John Tierney, a science columnist at the New York Times, wrote an interesting article in the New York Times Magazine about the concept of “decision fatigue”. In it, he explains that the mental work required to make decisions is substantially more taxing on our brains than we typically think and that the associated “decision fatigue” leads us to make bad decisions.

Decision fatigue helps explain why ordinarily sensible people get angry at colleagues and families, splurge on clothes, buy junk food at the supermarket and can’t resist the dealer’s offer to rustproof their new car. No matter how rational and high-minded you try to be, you can’t make decision after decision without paying a biological price. It’s different from ordinary physical fatigue — you’re not consciously aware of being tired — but you’re low on mental energy. The more choices you make throughout the day, the harder each one becomes for your brain, and eventually it looks for shortcuts, usually in either of two very different ways. One shortcut is to become reckless: to act impulsively instead of expending the energy to first think through the consequences. (Sure, tweet that photo! What could go wrong?) The other shortcut is the ultimate energy saver: do nothing. Instead of agonizing over decisions, avoid any choice. Ducking a decision often creates bigger problems in the long run, but for the moment, it eases the mental strain. You start to resist any change, any potentially risky move — like releasing a prisoner who might commit a crime. So the fatigued judge on a parole board takes the easy way out, and the prisoner keeps doing time.

The concept of decision fatigue has several applications to competitive academic debate.

1. Judge Fatigue

Debaters often struggle to empathize with judges’ complaints about fatigue, especially late in tournaments. After all, they think, judging is a passive activity: the judge just sits there, flows, and votes for the team that wins. But judging takes a lot of mental energy. In any one round, judges need to make dozens of decisions about the arguments and evidence presented in the debate. Over the course of a tournament, those decisions take their toll on the judge.

How can this insight help debaters? Late in tournaments—or even late in a single tournament day—it is important to simplify and make the debate as easy as possible for the judge. This is good advice in all debates, but it is especially important when the judge’s mental energy has been depleted by decision fatigue. Tierney describes a study of shopping behavior that can be adapted to debate judging:

For a real-world test of their theory, the lab’s researchers went into that great modern arena of decision making: the suburban mall. They interviewed shoppers about their experiences in the stores that day and then asked them to solve some simple arithmetic problems. The researchers politely asked them to do as many as possible but said they could quit at any time. Sure enough, the shoppers who had already made the most decisions in the stores gave up the quickest on the math problems. When you shop till you drop, your willpower drops, too.

For judges, giving up quicker on the math problems means giving up quicker on analyzing the most difficult portions of the debate. The more complicated an argument, the more likely the judge is to “give up” and settle the dispute without comprehensively evaluating it. Smart debaters give judges clear instructions for resolving complex debates in their favor. When faced with decision fatigue, judges will be more likely to accept these instructions—especially if it means that a complex decision is simplified.

Judges, of course, are supposed to make tough decisions. That’s their job, after all. But despite their best efforts, judges are subject to the same biological limitations as everyone else. Debaters that recognize these limitations and adapt to them will win more close debates.

2. Debater Fatigue

Like judges, debaters spend tournament weekends making decision after decision in a high-pressure environment. Physical exhaustion is certainly one outcome of marathon tournament competition, but decision fatigue also plays a role. The result? Irritability, exhaustion, and poor decisions. As Tierney explains:

Once you’re mentally depleted, you become reluctant to make trade-offs, which involve a particularly advanced and taxing form of decision making. In the rest of the animal kingdom, there aren’t a lot of protracted negotiations between predators and prey. To compromise is a complex human ability and therefore one of the first to decline when willpower is depleted. You become what researchers call a cognitive miser, hoarding your energy. If you’re shopping, you’re liable to look at only one dimension, like price: just give me the cheapest. Or you indulge yourself by looking at quality: I want the very best (an especially easy strategy if someone else is paying). Decision fatigue leaves you vulnerable to marketers who know how to time their sales, as Jonathan Levav, the Stanford professor, demonstrated in experiments involving tailored suits and new cars.

In debate, decision fatigue can manifest itself in poor rebuttal choices, careless mistakes, and strategic tunnel vision. Late elimination rounds often feature comparatively weak performances by top-level teams. While phsyical exhaustion is partly responsible, decision fatigue is also a likely culprit.

What can debaters do to combat these effects?

First, practice good nutrition and stay hydrated. Tierney describes a study of the effects of nutrition that showed remarkable results:

The benefits of glucose were unmistakable in the study of the Israeli parole board. In midmorning, usually a little before 10:30, the parole board would take a break, and the judges would be served a sandwich and a piece of fruit. The prisoners who appeared just before the break had only about a 20 percent chance of getting parole, but the ones appearing right after had around a 65 percent chance. The odds dropped again as the morning wore on, and prisoners really didn’t want to appear just before lunch: the chance of getting parole at that time was only 10 percent. After lunch it soared up to 60 percent, but only briefly. Remember that Jewish Israeli prisoner who appeared at 3:10 p.m. and was denied parole from his sentence for assault? He had the misfortune of being the sixth case heard after lunch. But another Jewish Israeli prisoner serving the same sentence for the same crime was lucky enough to appear at 1:27 p.m., the first case after lunch, and he was rewarded with parole. It must have seemed to him like a fine example of the justice system at work, but it probably had more to do with the judge’s glucose levels.

Eating well while at tournaments can be difficult if preparations are not made in advance to secure healthy snacks and plan healthy meals. Debaters that want to perform their best when it counts most need to take care of themselves throughout a tournament. Binging on donuts and pizza a couple times a day is not a recipe for peak mental acuity.

Second, develop consistent tournament routines. Debaters should strive to make as few decisions as possible during a tournament that are not immediately relevant to winning and losing a round. Things like setting out your clothes the night before may seem trivial, but it turns out that even these trivial decisions require an exertion of scarce mental energy.

“Good decision making is not a trait of the person, in the sense that it’s always there,” Baumeister says. “It’s a state that fluctuates.” His studies show that people with the best self-control are the ones who structure their lives so as to conserve willpower. They don’t schedule endless back-to-back meetings. They avoid temptations like all-you-can-eat buffets, and they establish habits that eliminate the mental effort of making choices. Instead of deciding every morning whether or not to force themselves to exercise, they set up regular appointments to work out with a friend. Instead of counting on willpower to remain robust all day, they conserve it so that it’s available for emergencies and important decisions.

Outsource as many decisions as possible and make plans in advance. Decide before the tournament what you’re going to wear on each day, where you want to go out to eat, and what time you will set your alarm clock each morning. Let coaches decide where to take the squad for meals; if you have preferences, communicate them before the tournament. The less decisions you have to make, the better off you will be when facing the important ones.

Third, make strategic decisions before the tournament. Some of the most stressful decisions that debaters face involve those about strategies and argument choices. Instead of stressing out about what to put in the 1NC after pairings are released, make those decisions in advance so that you can focus your energy on refining an existing strategy instead of inventing one. Small decisions—like “should we read a topicality argument against this aff? Which one?”—quickly accumulate and drain mental energy.

Fourth, don’t make important decisions late at night. While this is sometimes impossible given the nature of debate tournament schedules, important decisions should be postponed until morning whenever possible. Given the choice of staying up late to prepare for a debate or getting to sleep and waking up early to prepare, the smart move is always to wake up early. As Tierney explains:

“Even the wisest people won’t make good choices when they’re not rested and their glucose is low,” Baumeister points out. That’s why the truly wise don’t restructure the company at 4 p.m. They don’t make major commitments during the cocktail hour. And if a decision must be made late in the day, they know not to do it on an empty stomach. “The best decision makers,” Baumeister says, “are the ones who know when not to trust themselves.”

After a long day of debates, even the most rested and well-nourished debater will have trouble making good decisions. Instead of deciding what to read in the morning elimination round before heading to bed, sleep on it and come back to it in the morning.

Debate is one of the most challenging competitive activities in high school and college. Debate tournaments are mentally exhausting. To make the best decisions in this high-pressure environment, smart debaters should take steps to reduce the impact of decision fatigue—and to adapt to the decision fatigue of their judges.

Kids Today will be a new feature where I don my corduroy pants, cardigan and slippers, grab a Werthers original and complain about why debaters today are terrible and everything was better back in the day.

1. Don’t use structure- cases are just randomly thrown together without well thought out tags or an attempt to structure the hodgepodge into a coherent argument. Everything should have a structure. It is becoming increasing difficult to follow peoples speeches given the general trend towards less clarity and the total lack of structure. When I started debating everyone had subpoints, then I went to some out of state tournaments and the cool kids weren’t using subpoints. So I went up to my coach and said “???? and he responded like this, “some people don’t use substructure, and you can do that, but if you do you need to take extra steps to make sure everything is clear to the judge”. These extra steps include using transition words, pausing/breathing to emphasize when one argument ends and another begins, altering your speed/volume to emphasize a new argument (though I personally think this should be used sparingly at best). You can’t grab some cards with random tags, read them as fast as possible with no differentiation and call it a day. You either need to add structure or use the above techniques.

This is particularly pronounced in LD. People’s cases usually begin with a huge dump of short theory arguments and definitions with no structure. When each case begins this way, and since this is usually the part of the debate that becomes the most important (much to my chagrin) judging becomes basically random. At Valley and Greenhill I scouted about 12 LD debates, and in 10/12 the judge mentioned this in the post round.

Structure will help you win more debates, get better points, and there is no reason not to do it. Literally none.

2. Don’t make arguments without cards. In this day of the interwebs people are able to find evidence a lot easier. This is good, having evidence is good. However, the ability to make an argument without a card has started to atrophy. The main problem is people don’t explain enough. If you read a tag, and then a card, and the total amount of words is 50, to make the same argument as an analytic the number of words you should use is…. 50. You need to provide all the explanation yourself that would otherwise be provided by a card. You don’t make an analytic because it is shorter than reading a card, they should be the same length (an ideal card and an ideal analytic). A classic example of this is when people don’t get to a card, they just read the tag and the timer goes off so they say “that’s an analytic”. No it isn’t- analytic is shorthand for analytic ARGUMENT, you have not made an argument.

Not an argument: The plan is at the bottom of the docket

Approaching an argument: Normal means is the plan goes to the bottom of the docket, so it doesn’t trigger the link

Actually an argument (ignoring is BOD an argument for a second): Our interpretation of fiat is minimal means, the plan would be placed at the bottom of the docket. Obama wouldn’t spend capital pushing until after XYZ had already passed. This is proven by their internal link evidence that says his strategy is to dedicate all capital to XYZ because it’s his top priority.

Now you don’t necessarily need to do all the explaining for an argument in the 2AC(or initial speech). But by the end of the debate, if an argument is an analytic you need to have at some point done the amount of explanation you would have given if it was a carded argument.

3. Don’t throw hail Marrys- If you are going to lose because the 2NR turned the K into a floating pic… SAY SOMETHING ABOUT IT. I can’t count the number of debates someone says something in the post round like “yea, I didn’t want to make a new argument”… why? If you are going to lose, what is the risk? It’s totally try or die, which was probably the useless 4 minute overview you gave instead of introducing a new argument. So how do you make a new argument? Do the following

-make the strongest form of your argument. There can be a variety of reasons for this, I will highlight two. First, judges often do this thing where they take things that are hard to resolve and just decide to split the difference. The classic example is FW- when two teams each read different FW and make a lot of arguments, judges just go “eh, they get to weigh their aff” without either team making that as a FW argument. Similarly, when faced with new arguments a lot of judge go “I was uncomfortable giving you full weight, so I kind of gave you credit a little bit”. So if you go big, and they end up splitting the difference, the middle ground will be closer to what you want. This is how Republicans negotiate. Second, if the judge does give you your argument, you want it to be meaningful. If they morph their alternative don’t just say “give us leeway”- make it a voter.

-Justify new arguments. Make both general and specific justifications. Examples include: claiming the other team developed their argument more, which justifies new responses, that their initial presentation of the argument was unclear, that you are only making an obvious cross app, true not new etc. Spend some time on this and present many justifications. You can/should write blocks for this.

-Get indignant. This is where you need some persuasion. Use guilt, bravado, and humor to sway the judge to your side. This needs to be practiced. If you have never gotten indignant about an argument and you for the first time attempt it in the finals of a tournament you are probably going to lose. Righteous indignation is a muscle- it needs to be exercised. It’s an important tool to have in your arsenal because its the best way to comeback from a seemingly insurmountable deficit.

-Pre-empt. Pre-empt what the judge is going to say in the post round as to why they didn’t vote for you. When faced with a new argument many judges will make arguments for the other team or point out glaring logical deficiencies. Pre-empt these by answering them in your speech.

Example:

(ov)

If you had the 2NC saying the alternative was now a floating pic in plain language, and you wrote it down on your flow, then stop listening to this speech and write negative on the ballot. But that’s not what happened- the neg made some ambiguous statements that could conceivably be interpreted as the alternative is a floating pic in the right light. This shouldn’t be counted as a dropped argument- it was not until the 2NR that the alternative was clearly explained as a floating pic, and we should get new answers to this argument development.

(structure)

There are 2 reasons you should allow new arguments:

First, they did not clearly communicate they had a floating pic. This should be obvious- they didn’t have a text that said that, they didn’t clearly identify what they were and were not agreeing with from our 1AC representations, and they didn’t use the language floating pic- that is the nail in the coffin- the fact that they chose to wait until after we “dropped ” it to characterize their alternative proves this is premeditated murder.The standard should be- was it as clear in the 2NC as it was after the 2nr- even if it was partially clear after the 2nc, if it was substantially more clear after the 2nr then you have to think the reason that was the case was strategic obfuscation.

(pre-empt)

Now, you may say “well the neg did say XYZ, which to me means floating pic”, but that is a terrible standard to use because its so subjective. You may tell your lab kids you think a certain phrase means floating pic, they would then have an enormously unfair advantage over anyone not in your lab because they could use the synonym to sandbag a shift in the alternative. Different phrases have meaning based on the judge and their debate background- it is totally unreasonable to assume we should be looking for theoretical monsters under the bed every time the neg says something that could be construed as a floating pic.

Second, their model will produce terrible debates. Essentially by voting neg you are incentivizing the neg making a lot of murky claims that can be interpreted one way or the other in the 2NR. If we don’t dedicate time there we are screwed, if we do invest time the neg has plausible deniability to say they didn’t make a floating pic so none of our theory arguments are relevant. It becomes a win win situation for the neg, which compounds the already almost insurmountable time advantage of the block. These kind of debates won’t be educational, and won’t have meaningful clash. The floating PIC is already a garbage concept, now we are saying you don’t even have to clearly explain your garbage cheating argument? It’s enough to hint at it? What if the 2NC looks up and winks at the judge but we can’t see his face- is that now a floating pic in the 2nr? The fundamental premise of debate is its a communicative activity- the more important an argument it is the more clearly it should be communicated. What more important argument could there be then whether or not the neg gets to advocate the whole plan?

Now, here is why making a floating pic in the 2NR should lose them the debate

First, conditionality- they said in crossx they only get 1 cp and 1 K- but the new floating pic is both a new CP and a shift in the K alt- we didn’t extend conditionality bad because they made an interpretation of what was legitimate for the negative to do, they have now violated it. They automatically lose on theory- they have arguments that theoretically could justify 3 options instead of 2, but they made the claim that 2 was the limit of what was acceptable. They made this arbitrary and self serving interp for strategic reasons, they are stuck with the baggage it necessitates

Second, PICS are illegit- K alternative can include parts of the plan/representations, but they can’t do the whole plan minus certain representations- this allows them to unfairly rig the game of impact comparison by artificially inflating the worth of bad disads. Its also infinitely regressive- they can agree with us down to a relatively minor point- given they get to engage in planned preparation in advance and get the block, we will be in rough shape trying to win offense as to why that minimal sliver of our advocacy is good. This also makes theory arguments even more important- they are the only way we can win. Theory has to be a voting issue in this instance- otherwise the neg wins the strat skew lottery- they get to make a 5 word 2NC argument, spend 20 seconds on it in the 2NR and either we lose for not answering or we dedicate a ton of time answering it at no cost to them. This one argument affects our entire strategy vs the K- it makes it so only totally external impact turns are winnable arguments. Reject argument not team is a strategy to reduce unnecessary theory debates and encourage substantive clash- but the horse is out the barn on that one when they try and moot all our offense by coopting the plan.

The October issue of Rostrum—the National Forensic League’s monthly magazine—features an excellent article written by Josh Brown of Homewood-Flossmoor High School about competing in policy debate as a “small school” (pdf). It echoes much of the advice provided by Dr. David Cheshier in a 2002 Rostrum article, “How Very Small Debate Programs Can Achieve National Success” (pdf). Both articles are worthwhile reading regardless of the size of one’s program.

I wrote an article about film study that was published in the September issue of Rostrum, the National Forensic League’s monthly magazine. Based on a lecture I gave this summer at Georgetown, the article is reprinted below the fold.

You can observe a lot by watching. — Yogi Berra

One of the best ways for students to improve at debate is to watch themselves in action. While coaches, judges, and teammates can comment on a student’s performance and provide helpful suggestions and feedback, there is no substitute for seeing oneself debate—warts and all.

While debate coaches have long understood the power of film study, it has only been recently that accessible and affordable recording technologies have made routinized film study practical for most high school debate squads. Despite the ubiquity of recording tools, however, the vast majority of debaters are not taking advantage of opportunities to record and review their speeches.

Based on a lecture delivered at this summer’s Georgetown Debate Seminar , the goal of this article is to help students (and coaches) make the most of film study. Those wishing to learn more about the application of observational learning to high school debate are also encouraged to view “How To Learn By Watching,” a recording of a lecture delivered at the Spartan Debate Institutes that discusses the value for students of watching (and judging) debates.

What To Record

Students are strongly encouraged to record all of their debates. Be sure to ask the opposing team for permission to record their speeches; most students are happy to do so, especially when offered a copy of the video after the debate. If they say no, just record one’s own speeches. Do not post videos of debates on the public internet unless explicit permission is provided. Even then, legal restrictions may apply. Always be mature: some people really dislike video recording and will feel uncomfortable about it. If that is the case, live with it.

How To Record Debates

Once the decision has been made to record debates, there are several steps that need to be taken.

1. Get a camera. Some schools have video cameras that students can check out for tournaments. If a student does not have access to an actual video camera, many laptops have built-in microphones and webcams that can be turned on to record speeches. If neither of those is an option, digital video cameras can be purchased on e-Bay or in closeout specials for very reasonable prices; functional cameras are available for less than $100. If acquiring a camera proves too difficult, students should still try to get a copy of videos that other teams record—this is better than nothing. For the vast majority of students, however, video recording technology should now be (at least reasonably) accessible.

2. Set up the camera. Tripods are essential. Make sure the camera can be powered externally with a power cable and ensure that a power strip and extension cord is available. For many students that are already debating paperlessly, this will require no additional investment. Set up the camera in a location where it can be plugged in and where it can clearly record the debate. Audio quality is more important than video quality so it is important to make sure that the camera’s microphone picks up the debaters’ voices loud and clear.

3. Don’t forget. Students need to train themselves to make recording a part of their pre-round routine. Once one gets good at it, the process doesn’t take very long. The biggest issue students have is that they forget to set up their camera or forget to press play; if this is part of the pre-round routine, it is more likely to be remembered.

4. Pack everything up. Even inexpensive cameras are valuable pieces of technology that can easily be lost or stolen. Labeling each component with a name and contact information will help locate lost items but it is important that debaters make packing up their equipment part of their routine.

5. Upload to a computer. This is very easy: many cameras have built-in USB capabilities while others connect via USB or Firewire cables. Once the video is transferred to a computer, rename it according to a naming convention (e.g. “2011-09-01 Round 1 vs. Central High AB”) and save it. Video files are huge, so an external drive just for debate videos might make sense. A high-definition video of a policy debate requires about one gigabyte of storage space, so space is at a premium. Once the video has been transferred to a computer, delete it from the camera’s hard drive or memory card.

How To Use Debate Recordings

Getting the videos is the easy part; making use of them is harder. The following tips will help students make the most of their film study.

1. Assess. Watch debates with a critical eye; instead of passively observing, students should approach the process as active critics. Students are naturally their own harshest judges—they care more than anyone about their performance, after all—and will often pick up on small things that never come up on written ballots or in post-round discussions. If an issue was raised on a ballot or in a post-round discussion, students should explicitly watch their performance with that comment in mind. Coaches can assist students by providing them with a set of guided questions.

2. Correct. Once an area that needs improvement has been identified, students need to work hard to fix it. If it is a speaking or physical presence issue, students should commit to a set of drills to correct the problem. If it is a content issue, arguments must be reworked. The goal of video study is to see what others see and thereby improve a student’s ability to debate better. If a student is not constantly making corrections based on video study, they are wasting their time.

3. Revise. Video recordings are great tools for supercharging the value of speech revisions (“rebuttal redos” in the common vernacular). Students should watch and flow the debate up to the point where the speech that they are reworking occurred. Adding video to the revision process keeps students in the moment and offers a more realistic simulation of game conditions than does a blind redo. If students are fortunate enough to have a coach with whom to work on speech revisions, a video of the original speech should be shared with the coach and the student should identify the components of the speech that they are attempting to improve upon in the revision (i.e. speaking fluidity, argument selection, efficiency, etc.). Reworked speeches should also be recorded so that students can assess their improvement.

4. Compare. Students should periodically revisit earlier videos in order to track their season-long progress. This technique works particularly well when the areas needing improvement involve skills—speaking, physical presence, ethos, cross-examination, evidence comparison, rebuttal efficiency, etc.—rather than arguments or in-round decision-making. It is important that students be honest with themselves when assessing their progress. If improvement is slow or non-existent, a new game plan needs to be established so that a student’s investment in practice pays dividends in competition.

5. Get specific feedback. Students routinely underestimate the time investment required of their coaches to review speeches and critique revisions. In order to reduce the coaching burden, students should clip small parts of a video (or reference a specific time marker) and ask very specific questions about that aspect of their speech. If a student is working on improving a final rebuttal overview, for example, they can send their coach a clip of only that part of their original speech and their revised speech as well as specific questions about the improvements they were attempting to make. If students can reduce the burden required of coaches to provide feedback, they will be more likely to get that feedback—and in many cases the feedback will be more specific and therefore more helpful.

Specialized Techniques

There are several specialized techniques that students can use to improve by watching videos of their own debates:

1. Flow. Students need to know what it is like for judges to flow their speeches. What is hard to flow? Are tags, cites, and cards crisp and clear? Are arguments front-loaded with helpful labels? Is the speech powerfully projected toward the judge or focused downward and into the speaker’s laptop or podium? Often, a debater’s perception of their speaking is dramatically different from the perception held by their judges. Flowing oneself’s speeches is one of the most powerful ways to use video to improve as a debater.

2. Don’t flow. Instead of flowing, students should watch themselves throughout a debate. Are they focused or distracted? Are they confident or intimidated? Do they come off as arrogant or respectful? As aggressive or passive? Are they steady or inconsistent? Are they making good connections? Are they enjoyable to listen to? Are they in control of the debate? Students can learn a lot from non-verbals and from simply watching and listening to themselves in a debate.

3. Watch during prep time. This technique is especially helpful for students that struggle to manage their preparation time. If this is an issue, students should set up a camera that is aimed at their preparation area (either the table they are sitting at or their laptop screen). By recording the debate from this perspective, students can listen to the debate while focusing exclusively on how they spent their preparation time. To make this even more effective, students that prepare their speeches on a laptop can download and install a screen-recording program that captures a video of what they did during preparation time. This technique, while specialized, is underutilized and potentially powerful.

4. Watch during opposing speeches. Another specialized technique, this approach is particularly helpful for students that struggle with flowing, prep time issues, and in-round presence. If a student constantly looks distracted, frustrated, exasperated, or frantic, the judge will notice. Film study offers students a unique opportunity to correct flaws in these areas.

Over the course of the summer I recorded several lectures that have been posted to Debate Vision. While some readers might have already seen them, it can’t hurt to share them again here on The 3NR. This lecture introduces students to the concept of existential risk and provides tips for effectively debating it — it is embedded below the fold.

Note: The version posted on Debate Vision has the audio and video out of sync. A properly synced version is available for download from Mediafire.

Over the course of the summer I recorded several lectures that have been posted to Debate Vision. While some readers might have already seen them, it can’t hurt to share them again here on The 3NR. On the heels of the film study lecture, this one discusses strategies for learning by watching others debate — it is embedded below the fold.

Note: The version posted on Debate Vision has the audio and video out of sync. A properly synced version is available for download from Mediafire.

“Learn everything you can, anytime you can, from anyone you can—there will always come a time when you will be grateful you did.” — Sarah Caldwell

If one looks closely enough, there are lessons to be learned about debate almost everywhere. The book Moneyball—Michael Lewis’s look at the exploitation of market inefficiencies in Major League Baseball—for example, can help us consider ways to exploit market inefficiencies in debate. While management strategies in professional baseball would seem at first glance to have little to do with high school debate, important lessons can nonetheless be learned—if only we take the time to dig a bit deeper.

In the same way that Moneyball inspired reflection about market inefficiencies in debate, Paul Edwards’ How to Rap: The Art and Science of the Hip-Hop MC provides the astute observer with a wealth of lessons for high school debaters. How to Rap is a comprehensive guide to hip-hop MCing that includes lengthy discussions of content, flow, writing, and delivery. Based on interviews with more than 100 MCs, Edwards’ book “marks a cultural coming-of-age for hip-hop — the first comprehensive poetics of this new literary form.”

While the entire book is fascinating, the section about delivery is particularly useful for high school debate. This article refashions Edwards’ advice to prospective MCs and applies it to debate. Five areas of advice are outlined: Breath Control, Taking Care of Your Voice, Enunciation, Vocal Style, and Presence/Swagger.

Breath Control

Breath control allows you to say your rhymes without running out of breath and to adjust the volume and strength of your vocals. If you’re not in control of your breathing and you don’t get enough air when you’re performing your lyrics, then either you won’t be able to complete your rhymes or they won’t come out the way you intended. (p. 239)

Like MCs, debaters need to speak with maximum effort for long periods of time. Unfortunately, few coaches teach proper breath control and many debaters develop poor breathing habits that remain uncorrected for their entire careers. To effectively control breathing, debaters (like MCs) need to breathe diaphragmatically—from the belly, not the chest.

The breath control needed in MCing is similar to the breath control singing and acting require, so MCs use the same techniques and exercises singers and actors use to project their vocals through their breathing. (p. 242)

A variety of symptoms manifest themselves in debaters that are not breathing diaphragmatically: they have trouble projecting their voices, they struggle with breathing (double-breathing or taking breaths often and in a distracting way), they become exhausted during speeches, and they often lose their voice or develop a sore throat during tournaments.

There are a variety of exercises that can be used to develop diaphragmatic breathing. Because it is the natural way for humans to breathe, it is relatively easy for most people to learn.

The importance of diaphragmatic breathing for debaters can’t be overstated. By breathing correctly, debaters can better project their voices, maintain stronger volume and clarity, and sustain their vocal quality throughout a long tournament. Like an MC performing a long concert, a debater that reaches the late elimination rounds needs to perform at their best for several consecutive days and in high-pressure situations. Only debaters with proper technique will be able to do so.

Taking Care of Your Voice

Because your voice is your instrument for delivering your rhymes to people, it is important to look after it. You can damage your voice by straining it and not properly resting it, so be careful to avoid these tendencies when recording or performing live. (p. 260)

MCs need to maintain their voices for long recording sessions and concert tours. In the same way, debaters need to maintain their voices for long tournaments and full seasons.

Many up-and-coming MCs don’t pay proper attention to main- taining their voices. Vinnie Paz of Jedi Mind Tricks, known for his guttural vocals, explains that “the process of taking care of your voice is a whole art in and of itself. There are a lot of younger MCs, you see them do one show and their voice will be blown out.” (p. 261)

Learning to breathe and speak diaphragmatically is the single most important way to build stamina as a speaker. Beyond good technique, debaters should practice their speaking every day, drink plenty of water, and keep themselves physically healthy. Illnesses can wreak havoc on debaters’ voices and can make it difficult to make it through long tournaments.

In debate as in hip-hop, it is important to take care of one’s voice.

Enunciation

Enunciation refers to how accurately and clearly words are said. You have to have good enunciation to be able to pronounce all the separate syllables fluidly and quickly enough to stay in time with the beat. Writing great lyrics with a great flow means nothing if you are stumbling over the words, they are not in time, and no one can tell what you’re saying. (p. 244)

In debate as in hip-hop, the quality of one’s content matters only to the extent that it is effectively communicated to the audience. Debaters who struggle to enunciate their words are difficult to flow, irritating to listen to, and substantially less persuasive than their peers.

Enunciation is especially important if you plan on rapping fast, because if syllables have to be said more quickly, there is a greater risk that you will mumble or mispronounce them. (p. 245)

Because of time constraints, debaters feel pressure to fill their speeches with as much content as possible. That means going fast—too fast to be understood, in some cases. While MCs can write slower songs to make enunciation easier, debaters need to effectively enunciate at very high speeds.

The most straightforward way to improve your enunciation is to repeat lyrics over and over until you can say them fluidly with no mistakes, with every syllable under your control. Gift of Gab of Blackalicious, known for his strong enunciation and fast rapping style, says, “It doesn’t take real long. It’s just a matter of going over it, repeating it, repeating it, repeating it—just getting comfortable with what you’ve just written.” If the flow is particularly dense and fast, it pays to practice more than usual. (p. 245)

Practice is the best way for debaters to improve their enunciation, too. Unlike MCs, however, debaters must develop the ability to enunciate well even when they have not previously practiced the particular text they are speaking. While MCs can practice a song exhaustively before performing it live or recording it in the studio, debaters need to be prepared to deliver speeches with content that they have not explicitly practiced.

It turns out that hip-hop songs provide debaters with some of the best materials for practicing proper enunciation. While it is helpful and important to practice enunciating debate materials, too, every debater should incorporate hip-hop drills into their practice routine. The following songs have proven particularly effective at training students to enunciate well:

• “Alphabet Aerobics” — Blackalicious (Gift Of Gab)
• “Chemical Calisthenics” — Blackalicious (Gift Of Gab)
• “A To G” — Blackalicious (Gift Of Gab)
• “Clockwork” — Blackalicious (Gift Of Gab)
• “Alphabetical Slaughter” — Papoose
• “Worldwide Choppers” — Tech N9ne
• “Ratatattat” — Twista
• “Frum Da Tip Of My Tongue” — Twista
• “Razzamatazz / Jazzamatazz” — Twista
• “Mista Tung Twista” — Twista
• “Runnin’ Off At Da Mouth” — Twista
• “Fastest Rhyme” — Young MC

(Note: some of these songs contain lyrics that some readers may find inappropriate. Discretion is advised.)

Other materials that are effective for practicing enunciation include:

• Random Paragraph Generator — available from GDS wiki
• Tongue Twisters — available from SDI platform
• “Technologic” — Daft Punk
• “It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” — REM
• “Subterranean Homesick Blues” — Bob Dylan
• “KMAG YOYO” — Hayes Carll
• “I’ve Been Everywhere” — Johnny Cash

When practicing enunciation, debaters should focus on clearly pronouncing every syllable of every word. The goal should be for every word to be clearly understandable.

“MCs are often praised for how sharply and clearly they say every syllable in a rhyme—so that the listener can make out every word. For example, Slick Rick and Eminem are considered masters of enunciation.” (p. 244)

Good debaters, like good MCs, make it easy for the listener to hear every word they say. Strong enunciation is critical to establish this level of clarity.

Practice, practice, f@#!ing practice, practice, practice, practice, and practice, then you go practice some more. — RBX (p. 313)

Vocal Style

When you deliver your lyrics, you can adjust your voice in many different ways to create a particular vocal style. You can alter the pitch of your voice and make your delivery more or less melodic. You can adjust how muffled, clear, or nasal your vocals are. You can control your voice’s volume and how smooth or harsh it is. An outstanding and unique vocal style can help you to stand out from other MCs. (p. 247)

One of the most important ways for debaters to improve their speaking is to find their own voice. In the same way that MCs have unique styles, good debaters sound like themselves—they have distinctive styles that are easily recognizable as their own. Good debaters sound in debates like they do outside of debates—only with a different cadence, rhythm, etc.

The goal of a debater should be to speak well, fast—not to speak fast, well. Too many debaters attempt to speak quickly before they learn to speak well. As a result, they never develop a vocal style that is comfortable and compatible with their unique voice. The best debaters—the ones that consistently win top speaker awards—are good speakers who simply turn up the tempo in order to jam more content into their speeches; they still speak well, but they do so more quickly.

While vocal style is more obvious in MCs than in debaters, the same principles apply in both contexts.

One of the main points of vocal style, according to Akir, is “not being monotone, having a certain level of expression in the recording, which is something that a lot of people don’t really take into consideration.” He adds that “some people just have it naturally, but part of being a recording artist is to be able to bring that expression out and that feeling on the actual recording.” This natural vocal expressiveness can often be the sign of a particularly talented artist. (p. 247)

Good debaters, like good MCs, are not monotone—they have “a certain level of expression” and are able to “bring that expression out.” Connection moments in debate are all about style: in the midst of a high-speed speech, speakers find opportunities to slow down a bit, vary their pitch, and really connect with the judge on an important argument.

Vocal style is certainly an art, not a science. Listening to great MCs can help debaters hone their appreciation for stylistic techniques that they can incorporate into their debating. Some of the fastest MCs include:

• Bone Thugs-N-Harmony (including solo work from Bizzy Bone, Flesh-n-Bone, and Krayzie Bone)
• Gift Of Gab (solo and Blackalicious)
• KRS-One (including Boogie Down Productions)
• NoClue
• Papoose
• Tech N9ne
• Tonedeff
• Twista (formerly known as Tung Twista)

Because these MCs often rap at high speeds, their deliveries are remarkably similar to those one finds at a debate tournament. In listening to these MCs, debaters should be attentive to the ways these rappers vary their deliveries, emphasize parts of their songs, project their voices, and maintain a powerful delivery without taking distracting breathes.

Being better at MCing? Be yourself. If you can be yourself and feel like you’re fresh, dog, you gonna be the man—you’re gonna be light-years ahead of everybody else because a lot of these people ain’t being their self. — Pusha-T, Clipse (p. 313)

Each MC has their own unique style; so do good debaters.

Presence/Swagger

Your presence and attitude on the microphone also can be important elements of your vocal style. Some rappers don’t necessarily have the greatest content or flow, or the most precise delivery, but they give themselves an edge by conveying their personality and charisma through their delivery. (p. 257)

Ethos matters in hip-hop as much as it does in debate. Lil Wayne—arguably the most popular MC in the world—relies largely on swagger to distinguish himself from his peers.

Guerilla Black says, “The swagger—that’s one of the big things right now,” which can be seen in the rise of Lil Wayne, who is often commended for the swagger he has on his records. By injecting your delivery with this kind of personality, you can add more life and intrigue to ordinary words and phrases and make even a well-written verse more entertaining. (p. 258)

While its meaning is different in debate, swagger still matters. The best debaters control the room from the podium in the same way that the best MCs control the room from the stage. Good physical presence and a sense of being in control are evident in debaters that project confidence and credibility to the judge. Debaters that are perceived in this way win close debates and earn higher speaker points.

Strategies for improving one’s ethos are beyond the scope of this article. In debate as in hip-hop, however, swagger sells.

Notes

1. Paul Edwards, How to Rap: The Art and Science of the Hip-Hop MC, Published by Chicago Review Press, ISBN 978-1-55652-816-3, 2009.

2. Many of the interviews from the book are posted on Edwards’ Youtube Channel.

3. Special thanks to Noah Goetz of St. Mark’s for uncovering Edwards’ book and for inspiring this article.

Over the course of the summer I recorded several lectures that have been posted to Debate Vision. While some readers might have already seen them, it can’t hurt to share them again here on The 3NR. This lecture discusses the use of film study in debate — it is embedded below the fold. A written adaptation of this lecture will appear in the September Rostrum.

Note: The version posted on Debate Vision has the audio and video out of sync. A properly synced version is available for download from Mediafire.

Over the course of the summer I recorded several lectures that have been posted to Debate Vision. While some readers might have already seen them, it can’t hurt to share them again here on The 3NR. The first lecture discusses team leadership — it is embedded below the fold. Additional lectures will be shared over the next few days.

Note: The version posted on Debate Vision has the audio and video out of sync. A properly synced version is available for download from Mediafire.

Debate is a speaking activity, certainly, but it is also a writing activity. Good constructive speeches rely in large part on well-written prepared materials, but rebuttals are where the real writing occurs. To deliver a powerful rebuttal, students must verbalize their arguments clearly and persuasively—but do so extemporaneously, without a script. Good speaking, like good writing, must be clear, concise, and well organized: the content needs to be allowed to shine through.

As part of this summer’s Hoya Spartan Scholars program, students were given an opportunity to transcribe and edit their rebuttal speeches. The transcription process is tedious—it takes a lot of time and concentration to accurately and completely transcribe a debate speech—but the payout is substantial. By transforming a spoken speech into a written text, students can more rigorously assess the content of their speeches and dramatically improve their efficiency and language choices. And by doing so, the connection between good speaking and good writing becomes obvious.

In the course of editing students’ transcriptions, one thing became abundantly clear: debaters do not communicate efficiently. Most rebuttals overflow with filler language, distracting sentence structures, and imprecise word choices. This undermines persuasiveness, of course, but it also directly sacrifices content by wasting precious speech time. The goal of a debater should be to effectively communicate as many important arguments as possible to the judge within the time constraints. Doing so requires not just speed but efficiency. And while gains in speaking speed are certainly valuable, improvements in efficiency can be much more dramatic.

A list of 16 common efficiency problems is provided below the fold. Did we miss one? Share it in the comments.

1. “In The Round” (and “In The Debate”)

Examples: “We access the biggest impact in the round—nuclear war causes extinction!” “They have no offense in the debate—any risk of our impact outweighs!”

Yes, this is a debate round. No, the judge does not need to be reminded. A related inefficiency is “on the flow”: “They have no offense on the flow—any risk of our impact outweighs!” or “There is no ink on the flow here—they cold conceded it!” Obviously, everything is “on the flow”—there is no need to point that out.

2. “Solve Back” (and “Check Back,” “Link Back,” “Turn Back,” etc.)

Examples: “We solve back for their economy impact.” “Our interpretation checks back their limits offense.”

Huh? What does “solve back” even mean? This one is totally stupid and annoyingly pervasive.

3. Long Introductions

Examples: “I have three answers—my first argument will be that the counterplan solves this warrant.” “First of all, we meet their interpretation.”

Substructure and numbering can be a powerful way to improve flowability and efficiency. Used in this way, however, it is annoying and a waste of speech time.

4. “Things Like” (and “Things Such As”)

Examples: “The DA turns the case—it accesses things like war and the economy.” “Capitalism makes things such as environmental destruction and global warming inevitable.”

Just take those extra words out. The thing being discussed doesn’t “access things like war,” it “accesses war.”

5. “As To Why”

Examples: “There’s no reason as to why the alternative solves the case.” “Our interpretation captures all the reasons as to why their interpretation solves limits.”

A classic example of filler language, “as to why” is a phrase that serves no purpose. Instead of “there’s no reason as to why the alternative solves the case,” just say “there’s no reason the alternative solves the case”—or better yet, “the alternative doesn’t solve the case.” Whenever possible, speak clearly and in active voice—say what you mean instead of dancing around it.

6. “The Fact That”

Examples: “The fact that our interpretation gives them ground means you should err aff on reasonability.” “The fact that economic collapse causes war means our impact outweighs.”

This is another classic example of filler language that transforms clear sentences into passive-voiced mumbo jumbo. Instead of saying “the fact that our interpretation gives them ground means you should err aff on reasonability,” say “our interpretation gives them ground—err aff on reasonability” or “err aff on reasonability because our interpretation gives them ground.”

7. “Probably”

Example: “The DA probably turns the case because economic decline causes war.” “Our link turn probably outweighs the link because it is more specific to the plan.”

A relatively recent addition to the pantheon of annoying debate inefficiencies, the word “probably” has taken center stage in many students’ speeches and is now used as an all-purpose preface to every argument advanced in the debate. If the intended meaning is “almost certainly; as far as one knows or can tell,” the word “probably” is appropriate. If not, it is meaningless filler.

8. “Default To” (and “Defer To”)

Examples: “The fact that our interpretation solves back their offense probably means you should default to it.” “The fact that they have no offense means you should defer to our DA.”

Often used in conjunction with “probably” and “the fact that,” this phrase plays an essential part in the construction of many of debate’s most inefficient sentences. Beyond its simple inelegance, this phrasing makes very little sense: no one says “default to” in everyday conversation. When is the last time you heard someone say “I don’t really like coffee so I’ll default to having the orange juice”?

9. “Go To The X Debate” (and “Drop Down To The X Debate,” “Drop Down To X,” etc.)

Examples: “Drop down to the solvency debate.” “Now go to the permutation debate.”

Signposting is good, but debaters frequently fall victim to over-narration. Visual directions in particular are unnecessary and inefficient. (For a hilarious critique of this style of writing as manifested in scholarly publication, check out Geoff Dwyer’s “An Academic Author’s Unintentional Masterpiece” in the New York Times.)

10. “Extend Across”

Examples: “Extend across the 2AC #1—we meet.” “They have cold conceded our impact—extend across that economic decline causes war.”

Another visual direction that adds nothing to a speech, this one is quite pervasive. Eliminating “across” is certainly an improvement, but even the word “extend” is unnecessary. Instead of instructing the judge to “extend 2AC #1,” just make the argument contained in 2AC #1. By developing the argument, the speaker is performatively “extending” it—an explicit instruction is not necessary.

11. “On This Question”

Examples: “Cross-ex was embarrassing on this question.” “Our evidence is surprisingly good on this question.”

Who asked a question? This one has become more popular in recent years and the cross-ex manifestation (“cross-ex was embarrassing on this question!”) is particularly pervasive. In general, this phrasing is used to conceal vacuousness and scarcity of content: “our evidence is surprisingly good on this question” doesn’t mean anything more than “our cards are good, judge.”

12. “Always Going To Win” (and “Never Going To Win”)

Examples: “We’re always going to win that the economy is strong now.” “They’re never going to win a link turn because we control uniqueness.”

Debating about possible ballots is useful and effective: there’s a reason that “even if they win X, we win Y and Y is more important than X” is a classic framework for good rebuttals. The addition of “always” transforms this technique into wasteful boasting and reflects an unrealistic assessment of the round.

13. “In A World” (and “At The Point Where,” “At The Point When,” etc.)

Examples: “The economy will never be able to survive in a world of nuclear war.” “In a world where we win uniqueness, there’s only a risk of a link.” “At the point where we win uniqueness, there’s only a risk of a link.”

Another classic example of filler language, the phrase “in a world” adds words but not meaning to a speech. Instead of “the economy will never be able to survive in a world of nuclear war,” say “the economy won’t survive a nuclear war” or, even better, “nuclear war will devastate the economy.”

14. “Right Now” (and “In The Status Quo”)

Examples: “Poverty is not being solved right now.” “China is not pursuing space weapons in the status quo.”

These phrases make explicit something that was already understood implicitly. “Poverty is not being solved” implies that poverty is not being solved now; in the same way, “China is not pursuing space weapons” implies that China is not pursuing space weapons in the status quo.

15. “Actually Going To Be Able To” (and “Actually”)

Examples: “They’re not actually going to be able to solve for the economy because nuclear war collapses infrastructure.” “The disad actually turns the case because economic decline makes war more likely.”

A first cousin of “probably,” the word “actually” is deployed in similar ways. Frequently, the phrase “actually going to be able to” is deployed to transform simple, straightforward sentences into passive-voiced obfuscations. Instead of “they’re not actually going to be able to solve for the economy because nuclear war collapses infrastructure,” say “nuclear war undermines the economy because it collapses infrastructure.”

16. “Which Means”

Examples: “The United States has a strong military and the world’s largest economy which means that hegemony is resilient and sustainable.” “Predictability is the biggest internal link to limits which means that our interpretation solves limits better.”

The most powerful enabler of passive voice sentence constructions, the phrase “which means” is added to connect two statements. The clear, straightforward sentence is thereby reversed and transformed into a passive-voiced monstrosity. Instead of “the U.S. has a strong military and the world’s largest economy which means that hegemony is resilient and sustainable,” say “hegemony is resilient and sustainable because the U.S. has a strong military and the world’s largest economy.”

This is a pretty funny exchange between a debater trying to find author quals and an author pretty reasonably responding to their rudeness.

It reminded me of this classic when a debater emailed a think tank leader to ask if they had published a good card just to affect the outcome of a debate tournament. The responses from Friedman are pretty hilarious, and imo pretty dead on.

Main topic authors are often bombarded with emails from debaters/coaches. Most often they are emailed questions that could be answered with 5 seconds of googling, and often the emails are in the form of a demand, not a polite request. I have emailed many authors and so I offer some general tips for what you should do

1. Be polite.

2. Don’t say you are a debater- they don’t care. Also if you say you are a debater and then be a moron you are tainting the rep of every debater who follows you.

3. Write an intelligent email. Emailing someone and saying “you give realism cites plz? kthanxbai” is not likely to get a good response because who wants to respond to a moron. Use proper English/spelling/punctuation (in other words do as I say not as I do)

4. Explain why you are emailing them specifically-i.e. “I am emailing you after reading your article about platypus extinction in the International Journal of Platypai…”

5. Their time is valuable. If you can form questions that have short, direct, easy answers to give they are more likely to respond. If you ask an IR prof  to teach their class to you through email, they are less likely to respond.

This is an article I began writing for the first edition of the last word but was weeded out in the editing process. Several people who read this disagreed with a lot of the advice, so bear in mind this is just my opinion- if your lab leaders disagree with something/tell you to do something a different way you should listen to them.

The question that seems to be barraging the 3nr as of late is “how can I get the most out of debate camp?”. Anyone who has been to, and especially those who have worked at, a debate camp will tell you that the number one thing students can do to get more out of it is pay more attention. Every summer during the morning lectures at the University of Michigan a good 30% or more of the students spend their time playing games on their computers or being distracted by the internet. But, for the sake of argument, let us assume that you are one of the students who does not spend every waking moment fooling around, what then can you do to get the most out of your time at camp?

Most students approach debate camp as a series of isolated events. They go to the library, conduct research, prepare for debates, give practice speeches etc. These parts, however, don’t occur in isolation. The kind of research and preparation you do directly affects your ability to perform in debates. One of the most important things you can do at camp is study how this interaction works. Over the course of the year research and preparation are usually cut off from your tournament success by a large amount of time. You may cut answers to the Zizek K in September and not debate it until may. This makes experimenting with different strategies or approaches difficult. At camp you may have two or three debates in one day where you know the arguments that will be involved in advance and are able to prepare for them specifically. This gives you a chance to try debating the same arguments in different ways. You can impact turn the cap k in round one and then go for framework and a permutation in round two. Once you start thinking about the connections between the various components of camp you can start practicing the skills you will need during the year.

The rest of this article will be divided into three parts. Part one will explain some general concepts about learning and skill development that can be applied to all aspects of debate camp, or life in general. Part two will apply some of these concepts to the process of preparing for debates in all its forms-research, block writing, argument construction. Part three will discuss these concepts as they relate to practice speeches and debates. The idea will be to try and provide a guide for students that explains how these concepts can help them get the most out of camp, but the same principles apply equally to preparing throughout the year for tournaments.

Part 1: Concepts

Expand your comfort zone. Most debaters view debate much like a mixed martial arts competition. They think that different arguments represent different fighting disciplines and that while they may be good at the politics disad they are not good at debating topicality. This view of debate has prompted a lot of coaches to talk about how debaters need to be well rounded or multi-dimensional. To me, this is a bit of a misnomer. There is no special way to debate politics that is fundamentally different from debate about topicality. When people are saying that they can debate X but not Y, what they are really saying is that they are more comfortable debating X, not that they are incapable of debating y. Comfort, fundamentally, is a function of familiarity and time. The more familiar you are with an argument, and the more times you have gone for it, the more comfortable you are going to be with it. This brings me to my first point, in order to improve at debate you must constantly be trying to expand your comfort zone. Camp is the perfect time to experiment with new arguments and strategies because there is no competitive consequence; most practice debates don’t even have a declared winner or loser.

Many students come to camp with a rigid idea of what they should be learning. They say things like “my squad doesn’t run argument x” or “my coach doesn’t let us run y”. These are important constraints during the year, and no doubt will affect your season. However, you have to remember that the point of switch side debate is that by learning both sides of the issue you will be better able to defeat an argument. Even if you will never be allowed by your coaches to read the cap k , reading it at camp can help your level of understanding so that when you debate it on the affirmative you will have a higher chance of success. Expanding your comfort zone is by far the most important concept, in fact, it could easily be said that all other concepts are really just restatements of this fundamental concept.

Practice how you play. It is a fundamental reality of debate that you have a finite amount of time and therefore work that you can accomplish. Debate camp often removes this consideration of time and work potential from the equation by announcing the schedule of debates days in advance or encouraging students to cooperate and distribute workload (having all 2A’s collaborate on blocks for example). To a certain extent this does a huge pedagogical disservice because it means that students are denied practice in a real world environment. As much as possible you should try and simulate real world conditions at camp. If you are debating with the partner you will have during the year it may make sense for you to divide up block writing as that arrangement is one you will use during the year. If you are debating with someone from a different school, however, and you have them write all the counterplan 2AC’s you will leave camp with an obvious deficiency in your block writing skills.

Conscious attention to difference. No matter what you are trying to get better at be it debate or playing Mario Kart if you want to improve you need to pay close attention to details when things change. This is the way evolution works, minor differences appear and if they offer an advantage then they are passed on. Many people don’t pay attention to these small differences. When they move up from 50 to 100CC they don’t realize that they need to hit the turns earlier if they want to be able to take them without going off the track. Since they don’t pick up on these details they never get any better, they keep practicing the old way of doing things. Force of habit can be difficult to overcome. The people who improve the most over the course of camp are the ones who can pick up on these minor changes and incorporate them into their skill set.

Part 2: Research and Preparation

In general there are three areas most students could use improvement in their research. First, comprehensiveness. This is simply a matter of covering all your bases: books, journals, scholarly papers, general news items, blogs and other internet publications. Books can be the “hardest” for students since often books aren’t catalogued in a system like lexis where you can search for “ontology w/30 nuclear war”. Google books, and other electronic sources like Questia and Elibrary, have made this system a lot better than it was, but does not make it perfect since many books are not included. Journal databases like Project Muse or JSTOR make journal research better than books, but there are still many journals that either are not online, are not online in the databases you have access to, or have older issues that are not online. For both books and journals to make your research more comprehensive you should try spending an hour or two just browsing through titles. If I was researching Feminist International Relations theory for example, and found a good sounding journal article in the Review of International Studies I would then quickly look through the tables of content for other issues of that journal and see if any other titles jumped out at me. To go through all the bound periodicals of a journal in a library in that manner will take you about 20-30 minutes per journal. Online it can be even faster. When I find a good book I go and get it off the shelf and then look at titles of other books around it and see if any other titles jump out at me. If the title looks good I will then check the table of contents again to see if it seems promising. This is a bit of a random process, sometimes you find gold and others you strike out entirely. Another technique is to see who is citing a piece of work that is particularly good. Google scholar has made this process 1,000 times easier than it once was with their “cited by” button. There are also databases that do this like the Social Sciences Citation Index that you may have available to you at university campuses. You can also type the name of a book or journal article into google or project muse and see who is citing it or if any reviews of that work have been written. In addition to finding more supportive evidence this is one of the best ways to find on point answers to common authors/arguments. By typing in “Heidegger nuclear war ontology” into google books I was able to find on point responses to the Zimmerman evidence read on that critique. They were in books I had never heard of that the library I was at did not have copies of but I was able to get the pages I needed. When doing research you should shoot for the moon so to speak- think about what the perfect card would say and then type in words from it. You will be surprised at how often you can find extremely good cards this way.

Another element of comprehensiveness is the dreaded tracking down footnotes. The footnotes are always there in your face to use- they are a wonderful shortcut because someone else has already put in a lot of time researching the issue and all you need to do is follow their footsteps. Nevertheless many debaters neglect footnotes because the process of tracking them all down can be tedious since they often come from diverse media. Don’t fall into this trap. Think of it this way: if you are reading a journal article about troop deployments and their effects on local economies from a peer reviewed journal, how many hours do you think the person(s) who wrote that article spent on it? The answer is hundreds if not thousands. If in their time researching it they found the 20-30 most relevant sources with the best evidence and included them in a list for you it would be crazy to ignore it. A lot of research is filtering through information of various qualities and finding the best material. When you see footnotes what you are looking at is a list where someone who is an expert in the field has done just that already. One of the best ways to find articles is to find an article critical of view X and look at all the people it cites as proponents of that view. For example, Baron William Wallace wrote a famous article decrying the theoretical shift in International Relations Theory in the 90′s. The articles cited by Wallace are a veritable who’s who of critical IR theory. Critics often try and respond to the most popular theorists at the time of their writing, so if you are researching a theoretical development from the early 90′s or late 80′s a good way to get a quick grasp on the main authors is to find a argument criticizing their movement.

Comprehensive research, above all, requires time. The hardest part is applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair. In a debate you will only read a few cards on any given issue, the point of preparation is to make sure that you have the best possible two or three cards on that issue to read. There is no way around it, this takes time. The research tips and techniques discussed here can shorten that time slightly, but ultimately you have to put in the hours.

The second area many students need work on is designing a strategy. When you first research an argument you are taking a scattergun approach, read a ton of articles and cut the cards you find. After this initial stage is done you need to figure out what areas need more work. When I attended camp in high school the method I was taught for this (that I still use today) involved a few easy steps. Step 1: as you research keep a running catalog of the arguments you have evidence on. The way I do this now is just using the document map and looking at the headings I have. I organize the cards as I am cutting them instead of waiting till the end (this also eliminates the dreaded step of spending hours organizing at an end of a file, the boredom of which usually overwhelms students and causes them to quit half way through resulting in poorly organized files). Step 2: make a list of the arguments answering/attacking the position you are working on. This list should come from you brainstorming (think: what would I say if I debated this) and from the articles you have read (either response articles or from proponents who list and respond to critics). Then you look at any possible differences between these lists to generate a new list of arguments you need to do more work on. I have made this sound simple, just two steps, but really it is not more complicated than that. Generating a good list of possible arguments you could encounter and preparing for them is the most important part of any research endeavor because if you can accurately predict and prepare for the other side’s arguments you will always be one step ahead. This is something that is not easy at first, it definitely takes some practice. You won’t improve, however, without actually doing it. Every summer I see files turned out that have arguments with no carded answer and I know it was a result of a failure of this process. If you turn out such a file you have not done your job. This is also a good area for which to seek help from your lab leaders or research partners because often other people will see things you did not pick up on. Through my last year of debating this is what I used coaches for the most- helping me generate a list of arguments to prepare for whether I was writing an aff or a K for the negative.

The third thing students need to work on is thinking about constructing the file. This can further be subdivided into organization and efficiency. Organization means that arguments are grouped together logically- links are together, impacts are together etc. You want to be as detailed as you can when organizing a file so that a quick glance at the index or document map can let people find what they need quickly. If your case has five advantages you should not have one generic category “solvency” you should have five different ones- divided up by advantages. If you have answers to CP X you should have five separate solvency deficit sections again divided by advantage. This process of organizing the file should not only help other people who need to use the file it should help you become more familiar with the warrants of your evidence. Efficiency means that you should eliminate waste. If you have 20 cards for a politics uniqueness argument make sure you find the best three and eliminate the filler. For a critique you may have 20 alternative cards, if they all make similar arguments then you don’t need them all. If some of them make different arguments then you need to further subdivide them and find the best three for each sub-argument. The subdivision should make clear when someone using the file should use each set of cards so that people have a map how to debate the argument instead of 20 pages of alternative extensions. One thing that makes this process work better is if you exercise discipline when you are cutting cards. For example, recently I did some work on nonviolence and how it could be used to combat dictators. In discussing nonviolence and the Nazi’s many people made the argument that nonviolence may not stop Hitler once he has risen to power, but that a truly nonviolent society would of taken steps to stop the popular sentiment that allowed Hitler to come to power in the first place. This was a common argument I saw in at least 30 books/articles. Once I had seen the argument and bracketed a card about it two or three times I stopped doing so. I stopped because I knew I would never need 30 cards on that argument so there was nothing to be gained by cutting more on the same argument. During camp I will often go through a student’s articles and see they have cut hundreds of cards that all basically say the same thing. This will create more work for you because you will have to block/process all those cards and then go through and sort them/eliminate the repetitive ones. So when you are working on an argument save yourself time-once you have a few cards on an issue do not cut more unless the new card you find is better than the old ones (either in warrants or author qualifications), and if you find a better card don’t worry about processing the older ones you already cut.

I divide research from preparation in this article somewhat arbitrarily by the process of making a file vs what you do with a file when you get it. This is obviously not a clear division but it is clearer at camp then during the year since at camp you will get files on many issues that you will not do personal research on. While it may be true that you would like to have better politics uniqueness cards then those turned out in a camp file, in general you won’t take the time to cut updates for practice debates ( and you shouldn’t, debating with substandard evidence in a few places will help you develop skills and allow you to better spend your time learning other skills). So I will now turn to what I consider preparation which is what you do with a file to make it ready for you to debate. This will be different for many students- some people can pick up a file and debate it quite well without reading through it much if at all. Most students will require some time, and hopefully these tips will help you maximize the utility of the time you have.

First, let’s talk about the negative. At camp you generally have (at first at least) a small number of arguments to chose from. You also usually get to know the aff you are debating a reasonable amount of time before the debate will occur. For each argument you want to read you need to think through how the debate will proceed and prepare accordingly. The first step is to identify the arguments you think will be relevant in the debate- so if you are reading a counterplan for example then the solvency cards for the aff’s particular advantages will obviously be relevant while solvency for advantages they don’t claim won’t be. Since at camp you generally will have access to the aff’s evidence as well you can read through it to identify the warrants in their evidence as well to help you in deciding what arguments you will need to answer. Once you have the relevant arguments, then you need to assemble the evidence you will be using to defeat those arguments. After it’s assembled you want to read through the evidence, highlight it, make sure you agree that whoever put the file together did organize the evidence according to quality, and think about how much evidence you need to read on a particular argument. That is the broad strokes, now let’s get a bit more detailed.

Reading through the evidence. I think generally you should read through a group of evidence before you start highlighting it. Once you have a better idea of the arguments involved you can do a better job of highlighting the cards. One thing that debaters used to do back in the day was highlight things twice- once in yellow and then in a darker color (you need to use yellow first since you can’t highlight over a dark color). This process is made somewhat obsolete by electronic files, but also often resulted in missing key arguments by leaving them out of the initial yellow highlighting. If you have 4 cards on an issue, card 1 and card 4 may make the same argument but card 4 may make it in a better way. If that is the case you don’t want that particular argument to be read from card 1, so reading through them first will save time as you won’t uselessly highlight things. This is especially true of longer evidence that has multiple warrants. When highlighting you want to get the card down to the smallest number of words that still conveys the claim and warrant. This is more of an art than a science, and takes s practice to get good at and to be able to do it quickly. Each card you read in a debate should of been read beforehand several times so that you internalize the argument and are able to explain it back without needing to look at the card. This not only makes your rebuttals better as you can reference warrants without needing a lot more prep but it makes you sound better in cross-x as you will be able to rattle off arguments quickly. Remember that comparatively the amount of time you have to prep for a debate is much larger than the amount of time you have in the debate. This means that the more work you can do out of the debate the better.

Sorting by quality you should look at a few factors- the quality of the source/author qualifications, date of publication, and the warrants in the evidence. Depending upon the argument, your judge, and internal constraints of the debate like time allocation these factors can vary in terms of which one is the most important-i.e. for a theoretical issue author qualifications may be most important whereas for uniqueness  date may be most important. You may also select evidence with the express purpose of exploiting an asymmetry between your evidence and the other teams. If you know a particular judge puts special emphasis on qualifications and the other team read a poorly qualified card you may chose to read a less warranted piece of evidence that is highly qualified over a well warranted but poorly qualified card in order to make the argument that qualifications should be the deciding factor. In the process of prepping a file I would make small notes after evidence or in a block listing reasons to prefer a particular piece of evidence that I could then reference in my speeches.

Determining how much evidence you need to read requires looking at a few factors: strength of the other teams evidence, importance of the argument in the round, and strength of your evidence. If the other team has fantastic evidence you generally need to read more evidence in response. There are two reasons for this: first, reading more evidence (and arguments in general) can be used to deter the other team from extending that argument. Second, more evidence allows you to introduce more arguments for your side and defeat their point. Sometimes students will read a lot of repetitive or terrible evidence, this strategy only captures the deterrent effect which has some value (quantity has a quality of its own) but does not get the full effect. If we take counterplan solvency as an example, judges will often decide that a counterplan solves some but not all of the case. If the affirmative has great card X and you read mediocre card A on why the counterplan solves judges will often reward the superior affirmative evidence by saying there is a solvency deficit. If, however, you read cards A-E on that issue, even though they all make only mediocre arguments judges will decide that added together they can be better than just excellent card X read by the affirmative (whether or not this is a good form of judging is beyond the scope of this article, suffice to say it is a prevalent form of judging).  If an argument is not very important for some reason, then you can obviously get away with reading fewer cards. Some students chose to read a lot of evidence on a relatively unimportant issue just because they have a lot or because they think their cards are especially good but doing so accomplishes little.

For the affirmative the process is a little different. When picking your aff you need to first determine the relative quality of the options that are available. To do that you must spend a decent amount of time reading through the options beforehand. The process of what makes a good aff could easily be an entire article, but I will briefly go through what I think are the most important for debating an aff at camp. First I would rank diversity- in terms of the number of available advantages and add ons, but also what the negative has available to them. Many students pick the aff that gives the neg the least options which defeats the purpose of practice. Throughout the year you may debate a team who doesn’t have a neg and be rewarded with an easy win. More than likely, however, you will debate teams who are well prepared with a strategy so it is more important that you get practice for those situations. Debating an aff with no neg will not help you improve your skills or force you to work harder. Second is evidence quality. You want to debate a well put together aff so you get practice extending good evidence, explaining warrants, and drawing distinctions between your evidence and the negative’s so that you develop those skills. Third I would say is pushing your boundaries. If you have never run a critical aff its time to learn in an environment where there are no consequences for blunders.

Once you have picked the aff, you need to prepare the whole file. You don’t know what you will debate in any given round and so you need to be more ready than the average neg needs to be. Preparing an entire aff is also a skill set you will need throughout the year that you need to work on developing early. You need to think about what advantages/add ons work in which specific situations, not just what do I need to read vs this counterplan in this particular instance. Debates will be much more unpredictable when you are aff then when you are neg and this requires a more general prep strategy. For example, you may read a hegemony advantage and the neg doesn’t disclose heg bad but instead reads some defense. Then after the 2AC makes it clear that your main answer to their CP is to argue it doesn’t solve hegemony, the neg impact turns in the 2NC. So while the same basic structure of reading, highlighting, organizing applies to the aff you need to be a lot more broad in terms of the arguments that you prepare for. For the same reason you should try and write 2AC’s to all the off case arguments they could read, not just the ones you are debating in your first debate. In addition to the arguments outlined above, you want to get as much feedback from your lab leaders as possible. If you only write a few blocks because that is all you need (or if you divide up the blocks with someone else) you won’t get practice and you will miss out on valuable feedback.

Part 3: Speaking

The most important thing you can work on at camp to improve your speeches is to work on flowing. Try and be as meticulous as possible. You will debate people who are very fast and possibly quite unclear, but these are the same people you will debate during the year. Working as hard as you can to get better at flowing is probably the most important skill you can develop at camp. When I debated I went to the TOC three times and never once heard of a team losing a debate because the block dropped conditionality or because the 2AC dropped a T argument, but in recent years this has become a common occurrence even for teams who are in the top 20 performers at the tournament. It is simply a fact that students do not place the same emphasis on having a good flow as they once did for a variety of reasons. If you want to improve your points and improve your success rate, work on flowing. At camp flowing is of even greater importance for two reasons. First, if you don’t flow an argument and therefore can’t respond to it than your lab leader  can’t comment on how you debated. This is particularly true for 2AC’s responding to case arguments, a key skill for any 2A. Having a detailed flow is a prerequisite to giving a good speech and getting feedback. Second, many students at camp either want to or are forced to give rebuttal redos (a topic I will address at great length later). If you don’t have an accurate flow of the entire debate than a rebuttal redo is a waste of time because you won’t have all the arguments you need to respond to, and more importantly you won’t be able to make intelligent decisions about how to allocate time and what arguments to go for. This is compounded in that redos often occur hours or days after the initial debate which means your memory of the issues will have faded significantly. FLOW!

Second, be prepared for your debate. If you don’t prepare your speeches will be awful and you won’t get any useful feedback from your lab leaders. Period. Failure to prepare is preparing for failure. You want to give your best speech so that you can get the best feedback.

Third, in the debate try and use as little prep time as possible, in fact if you are a lab leader I would encourage you to give the students less than ten minutes of prep going as low as five. The hardest part of debate is giving speeches on the fly where you have to think of the arguments in real time. To get better at this skill, you need to practice it. There is also no penalty for failure since there is no winner or loser, so there is no downside to it. Examples of good times to do this include: debating theory off the top of your head instead of using blocks, debating the case by only writing down the 1NC not your 2AC arguments, and giving the 1AR by not flowing the block but only writing down your responses. In discussing this with other lab leaders a response I often here is that this is not a good strategy to use for younger debaters just starting out, but I could not disagree more. When I was a young debater I debated in an area that gave very little prep and having to give stand up speeches was integral in my development for two reasons. The one stated above, that it forces you to get better at thinking on your feet is definitely the primary one. Second, and almost as important, is that it helps students to become more comfortable in the round. Once you have given a dozen terrible stand up speeches the prospect of giving one seems a lot less scary. If you can get those out of the way at camp, all the better. The majority of times I see students perform poorly when they are new to debate it is because they are nervous, so trying to root that out early should be an important focus.

Continuing with comfort, my fourth tip would be to practice going for arguments you don’t frequently go for or have no experience with. The more you go for something the better you will be at it, but also the better you will be at arguing against it. Many students every summer don’t understand why kritiks are successful arguments/make any sense but after reading them for a few weeks they quickly identify the deficiencies in a lot of 2AC’s to the K and then are better able to beat those arguments themselves. Becoming a well rounded debater should be one of your primary purposes at camp, so if there are obvious deficiencies in your repertoire now is the time to root them out. Being diverse and able to go for any argument in the 1NC makes it a nightmare for affs to debate you because they can’t over allocate time to any one issue. This may mean that you go for a different 2NR strategy then you would were you trying to win the debate. This is ok because there is no winner and loser. It also helps you develop the skills you need to be able to come from behind and win tough debates. Too many students in practice debates go for things the 1AR dropped which doesn’t force them to improve at all- anyone can win a debate where the 1AR dropped a disad. Putting yourself in a hard spot is the best way to force yourself to get better. The same applies to the aff in terms of what arguments to go for in a 1AR/2AR. Maybe they dropped a perm on consult NATO, but since that is a common strategy you will debate throughout the year it will serve you better to take the uphill battle and try and beat them on something else. If you aren’t used to straight impact turning politics or an advantage, camp is the time to do it. These kind of hyper aggressive strategies are difficult to execute if you have never practiced them before as they change the way you need to think about time allocation and prioritizing issues differently. If you don’t have experience going for conditionality bad you need to start practicing since we are in the era of double digit counterplans. If you go for conditionality all the time, stop.

Moving on past general tips, the last thing I would like to do is offer some specific tips on kinds of speeches to do. First let’s talk about speed drills. When doing a speed drill I think there are two things you can be simultaneously working on. If you read theory blocks when doing speed drills it will help you become a much better theory debater. You will learn (even memorize) the arguments and understand the warrants better. This means you can often debate theory without having to take the time to pull a block, and will help your rebuttals when you have to compare arguments off the top of your head. If every day during the camp you read through the 10-20 most important theory blocks by the end of camp your theory knowledge will be much higher. The other thing you can do is time blocks to help you allocate time during the debate. As you are reading just look at a timer and write short notes about how long particular blocks or cards take. There is a trade-off here, doing either of these will trade off with the time you can be “cold” reading new cards. Cold reading is an important skill to develop so that you can be able to read files you haven’t read before as quickly as evidence you are familiar with. I often tell students they should be able to read anything as fast as they read their 1AC, if they can’t they have work to do. How much speaking should you do at camp? I think at least 30 minutes a day. Speaking is one of the most important skills in debate so you need to dedicate that time. When I say 30 minutes I mean 30 minutes of your own speaking work not counting drills you do in lab or actual debates.

Next, speech redos. This is one area where I feel students waste a lot of time. Usually what they do is type out word for word what they want to say in their redo and then show up and read it. This is a huge waste of time. Never in a debate will you have the time to do this, so why practice it? The second thing students often do is fail to incorporate the criticism they were given earlier. If you are giving the same speech, what is the point? When doing a redo what you should do is get out some new paper and look at your flow of the speech you are responding to. Then assume you have 3-4 minutes of prep and prep out as much as you can during that time while thinking about the comments you were given after the last rebuttal (in terms of what to go for, how to change explanations for arguments etc). You should do this process 2 or 3 times by yourself, prepping and then giving the speech. When giving the speech to yourself you should look at how you allocated time, where you able to make the changes suggested to you by the lab leader, how smooth was your rate of delivery, where did you need to be more efficient, where did you properly extend and compare evidence etc. By the time you get to giving the speech in front of your lab leader you should have put in some work to make the speech better, not to make it a robotic reading of a script. A key part of doing it this way is that you practice the prepping in a useful way that will make you better in debates. If your ability to give a rebuttal stayed the same, but your ability to prep the rebuttal improved greatly you would still end up giving much better speeches so this approach helps you in two ways. You should also consider giving multiple rebuttals from the same debate where you go for different issues. Not only does this give you diversity practice but it also helps you see how well you execute different strategies. You should also try different rebuttal strategies in the redo. The simplest example of this is run and gun vs slow and steady. Give one 2NR where you go for T, a DA, a CP, and case turns. Then give another where you just go for T. Practice both strategies because in different debates you may need different skills.

Recommended Reading

http://spdebate.blogspot.com/2008/06/researching-large-file-part-1.html

http://spdebate.blogspot.com/2008/07/cutting-large-file-part-2.html

http://spdebate.blogspot.com/2009/03/working-on-speech-improvement-alone-pt.html

http://spdebate.blogspot.com/2009/04/working-on-speech-improvement-alone-pt.html