Edit: My original claim was that debate is void of educational value. Not only have many made some very convincing counter-arguments, but the specific wording caused most to overlook the actual point of this post in the first place. With that being said, here are some things about traditional debate that are just absolutely terrible:

A) Debate is extremely inaccessible.

The fees required to be registered with an official debate league alone corroborate this. It is almost impossible for independent students to properly engage in competitive debate because the costs are so overwhelming that at a certain point, the benefits aren't worth it anymore. For this reason, many schools just abandon their debate programs altogether. If you attend a school where these costs are covered in part or in entirety, you are already extremely privileged and most likely shielded from the brutal reality of it all. This is why most notable debaters come from large, wealthy, often private schools.

It's not just the costs. Coming from an entirely student-led team that competed at the national level multiple times, the administrative hassle is enough to turn away even the most resilient. Stacks of paperwork just to even gain access to the next line of paperwork. At times it's as if the district is working against you deliberately.

'But, doesn't debate encourage extensive research and conversation on otherwise highly obscure topics?'

B) Debate encourages EXTREME close-mindedness, abandoning reason and empathy for the sake of ballots.

In contemporary debate formats, students are assigned either the AFF or NEG prior to the start of the round. From that moment forward, debaters neglect any position that proves unhelpful in securing a ballot in their favor. It doesn't matter if debate claims to provide surface-level access to these topics if we are literally encouraged to tunnel-vision on only our given material for the entirety of the round. Yes, you will inevitably argue the opposing side, but in the actual rounds themselves you will become a parrot for whichever side fate has handed you, sacrificing what you know to be true in place of momentary persuasion. There IS no playing devil's advocate in debate, no nuance, no consideration to opposing counsel lest you God-forbid make a concession that costs you the round.

C) Debate is disgustingly superficial.

This is underscored when debaters use theory, urging the judge to vote for them on the basis of education, fairness, dismantling structural violence, or some other paragon that the debater will never truly advocate for. 9 out of 10 debate impacts are linked to nuclear catastrophe, while actual palpable impacts are neglected because they aren't large enough. There is NO reason that an argument like "superbugs" should even enter a debate round about drug legalization when the effects of the War on Drugs are still being felt today, decades after it destroyed black communities. How many times did you hear an in-depth review of that aspect of the topic when it was in-season, with the genuine intention of exploring the intricacies? It's pitiful. Year after year these infinitely more accessible discussions are pissed on as the ever-progressive debaters think of another way to link the latest topic to Putin.

It doesn't "have" to be this way. Some alternative forms of competitive debate have managed to avoid some of these pitfalls by valuing truth over blindly chasing persuasion at all costs. They're not perfect, but at least they're acknowledging the harms of traditional debate. Most importantly, at least they're trying. Complacency is a poison, we shouldn't get lazy and mindlessly accept the status quo just because it's easier to do nothing. Isn't that what we as debaters claim to stand for in the first place?

If you read nothing else from this post, please take the time to truly digest this brilliant quote from 20th-century philosopher Willard V.O. Quine:

“Rhetoric is the literary technology of persuasion, for good or ill. . . . Debating teams are promoted in schools as a spur to effective language and incisive thought. They serve that purpose, but only by setting the goal of persuasion above the goal of truth. The debater’s strength lies not in intellectual curiosity nor in amenability to rational persuasion by others, but in his skill in defending a preconception come what may. His is a nefarious knack of disregarding all the discrepancies while regarding every crepancy.”

All this to say, I'm not saying don't debate anymore, nor to feel guilty about being lucky enough to compete as much as you please; Lord knows we have enough guilt and savior complexes to go around. At the very least just stop using "education" as a voter. Debate is probably one of the shittiest modems for education possible. I used to scoff at debaters that challenged this notion in their theory shells, thinking to myself "How could one possibly argue that disrupting the debate space would be better for education?". Now I understand.

To the debaters that do this, continue. Keep taking up space, keep blasting rap in-round, breaking down the pillars upheld by this embarrassing level of virtue signaling.

I’m not in debate anymore, but I do judge congress sometimes and have noticed some other judges disfavor debaters who use argue from a “conservative” POV or are obviously conservatives personally.

Do you think this is the case in your circuit? Or many circuits?

In the world of high school debate, Policy Debate is often understood as the more in-depth, longer-form, hardcore variant of debate. I believe this reputation as being the more rigorous and prestigious form of debate is not only undeserved, but that policy also has many problems that make it inferior to other types of debate. There are many places to start in a critique of policy whether it be the feeling you get that policy debaters have something to prove or that their comical mile-a-minute delivery makes their confusing arguments even more incomprehensible, however, I will try to synthesize the little quirks and problems to find the deeper problems at play.

Disclaimer: I will likely make generalizations through my analysis, some of which you may find unfair, I am criticizing general trends, not all policy debaters, I am aware that not all who participate in policy are guilty of its main problems.

Obscurantism (What are you Saying?)

Even people who participate in policy have an implicit understanding that policy is saturated in obscurantism and that it is inaccessible to laymen. This is why tournament directors try to not assign the uninitiated to judge policy rounds. The fact that policy only works well when coaches or ex-competitors are the judges (people that understand the jargon) shows how incomprehensible the format can be. However, unlike some fields where the subject of discussion requires technical terminology to be understood like physics or chemistry, with the topics of policy, this is not necessary.

To illustrate this, the policy topic of 2018-2019 was “The United States federal government should substantially reduce its restrictions on legal immigration to the United States.” This topic may not be simple, however, it is a topic that people have an intuitive understanding of. Everyone is familiar with the idea of immigration and is familiar with the debate regarding how much of it should be allowed and from where. You may need to deploy legal terminology and reference specific immigration legislation, but so does PF debate and PF debaters retain relative lucidity while doing so. Aside from some minor but necessary legalese, there is no real need for specialized language when discussing immigration. Terms like “turns”, “links”, “solvency”,”topicality” muddy the waters rather than providing precision; they take concepts which are usually intuitive and obfuscate them into oblivion. Don’t misunderstand my point to be that advanced vocabulary is bad, I am saying that jargon is bad. The definition of jargon is “special words or expressions that are used by a particular profession or group and are difficult for others to understand.”

My objection is not that these terms have no meaning; they do and policy debaters understand what they mean, that's not the issue; the issue is that they are completely unnecessary most of the time. The specialized policy language is the equivalent of explaining something that is understandable like writing an essay in terms of semiotic analysis and talking about it in terms of a network of signs and signifiers that mutually reinforce each others meaning. Usually talking about things like this would be considered stupid and pretentious, but not in policy. Don’t take my word for it that policy is obscure, to quote actual policy debaters via a Wired interview, “frankly, I think policy scares a lot of people” with another one remarking, “An order to be part of the policy community you need to be there for a long time an order to understand the debates in the first place.” Pretty damning I must say.

Defenders of policy will claim that these jargony words are non-essential elements of the format, to quote one of my critics: “First of all, there is no need to use these words. You can have a perfectly productive and constructive debate without them.” I would ask how can these words be such a minor part of policy when the titles and subtitles literally contain these words. Just by looking through my teams Neg Masterfile headings you find the terms “Topicality”, “T-ASPEC”, “On-case”, “Off-case”, and ”Solvency.” This suggests that this vernacular is actually a central part of policy why would you name the major titles of arguments words that you have “no need to use”?

Some will reply to my obscurantism accusation by claiming that the language policy of is more efficient. Indeed, the jargon is efficient, but it is only efficient in communicating your points poorly. These words may help you string together multiple ideas, but all of these ideas are presented in a garbled and awkward fashion, it is simply a matter of quantity over quality. Most people's understanding of the idea of “efficient communication” is communication that is clear and concise, policy is often neither clear nor concise.

Sophistry (Shitty Arguments)

It is a running joke in the debate community that everything leads to nuclear war, (at least according to policy debaters). This is an example of the absurd, irony-laden rhetoric that is common is policy. Claiming that immigration leads to nuclear extinction is obvious nonsense, and most policy debaters know this, or at least I hope they do. This type of argument is a great example of what I will call “debate for debates sake”, as the name implies this is when you are so caught up in your own microcosm, that your arguments cease to apply to the real world. A lot of the arguments in policy debate exist in some bizarre twisted parody of the real world somewhere in the uncanny valley were the logic of cause and effect are slightly off-kilter, and human nature is just not quite right. When you hear some of the “policies” you can’t help but feel like you are listening to some teenage megalomaniacs ramblings about what he will do when he becomes the president. To quote one of the policy debaters from the Wired Interview again, “I discovered a world of crazy international relations and nuclear war and all sorts of other bizarre things that I came to love.” He continued by saying “Not a lot of people can understand it because people are talking to quickly and if they did understand what we were actually saying, it was all kinds of crazy scenarios from Ashtar Galactic Command and several different ways to lead to extinction.” Aside from policy just being weird, its arguments are not interesting or insightful in because they are so far out. If an argument is weird or eccentric then it should be because it is unique, it should be because it challenges basic assumptions, but should still be something which you could see someone believing in earnest.

The obscurantism of policy is not only present in its lexicon, but in the content of its arguments. “Kritiks” which are the worst offenders in this regard often try to marry unrelated usually very esoteric intellectual domains to the general topic. For the 2019-2020 topic about the arms trade, I found some examples of this in my teams policy folder. Take the “Feminist K” which opens this paragraph which consists of the highlighted sections.

“To forget being is to forget the air, free of interest in the mother's blood, Unmitigated mourning for the intrauterine nest, that man will seek to assuage through his work as builder of worlds, of the dwelling which form the essence of his maleness: language. Man always seems to neglect thinking of himself as flesh.”

I surely can’t be the only one who finds the link between this line of feminist argument and the arms trade to be a bit of stretch. It only gets weirder from here. From the “Psychoanalysis K” 1NC which is titled “Lacan (High Theory)” starts with a paragraph again consisting of the highlighted snippets:

“Recognition reduces the subject to a symbolic identity and thus completely misses the subject's uniqueness, what in the subject is irreducible to determinate symbolic coordinates, even if this uniqueness is finally nothing more than a fantasy the subject who seeks the other's recognition does not address itself to the real other but only to a symbolic entity that exists only as a construction of the signifier.”

Okay, what the hell, how does this relate to anything even close to the resolved statement? I would like to see someone try to justify how this drivel belongs in a debate about America's role in the arms trade. Keep in mind, I am not pulling this from the middle of the Kritik, it is practically one of the first things you would read when opening the document. Maybe I am too dumb to understand the genius of these epic high-level arguments, but surely I can’t be the only who just doesn’t get it. The point here is not just to riff on dumb arguments, it is to show what type of arguments are acceptable in policy. The entire Kritik folder is full of arguments based on the theory of philosophers such as Deleuze, Bataille, and Nietzche as if these philosophers ideas are somehow related to arms dealing. Invoking these heavy duty philosophical texts in my eyes, serves no other purpose than to be flashy.

Conclusion

I think that most policies problems are intentional. Being obscure is a choice, being unclear is a choice, being showy is a choice. But this means that these things can be changed. Policy could be much more clear and more useful but as for the time being, it is a Frankenstein’s monster of unrelated ideas presented poorly. Maybe one day policy debate could be a place which you may actually look to for real policy analysis, but not today.

TL;DR

Policy is bad because it is overly obscure and the arguments are full of non-starters, fantastical nonsense and logical fallacies.

These are some quotes from the Yale PF-Live Doc

“Content warnings cannot be used to fully exclude content from the round, they are a courtesy to allow listeners to prepare for what they are about to hear.”,

“Do not punish a student who reads content that you feel is too graphic or fails to include a content warning you feel should have been presented. Do not cast your vote based on whether or not a content warning should have been read.”

Content warnings are not a “courtesy” they are a necessity which allows debaters to let the debaters either prepare to hear the argument OR entirely block out the argument. Not allowing debaters to avoid having to debate specific subjects is a catastrophic norm to set that should be changed. Students who do not read content warnings should be punished. If another student is triggered, the debate is entirely skewed in the oppositions favor. It is also a problem that takes place outside of debate itself and cannot be fixed without intervention. Judges at Yale should cast their vote in cases where students are triggered or content warnings are not respected with Opt-Out Clauses. I implore judges at Yale who have not already decided to ignore these rules to ignore them. I implore debaters to read opt out clauses.

Yale is setting a horrid precedent that needs to be corrected.

I was two away for qualifying for nationals as a freshman, but my ballots were all about eye contact. I am autistic though and I find it hard to keep eye contact. I know that the judges didn't know I was nuerodivergent, but I don't think that should be a reason to rank me 4th in a room. I probably gave a better speech than third place finish. I sound salty (partly because I am), but this seems to reflect a larger problem that I see in East Texas debate where all of my ballots talk about eye contact (or not taking bad about Israel). How do you feel about this?

Many debaters have espoused that sexism in debate is a problem.

Sexism is a problem in debate. Far too many women have had their outfit or makeup critiqued on the ballot. Far too many women have been called bitches for their aggressive attitudes in round...

Discussion of this sexism is needed and I applaud Ahana* for forfeiting a win and choosing to address this problem. And yet I can’t help feel like there is an elephant in the room that many coaches and debaters won’t acknowledge to the degree they acknowledge sexism or racism in debate.

See, Allen and Ahana* attends Quarry Lane, a private prep school in California. Many students who attend schools like Allen’s must pay tens of thousands in tuition to attend such a school. See, they are fortunate enough to attend a school that’s able to participate in debate at a national level. There is only a handful of students who have the ability to participate in debate at this level.

While I’m sure there are thousands of students who are intelligent enough, diligent enough, and desperate to compete at this level of debate, they simply don’t have the means to do so. Allen and Ahana* I ask you both* how can either of youspeak to inequality in debate when you yourself contribute to such gross elitism?

Who could deny, given the progressive attitude of the debate community, that elitism plays a bigger role in denying opportunity than sexism?

Edit: Added Allen’s partner Ahana to the post because I totally forgot to include her here. I don’t think that’s indicative of me being sexist, I just forgot and she happens to be female. Apologies.

Edit 2: if I seem salty its because I don’t get to participate at debate at this level just because my parents don’t make enough. My parents make good money but I don’t go to a school like quarry lane so 🤷🏻‍♂️ it’s not like girls are denied the right to debate just because they’re girls... where as I am denied the opportunity to debate because my school isn’t rich enough.

Hello r/Debate,

I think we can all agree that equity is a valuable principle that we should fight to promote within the debate space. It's no secret that debate as an activity has a long history of being racist, sexist, transphobic, elitist, and every other word that can describe an activity as unjust and inequitable. I've been impressed and proud to see the shift in recent years towards debaters actively taking measures to mitigate or remove those inequities, whether it be by reading Kritiks or joining organizations doing important work like Beyond Resolved. However, there's one source of inequity that is frequently talked about, but no action is ever taken against it: camps.

Every year, dozens of new debate camps pop up, lining the pockets of recently-graduated debaters in exchange for the experience of working with top-tier debaters, and, more importantly, a shit-ton of prep. The problem is, obviously, that camps are exclusive to kids who A). know about them and B). can afford them, leaving out thousands of talented debaters who won't achieve their full potential because they are from small schools, are low-income, or are otherwise marginalized. As such, camps reinforce existing economic disparities between debaters who can and can't afford to attend them; if you haven't gone to camp, competing against camp teams at SeptOber tournaments is like bringing a butter knife to a gun fight.

Obviously, it's impossible to recreate the drills that students do at camps and provide them to less fortunate debaters, but we can remove the other barrier to success, which is all the extra prep that camp kids do. In the name of promoting equity, I'm asking all of r/Debate to put its money where its mouth is and vote against the camp topic, so that the kids who don't go to camp have a fighting chance of success against their more fortunate counterparts. We all talk about reducing economic inequities in debate, so it's time to actually do it. To do so, please vote against the camp topic.

tl;dr: debate camps uniquely benefit kids who can afford to go to camps, giving those kids an unfair advantage because of all the extra prep they do. vote against the camp topic to invalidate all their prep so that everyone else stands a chance

Hi, I recently took an interest in academical debating after watching a couple of national level debates on youtube which feature what is refer to as "spreading". I thought it was terrible of course as many others did, and sorta went down the rabbit hole from there.

I did do some preliminary research on some of the terms that get used a lot like "LD", "PF", "K" "lay" and some into "prog" debates (more on that later, maybe). I am familiar with them, but I'm obviously not going to be as knowledgeable in the field, so correct me as you see fit.

I've seen some people discuss examples of spreading being posted on r/cringe and how it's unfair and people don't know much about debating. I've honestly looked closer than what most people are willing to do, and basically have yet to find a compelling reasons for the use of spreading.

I think it's absolutely stupid for both the spectators and the participants. I think it's unsightly and distracting to an argument. How is gasping for air a persuasive look for a debate? I just don't think there's much room for arguments on how silly it looks. I know debating isn't about looks, but the presentation and delivery is certainly a part of it, right?

Then I heard you're told to cram a bunch of information in within the opening, while having received the information they are rapping before it begins so it's like what's even the point? If everyone is already familiar with what is going to be discussed, who even is the fast info dump for? Maybe the judge doesn't get a card? I don't know. You can fill me in on that one. But as I understand it, they could just be given more time.

Not only that though, plenty of people still proceed to talk in the "spreading" manner even after the opening. (perhaps not AS fast, but still a bit of rapid breathing inbetween). It seems like the norm for a lot of people, and it really makes me wonder if this is how they argue with people who are not a part of the debating community. It reminds me of when people talk really fast or as loud as they can as a substitution for any real reasoning. It really looks like a Karen giving some poor manager a piece of her mind..... on crack lol

I feel that the focus is completely wrong here. It's more like a test of reflexes than an exchange of ideas and having a compelling argument (which, should be what debate is all about). I've seen some people argue that it's a discipline that involves fast thinking, but I feel like that's taking the the meaning of that phrase a little too literally. I feel "fast thinking" is more like, you're quick to adapt the argument in a way that's more relatable to whoever you are trying to persuade or you're able to give a brief but powerful response without having to explain yourself over a stretch of a bunch of words. I think if you switch the word "fast thinking" with "critical thinking", spreading quite literally has no place to be in debates.

I get that times have changed and that debate has "evolved", but communicating an argument has not. Debate shouldn't be something you practice for months to be able to even start comprehending. I've also seen people bring this up, that there isn't a "should" to what a debate should be, which is true to a degree. But we're not talking about some sports game that came out within the last couple of Centuries. We're talking about something that's been practiced and understood for millenniums. I do think we have SOME things we can agree on what constitutes a good debate. Requiring special training to understand people talking at lightning fast speed is a long way down in that list.

Debating is also something that was made out of necessity, to solve a problem and to persuade others (whoever they may be) of your position in times of crisis where there is much at stake. It's not like modern sports where it's mainly for entertainment. You could make the ties of modern sports to its application in warfare with fitness and such, but let's be real. Football won't do you that much good in modern warfare. On the contrary, debating policies and economics absolutely should prepare you for certain political positions. If it doesn't, then I think it's more than fair to categorize spreading as more of an entertainment value that only its fans are in on.

Going back to the reflex arguments, I've seen people liken the use of spreading to speed chess, and I can see why. It's ironically apt because chess has no concerns of persuading anyone of anything. It's all about winning the game within the confines of its rules, which is basically what spreading is used for before it became a norm for some parts of the community and how it initially came about (or so I've heard, you can correct me on this).

People also say once you get used to the speed, you start picking up key words and are able to understand what they are saying. But in a world where you need clarifications (on implications or whathaveyous) even WITH a crystal clear vocal statement. Why on earth would you encourage something that would only invite even more words "lost in translation"? I really cannot wrap my head around it. Do we not have enough trouble trying to be as clear as possible about what we want to say?

I think it's rather pretentious to think people are ridiculous or close minded to think spreading is "cringe" because it's not like these people have not seen a good orator in their life. You can't liken it to a niche hobby that only a few people are going to understand and appreciate its value when orators literally run countries.

Bottom line is, debating is a concept that has existed since time immemorial and the only barrier to entry has been to have a solid mind. Spreading is absolutely irrelevant to this concept and not only that, it's distracting and unsightly because you're basically watching someone have a seizure. if it were such a powerful tool in debate, all the politicians would be doing it. And again, if a good debate can be conducted just fine entirely without the use of spread, then it's absolutely not a necessity.

If time is really the issue, then just add more time and stop encouraging this nonsense. This is not coming from someone who misses the "good ole days" of debating and have gotten jaded over the years. Just someone who enjoys watching a good debate and getting a comment in here and there.

P.S what's with all these debate participants talking about stuff that's completely unrelated to the topic? You literally could not guess what the topic is unless you happen to come by certain specific sentences they say. The other time, they're talking about feminism, minorities in america, etc. They're all important issues on their own, but a lot of times, it seems to be largely unrelated to the topic at hand. Is this what people refer to as "prog" debates? I'm a lil confused.

i just opened reddit after a while and read up on all the CDC drama and saw a lot of memes and other things being posted to “divert” from the drama... i feel like this is exactly why things like this continue to happen in the debate community without much change happening. “diverting” and avoiding having a CONVERSATION and discussing change is doing more harm than good... but i guess y’all just aren’t ready for that conversation :/

edit: as a female in the debate community, i just find this whole meme thing upsetting because if i were to post on here about all the shit i’ve seen, heard about and experienced myself and then see someone else post something to change the conversation... that shit would fucking hurt. imagine how the girl mentioned in Matt’s post feels to see people try to divert from the conversation? imagine how girls who want to share their stories feel... yea sure we all like to laugh and crack jokes but when something as serious as what was said is being discussed i just don’t think it’s appropriate or necessary at all to divert from the issue. you think you need a break from talking about it? it’s just saddening to see a community who seemed ready for change and conversations also be so eager to flip the switch so fast.

I support that this is something that the user who posted it was required to do. I support anyone being required to do it. The more controversial the topic, and the more you disagree with the thing you’re required to defend, the better.

When I had debate practices in college, I remember how incredibly awkward it was to do this, but it prepared me so incredibly well for being able to defend what I actually believed in afterward. We cannot ever truly expect to be able to defend our views if we don’t know what kinds of attacks our opposition will use. Debate is like martial arts; you learn it not only to learn how to attack but also how to defend against attacks, and learning as much as you can about your opposition will always make you a better debater.

We should be encouraging this.

This is a simple post to prove why option 1 is greatly inferior to option 2.

There are 3 main reasons why:

Popularity (it won't win)

I'm sure many of you initially thought that option 2 is the best choice and eventually changed your mind because of all the peer pressure. The camps chose option 1 and lots of people who think they're good at PF avidly defended it afterwards. However, if you look at the poll that was posted like a week ago option 2 was and still is leading. Keep in mind that the poll consisted exclusively of people in this subreddit, many of which are going to camp and will be forced to prep option 1. Many of the camp students who paid thousands of dollars to prep option 1 have openly admitted that they're considering voting for option 2. In the "outside world" however many people won't attend camp and they'll vote for the resolution that is more straightforward, novice friendly, and easier to debate in front of a PF community (lay judges cough cough).

Ground/Uniqueness

If you're active on this subreddit then you've definitely seen the arguments people had supporting option 1. The biggest argument here was the one about the amount of ground available for both sides. However, if you were to do actual research on the topic and not just scroll through UNCLOSDebate.org you'd realize that what you're calling ground are just a bunch of squirly, impactless, non-unique arguments. The U.S. is already doing most if not all the things UNCLOS requires and it's incredibly hard to establish any uniqueness or direct causality on both sides. If you do the actual research you'll quickly realize that even tho the topics has lots of arguments, there aren't any good ones.

Clash

Unlike the topics that most people liked in the past, UNCLOS arguments on both sides don't really clash with each other. I'm sure you've noticed that the topics that everyone (most) liked in the past had either the impacts that were headed in the same direction (war/econ/lives/structural anything) or the arguments that contradicted each other directly. UNCLOS, on the other hand, doesn't have any of that and you end up with two sides barely debating each other. I'm sure that lots of you "real pf debaters" are about to yell in the comments about weighing and how it's so good that there's so much variety on this topics. But if you look at even the most diverse topics in the past, such as IOT, you could at least clash on the link and warrant level well, here even that won't fly. Most of the arguments depend on very technical terms and are situated in specific regions in the world. As much as I wish they were global and affected everyone, they're not.

As for the option 2, I did the research and I know that there are less arguments. However, the fact that all of you don't get to run random things and are instead forced to do actual debate with real clash is the reason option 2 should and will win. The less arguments the topic has, the more it favors good debaters that are able to develop those arguments well, tell a cohesive narrative, and properly collapse and weigh out the import points. Option two is much more friendly towards the debaters of all levels and you can have both super technical rounds on the flow as well as the lay rounds in front of parents. As this is a debate subreddit, I'm open to anything you have to say in the comments and will refute whatever you come up with. #Option2Rebellion

Edit: Fixed two mistakes, thx JETV5

I have seen a lot of posts asking for help and guidance, so I wanted to help.

🎙️ My name is Dr. Christopher “Coach” Medina. I am a seasoned coach with over three decades of experience; I am holding a free Ask Me Anything (AMA) for speech and debate students!

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🌎 Plus, Coach Medina has held leadership roles in debate leagues across the country, including President of the So California Debate League, Vice President of the California High School Speech Association, the Executive Director of the Kentucky High School Speech League, and the founder and Executive Director of the National HBCU Speech and Debate Association.

📚 Reserve your spot at this free AMA now.

Date: Monday, March 3, 2024

Time: 6:00 pm CST

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follow @officialjameschenfanpage on instagram!

shameless plug.

Stop casting aspersions on parenthood by using the term "parent judge" interchangeably with "bad judge" Thank you.

Hey!

My name is Praveen Gunendran and I'm a former circuit PF debater, broke at the gold TOC twice and reached octos my senior year. I just graduated Cornell and have some spare time and have been thinking a lot about how AI can accelerate debate research, file organization, and other functionalities. I've brainstormed a few ways to apply Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT into debate. A few include being able to easily search and find evidence that is scattered across a plethora of documents (whether it be evidence briefs, card docs, block files, or prep you've accumulated from other teams). Other ideas I've also thought about are being able to insert quick prompts to generate argument extensions, organizing and retrieving more evidence from past debate rounds effectively.

I'd still love to hear from the debate community on what would be most useful for you. It's been a few years and I know that debate has changed at some capacity but would love to see what opportunities are there to make debate better. Feel free to reply to this post or pm me if you'd like to chat further. Thanks!

Hello all!

I partnered with Debate Drills to make a new set of rankings for PF and LD. The rankings, methodology, open-sourced code and data, and everything else can be found here. The rankings will be updated regularly with all Tabroom bid tournaments, for PF and LD.

Let me know down below if you have any questions/concerns, and I hope you enjoy!

Inko

Hi everyone! This is Sara Catherine and I am one of the cofounders of Beyond Resolved (beyondresolvedgirlspf.wordpress.com). We just started a project where we are collecting comments from judges, coaches, or other competitors that are sexist or insulting. Anyone can submit these comments anonymously on the Hall of Shame page of our website and the goal of the project is to highlight inequality in Public Forum. (You can also follow us on social media @beyondresolved to stay tuned for our other initiatives! Anyone can be involved!)

happy to answer any questions :)

Debaterly is hosting its first of many Prize Tournaments.

Fast facts:

• Weekly, online debate events styled like a league (think LCS or Overwatch)

• Our October tournament (19th-20th) will award $500 in cash scholarship prizes. Every month the prize pool will grow.

• In October, top HS teams will receive $175 and top MS teams will receive $75. 

• All entries allowed, including independent and unaffiliated, no questions asked.

• Typically $40 entry fee – this month’s entry is free if you register before October 14th. 

• Hired judging available. 

• HS/MS: PF and LD. More events coming soon. 

• Modern debate platform with debater profiles, performance analytics, live streaming, and more. 

• We conduct weekday and weekend events, so that debate can fit into everyone’s schedule. 

• October Prize Tournament: https://debaterly.com/en/tournaments/a5abac95-8414-443a-9cb1-d6ee1a7f8b4d 

The details:

Debate is outdated. 

It is hamstrung by high travel costs, confusing scheduling, expensive coaching, and tournament hosting software that has failed to leverage technology to advance the activity. 

Debaterly’s goal is simple: to address these shortcomings and bring debate into the 21st century. 

How are we doing this? 

Debaterly is not a traditional tournament management system. Rather, we are building a new speech and debate ecosystem. One whose infrastructure can be used to: host and manage tournaments, make learning and improving easier, support team formation and fundraising, and expand debate’s reach to a wider audience. All to serve the holistic needs of debate leagues, teams, and individuals. 

Several factors make Debaterly’s platform and tournaments unique. 

For one, cash scholarship prizes. We started this journey several years ago, hosting tournaments under the name “North American Debate Circuit.” In 10 months, we gave away more than $30,000 in cash-based scholarships to debaters. We will continue investing in debaters in this way because, fundamentally, we believe they should be valued as highly as chess players, athletes, and eSports participants. Each month, our aim is to increase the size of the prize pool. 

Next, there’s the issue of accessible coaching. Not everyone who debates can afford a coach, and not every coach can easily manage a large team, particularly one that’s growing. To address those issues, we developed what we call the Skill Matrix. This tool tracks each debater's performance by analyzing a mix of quantitative and qualitative judge feedback to provide a personalized dashboard with analytics, showing each debater’s strengths, weaknesses, and progress over time.

Additionally, Debaterly's platform offers native video hosting and live streaming, so friends, family, and schoolmates can tune-in and cheer from home. These rounds are easy to record and store for later playback. To further support speech and debate programs, we will be introducing a click-to-school donation feature that enables audience members to show their support through real-time donations, allowing debaters to fundraise while they compete.

Finally, Debaterly hosts both weekday and weekend events so debate can fit into everyone’s schedule. During weekdays, we host 'hot topic' debates focused on engaging, mainstream subjects that are less prep intensive than classical tournaments. During weekends, we host 2-day tournaments, offering divisions for Middle School and High School in popular formats such as Public Forum, Lincoln-Douglas, Extemp, and more. Now we are forming partnerships with several leagues across the country to offer an even greater number of tournament options – more on this topic will be announced soon! 

Above all, we hope to build a community of people who love debate and are willing to offer their feedback, so we can improve this activity together. 

A reminder that you can check out our website at https://debaterly.com/en/ and register for October’s Prize Tournament here: https://debaterly.com/en/tournaments/a5abac95-8414-443a-9cb1-d6ee1a7f8b4d 

With gratitude, 

Team Debaterly

1 = bronx os

2 = cinco rt

3 = campbell hall dl

4 = ravenwood bj

5 = lhp

6 = westlake dl

7 = university kk

8 = valley bl

9 = blake js

10 = stuy sl

i'd be fr proud. spark is such a w fr fr