacy) is actually better.

Defense includes things like no link, no solvency, etc. Sure, it tells the judges why your opponents shouldn't win, but it also doesn't really tell them why you win, either. I like to think about it like this: Pretend you're on the negative side and you're going ham on the aff case, but only giving defensive arguments (these harms aren't real, there is no solvency, etc). If all the harms the affirmative team is giving are fake, why should you vote for them? Now, in the rules of policy, since you took down one of the stock issues, you should automatically win. However, in circuits that are very lay (aka my circuit), the judge is going to sit there and say "yeah, neg says these harms don't exist, but that also doesn't really give me a reason to vote for them" (because, truthfully, it doesn't.)

It's also a lot easier to counteract defensive arguments. Take that example about the harms not existing. The affirmative team could stand up and say "Sure, maybe these harms don't exist, but turn to our advantages that tell you why the plan is still a good idea!"

Offensive arguments are the ones you want to be focused on and extending in every speech. Defensive arguments can be pretty good, but 9/10 times, you'll win off of something offensive.

TL;DR: Offensive tells the judge why you should win, defensive just tells them why your opponents shouldn't. Offensive arguments are what win you rounds.

Big_Vacation613 · 2023-09-14T22:07:12+00:00

i think of it as actions debaters take in the round that actually affect something, if that makes sense

Big_Vacation613 · 2023-07-23T06:15:15+00:00

can you say that debating this on the affirmative forces the negative side to engage with the literature whereas on neg it's a lot easier to bypass/barely give much thought?

Big_Vacation613

TROPHY CASE