Judging
NDCA Open Evidence Project
I wanted to remind everyone that the National Debate Coaches Association runs the “Open Evidence Project” which aims to release thousands of files from high school debate camps to the debate community. While a lot of the files are obviously not relevant for us this year (although if your case deals with space it may [...]
Debating the Most Intuitive Cases Under the Resolution
Part of being a successful debater is having a solid case. What exactly qualifies as a solid case is open for debate (pun intended). I have always been an advocate of debating the most intuitive case under the resolution. Some of my contemporaries believe in cutting obscure cases that either barely meet the burdens of [...]
Taming the Kritik: How to Beat a Kritik Debater in LD
Today I’ll explain how to engage in kritik debate and some useful strategies to beat back the dreaded K. Although the kritik remains rare in LD debate it is not entirely absent from rounds and tournaments. Some enterprising debaters have changed the headings to DA – Counterplan, but make no mistake – It’s a kritik. [...]
Surveying Attitudes Toward Topical Counterplans in LD
Matt Whitman, a debater from Western Kentucky University, has asked me to pass this along – he’s promised to come back and summarize his results when he finishes his thesis. “Aside from the annual topic change, NFA-LD (and really, the rest of forensics) continues to evolve as an activity itself. As competitors, coaches, and critics, [...]
Amended Resolutions
Per an email sent to the IE-L on Thursday, May 5 at 5:49pm the Lincoln Douglas Committee has revised the wording of the 5 resolutions: The Lincoln Douglas Committee has revised the wording of the 5 resolutions for clarification reasons. If you have already voted, and feel you need to change your ballot, send me [...]
BREAKING – Board suspends vote – will keep this year’s topic one more year
Just got an interesting email on the IE-L regarding next year’s NFA-LD topic… … The NFA-LD committee has just finished receiving results from the 2010-2011 coaches NFA-LD survey that was sent out two weeks ago to all active NFA member schools. Apparently, preliminary results indicate that a majority of debaters have decided against engaging the [...]
Enumerated v Implied Powers
As mentioned in a comment on Michael’s Kritik post one way to view the NFA-LD rules is that they enumerate a certain set of “powers” or “positions” the negative can run. (This argument may or may not also apply to the affirmative in NFA-LD, but this discussion will focus solely on the negative.) A few [...]
What to do in cross-ex?
A common question new debaters ask is, “So, what do I do in cross-examination?” This is of course a question with as many good answers as there are coaches and competitors. Here are my guidelines for cross-ex: 1) Only ask questions if you already know the answer. An exception to this is when you’re clarifying [...]
Open Thread
I’ve seen this on other blogs that I follow and was wondering if it’d be helpful on here as well – what questions do you have for the Southern California NFA-LD community before APU? Leave any questions in the comments and I’m sure someone will reply…. They can be on coaching, judging, competing, evidence, observing, [...]
Qualified Judging in a World of Specialization
There’s been a lot of discussion about the nature of judging vis-à-vis Michael Miller’s previous post, found here. I’m not going to talk about speed, at least not in-depth; my feelings on this were made pretty clear in my comments within the aforementioned post. But I’d like to use the discussion as a jumping off [...]
Interesting comment
From the Sunset Cliffs post an anonymous person writes: all the preparation is wasted. opp strategy is always Topicality, procedurals, and counterplans. the debate doesn’t start until the 2nd speech. at least thats what it seems like. If true, I think this is a very damaging to both the future adoption of the event by [...]
Looking for Hired Judges? Want to be a hired judge?
I’m happy to announce my next project is ready to roll out as a beta site for the Spring 2010 semester – JudgeHarmony.com JudgeHarmony solves the #1 problem tournament directors and coaches face – finding enough judges for upcoming tournaments. The site is available for middle school, high school and college tournaments. We also solve [...]
