Archive for November, 2007
What to bring to your first tournament
Students trying NFA-LD for the first time may wonder what they should bring with them to their first tournament. Parli is a bit easier since a pad of paper, pens, and maybe a dictionary would probably get you through your first tournament. NFA-LD on the other hand is different. Here is what I suggest bringing [...]
Ethiopia Update
I definitely think the Economist is an excellent news magazine that is worth a weekly read and a subscription. With the holiday season right around the corner asking for a subscription to the Economist is always an excellent idea! Here is an update on Ethiopia that discusses many issues regarding US foreign policy towards the [...]
Interesting Interview
It’s a really good idea to constantly be checking foreign policy think tanks – the Council on Foreign Relations is one that is especially helpful for getting really good and recent evidence to use in your rounds. One way you can constantly improve your cases is to keep putting in new and more credible evidence. [...]
Update On Somalia
Many of you may be debating cases on Somalia. Here is a good update on what is going on in the country. It is always a good idea to do a quick ‘reality check’ a few days before the tournament to make sure that your affirmative case is still inherent and that nothing drastic has [...]
Food Security Update
I know a lot of cases revolve around food security. This article has some interesting answers for harms saying that food security, while still bad, is actually improving. This is good mitigation for their harms scenario – by that I mean, it makes the problem seem not quite so bad. If they say hunger is [...]
Latin America DA
One of the best parts of evidence debate for me is writing new negative disadvantages. I think it’s a lot of fun to go to tournaments with a plethora of new disadvantages to use during rounds. Especially when you have little to no case arguments against new affirmatives you have yet to research. Here is [...]
What is traditional policy debate
To continue the debate from earlier posts from Mike & John, I came across this great article in the Debater’s Research Guide from Wake Forest University in 2003. It attempts to define what is traditional policy debate and argue that critiques, as usually argued, do not constitute traditional policy debate and are bad for debate. [...]
Prep Time Strategies; Four Minutes of Glory!
Prep time is the nectar of the LD debate gods. In fact, properly using prep time is probably one the most important LD only skills that you can learn. With no further ado, four minutes of glory. Make NO mistake, prep time exists before the tournament begins. This is where you highlight down all of [...]
Tutorial – Writing Briefs in MS Word 2002
Here is a Tutorial for Writing Debate Briefs in MS Word 2002. Obviously, if you use a different version of MS Word, or if you’re really super cool and use something like OpenOffice Writer, then the steps will be almost the same, but the buttons may have some different names. For example, in Writer you [...]
PSCFA Fall Champs
So it’s here! The major Southern California Fall championship tournament for the Pacific Southern California Forensics Association! At the Fall 2007 Coaches conference we were able to change where NFA-LD was fit into the schedule to avoid conflicting with parliamentary debate prelims. Hopefully allow more people to participate in the event. As detailed on from [...]
Assignment Distribution
As NFALD is an evidence form of debate there is an advantage of having negative evidence when debating a case. Here is an outline of what I look for in a case neg and when to cut one. Depending on resources you may need to collapse to what is critical, this is how I determine [...]
5 C’s of Public Speaking
In Tuna Snider’s book, The Code of the Debater available here, he discusses the 5 C’s of public speaking. I really think these are a great guide in trying to improve your persuasive speaking and speaker points. They are: 1. Competitive (serious demeanor, ready to debate on time) 2. Confident (proper research, up on time, [...]
