Coaching
Showing Weakness While Judging Debate
While judging one of the out rounds of NFA L/D this last weekend, the other two judges and I had the opportunity to answer a few questions about our debate paradigms, a fairly normal practice these days. The question was, “How do you feel about the rules of NFA L/D concerning conversation rate and speed?” [...]
Update #1 to Season Sweepstakes
Here is the first update to our yearlong awards. Since all of the raw data from which this is tabulated is available on forensicstournament.net, and will likely remain so all year long, this should be a fairly transparent process. For answers to questions about where these numbers came from (for example, where is the guy [...]
National Forensic Journal
For anyone who is new to NFA-LD I wanted to point out a very valuable forensics resource available at the National Forensics Association website: the National Forensics Journal. There are tons of articles specifically related to NFA-LD theory that an enterprising debater could cut to win theory arguments. Any other sites you use to find [...]
Fiat – the magic wand of debate
Fiat is a term that is often used in debates and I wanted to go over some basics. Fiat is a term which means “let it be.” In debate, its come to represent the idea that debates should revolve around the “should” question instead of the “could” question. So rather than asking, could the US [...]
PSCFA Demonstration Round
NFA-LD Demonstration Round from Danny Cantrell on Vimeo. I want to thank again Nolan Pack from Pasadena City College and Shantal Voorwinden from Cerritos for volunteering their time. The sound is a bit low for Nolan’s first speech so you may need to increase the volume but it picks up later in the debate. If [...]
RCC Lecture – Tricks of the Trade
Thanks to Dr. Kasle for recording the lecture and thanks to Professor Miller for giving out 10 tips to new debaters starting out in NFA-LD. Watch the lecture here: RCC Debate Camp – Professor Miller – Tricks of the Trade from Danny Cantrell on Vimeo. Share on Facebook
First Affirmative Constructive Lecture
At the Riverside Community College Co-Op Professor Kasle was nice enough to video tape a bunch of the lectures. Here is my lecture on the first affirmative constructive. Thanks to all the participants for the lively discussion! Part 1 NFA-LD First Affirmative Constructive Lecture 1/2 from Danny Cantrell on Vimeo. Part 2 NFA-LD First Affirmative [...]
Listening
One of the great benefits of debate training is that you are forced to develop good listening skills in order to refute arguments. There is really no other way to be competitive in debate. I found this great blog today on the Global Debate Blog about listening: Debate reveals value of listening to others’ views [...]
Full Citation or Last name & Year?
Again, a round of thank yous to Dr. Kasle for organizing the RCC debate camp last month. It was a terrific experience for me the day I was there and helpful to a lot of students and coaches from around the country. We had a great discussion at the camp regarding the rule regarding evidence [...]
States Counterplan problem?
SAFETEA-LU enacted in 2005 (Public Law 109-59, 109th Congress) discusses how transportation infrastructure projects are incredibly complex and require coordination between multiple levels of government. A states counterplan could run into substantial solvency deficit if the “states go it alone” as many states counterplan specify… SAFETEA-LU Law, Public law 109-59, 2005 (http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=109_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ059.109, accessed August 6, [...]
Google Alerts – the lazy research technique
At the RCC debate camp I mentioned briefly the ability to sign up for google alerts to do some of your research for you. I thought it might be helpful to explain how to do this in more detail. Here is a video explaining how to use google alerts generally: Some of my thoughts on [...]
A good year for counterplans?
While last year seemed near impossible to run good counterplans based on the requirements of the NFA-LD rules for counterplans, this year seems really solid. Specifically, the rules state that counterplans: The negative may present one counterproposal specific to the affirmative problem area. By this, we mean that the counterproposal must deal with the problem [...]
