Instructional
Judge Intervention is Academic Colonialism
As we approach the announcement of this years LD resolution, I find it pertinent to attempt to start up a discussion on judge intervention. Additionally, judge intervention is an issue in debate that I’m particularly passionate about, hence my desire to start up a dialogue on the issue. So I decided to post this short [...]
Introduction to Policy Debate
On my recent trip to China to help run the 2011 China Open I was fortunate enough to give a guest lecture at Beijing Foreign Studies University arranged by my colleague and friend Gary Rybold (Irvine Valley College). My topic was an introduction to evidence-based debate using NFA-LD as my guide. In China most students [...]
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. [...]
Summer Prep 101: An LD’ers Guide to Taking Advantage of Your Summer Break. Part 3 of 3
So, you’ve finished most of the heavy lifting necessary for next year’s resolution. What’s left is Contention Development targeted at the most likely cases/arguments. At this point in your summer research you should have quite a few articles that you’ve collected and turned into policy chains. From these policy chains you should have generated tags [...]
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, [...]
Summer Prep 101: An LD’ers Guide to Taking Advantage of Your Summer Break. Part 2 of 3
Last week we discussed researching the topic area and building a policy chain. This week we can start putting it all together by tagging and/or frontlining all of the literature in your policy chain. At this point there is no right or wrong way to approach cutting/frontlining. As long as you’re gathering evidence for good [...]
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 [...]
Possible Resolutions
NOTE: The possible resolutions have been amended as of Thursday, May 6. You can view the new resolutions here. New Poll available in that post since this one is now moot. From the IE-L: THE NFA LINCOLN DOUGLAS COMMITTEE AS FORMULATED THE FOLLOW LD DEBATE RESOLUTIONS FOR CONSIDERATION FOR THE 2011-2012 DEBATE SEASON. PLEASE READ [...]
Why do you participate in debate?
Now that the season is over I think it’d be a great time to reflect: why do you participate in debate? I often find these conversations are helpful at the end of the season when so many coaches and students are experiencing burnout and may feel like all the hard work of the season was [...]
Summer Prep 101: An LD’ers Guide to Taking Advantage of Your Summer Break. Part 1 of 3
Being a winning LD debater starts with your work ethic. For both the novice and the advanced competitor, success in Lincoln-Douglas debate is about research. Those who are willing to do the research give themselves a competitive advantage in every round they enter. This is because they understand the topic area well enough to articulate to [...]
Possible Topic Wordings?
We probably have only a few more days to submit possible topic words to the NFA-LD committee (specifically Dave Trumble (dtrumble at anselm edu)) since the final five resolutions will be published April 30. If you’ve ever had to write topics for a tournament you’ll know it a really hard job and it’s essentially impossible [...]
2011-2012 Topic Area Announced
From the IE-L: The ballots have been returned and the voting was very close. Here is the results of the voting and the topic area for 2011-2012. 1st place: U.S. – CHINA FOREIGN POLICY - This will be the topic area for LD Debate for 2011-2012. (86 pts.) 2nd place: THE MIDDLE EAST – [...]
