Competing
Introduction to Debate
From talking to lots of coaches in Southern California it seems that some programs are approaching NFA-LD as a “spring semester” event – with the idea that we get our students warmed up in the fall and then do a big push to get the event ready for state/nationals over break in the spring. While [...]
Case Idea? Require broadband…
Not sure if this would be topical or not but it sounds really interesting – require any new construction to install broadband telecommunications cables. My initial thought is that this is a perfect example of reforming the infrastructure. Currently, highways are not required to have broadband – this reform will require them which will greatly [...]
Writing a Disadvantage
So on this year’s topic you should have a wide range of generic positions to run against almost any case. Because the affirmative could, realistically, run a new plan every single round, it’s going to be very common for you to debate against cases you have little to no evidence against. In that instance you [...]
Losing
A necessary byproduct of a competitive system is that someone has to lose each NFA-LD debate round. Since we employ a win-loss system for determing who wins one debater, will, by rule, leave each room with a loss. Losing can be a very valuable part of the debate tournament. It mirrors life really well. You [...]
Debate is a game
Some great comments on recent posts hashing out why we do debate (here as well). One of those comments, which as been agreed upon, is the statement that “debate is a game.” I hear this often and it is spoken as if it’s carved in stone. I, for one, disagree. NFA-LD Debate for me is [...]
APU and a Fresh Perspective
Greetings! For those readers who may find my name unfamiliar, my name is Nick Matthews. I am a first-year student at UCLA, where I am competing in both NFA-LD and parliamentary debate. In high school, I was a policy debater for four years, competing at both the local and the national level. Now that I’m [...]
Some Clarity on Funding Theory
I would like offer some of my thoughts on why and to what extent an affirmative must discuss funding. These are my current thoughts, but I’m really interested in some discussion to help me reach some clarity. This seemed to come up a lot this weekend. 1) An affirmative must provide something under the plan [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
On Being Negative at the start of the year
Mat brings up an excellent question in the comments section of this post on a possible affirmative case. Thanks for bringing up the question about how to prepare for the negative. As I mentioned at the RCC camp writing your affirmative was the #1 goal back in August. Hopefully by now everyone has at least [...]
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 [...]
