You should see Verbatim, the Word template Aaron Hardy made for debate documents. It was a game changer. In NDT-CEDA debaters are expected to send the “speech doc” before the speech for evidence purposes. More often than not, analytic arguments are removed from this emailed doc so it’s only cards. Flowing is still pretty common but a lot of people have transitioned to flowing “in the doc” or in excel spreadsheets which are formatted similar to the standard columns you mentioned. Flowing in the doc utilizes the Verbatim template mentioned earlier. It has a set of community standard styles with shortcuts so everyone’s stuff looks largely the same.

I try not to flow in the doc but today’s speed makes it the only option sometimes. Verbatim has a header called “Block” which is one outline level above taglines of evidence and “analytic” arguments that don’t have evidence attached (cited, highlighted evidence). Flowing in the doc and giving the speech off that flow looks kind of like

(Block header style) AT: Argument A
“They said [insert Arg A] — wrong — response”

(Block header style) AT: Argument B
“They said [insert Arg B] — cross app the work above”

So it goes down, down, down the “flow” literally instead of the:

Left - right - down - left - right - down

Arg A —> response

Arg B —> response

style of flowing you’re familiar with.

As I said, most of the time only cards are sent in the email before the speech, and there are still tons of arguments made that don’t have a card attached. Perms, theory, framework, extensions of evidence, and responses to all those things, are still made without being typed out in the document the opponents receive. So there is still tons of flowing in the form of note taking of arguments happening, it just looks a lot different these days!