Author: Matt Liu, University of Wyoming Director of Debate Cross-x is one of my favorite and one of the most important parts of debate, so I have a lot to say about it. This cross-x skills post will be broken up into three posts. The first part will provide an overview of the purpose of cross-x and types of questions, setting up the second and third parts. The theory of cross-x provided here will be useful to understand both the second and third post, which will break down specific tips for upping your cross-x game. Cross-x is speech time. That’s important to remember. It should guide how you prepare for cross-x. What does it mean for you that cross-x is a speech, just like a constructive or a rebuttal? It means just like any other speech you practice and prepare for it. You shouldn’t stand up without knowing what you’re going to say. You shouldn’t stand up without having written down what you’re going to say. You get to make arguments, and most judges will flow cross-x. You try to win. Cross-x isn’t bonus prep time, and your goal shouldn’t be merely to fill it up to buy time for your partner. Cross-x is an opportunity for you to persuade the judge: it’s three minutes of speech time and if you don’t treat it like that you’re going to fall significantly far behind in the debate. You also shouldn’t underestimate how important the impressions formed during cross-x are. CX is when judges see if you really have game, or if you are just reading blocks. That’s why it’s such an important moment for small schools: it’s when you can demonstrate that your brain is worth more than your opponent’s blocks (even the ones written by their coaches). These impressions matter: I’ve never thought that “rep” matters, but “cred” definitely does. The difference is “cred” is what you earn in the round, not before it. To explain what I think you should do in cross-x, first I need to explain why I believe there are three types of questions. First, information-seeking questions. These should be avoided as much as possible, because they don’t do anything for you. You will be much better off, in my opinion, reading your opponent’s evidence carefully to figure out what their position is. Using cross-x to seek understanding about an issue is usually a mistake because your opponent does not have your best interests in mind while answering. In fact, you’re working at cross-purposes. While you may be trying to gain a basic understanding of their position, they will be trying to explain the intricacies and nuances to the judge. That won’t necessarily help you understand the position, but it will help your opponents. With younger debaters I’ll frequently hear questions like “did you read the Zhou ’14 evidence?” or “what’s the last piece of evidence you read?” These are also information-seeking questions. To those asking questions like this, I have one piece of advice: flow! Debaters are often surprised when they find out I started the timer for cross-x when they started asking these questions. These are questions (hence I will start the timer), they are just not ones that help you win. The same thing is true of “theory-check” questions: “what were the reasons to reject the team?” and “which perms did you make?” etc. Flow, and trust your flow. Then there will be no reason to ask these questions. The one information-seeking question worth asking is about the status of the counterplan: “under what conditions can you kick the counterplan?” There’s simply no other way to get this vital information other than to ask. It should be the first question you ask; get it out of the way so you can get to your argumentative questions. The second type of question is the trap (AKA the Reverse Pit of Doom). When you ask a question that’s a trap, your goal is to motivate the speaker to give the answer you want by misleading them to think it’s the answer you don’t want. When it comes to setting traps, you need to think reverse psychology. Debaters are hard-wired to disagree with their opponents. If you ask your opponent if the sky is blue, they’ll probably hesitate before they answer. They might even say something like “the 1AC doesn’t take a stance on the color of the sky” (the best debaters avoid ridiculous hedging like this by knowing their arguments in and out, and are thus not afraid to defend their arguments). It’s every young debater’s first instinct to not agree with their opponents in cross-x. The trick when aiming for a trap is to not be too obvious- and to take advantage of this human (especially debater) psychology.
Let’s use a simple example. Let’s say you think your aff solves a neg impact far better than they do (maybe you plan on straight-turning a DA). If you’re planning on stealing the impact, you can ask questions about how slow, unlikely, or low magnitude the impact is. For example, “wouldn’t it take forever to see an impact from climate change?” This is an effective trap, because it motivates your opponent to give the answer you want by misleading them into thinking you have the opposite goal. Your question indicts their impact, but little do they know you plan on stealing that impact. Then, later in the debate, you’ll be able to say “climate change is the biggest, fastest impact- that’s their argument from cross-x.” Traps are great, but they’re difficult to set, and they require a lot of planning. This means they’re probably not going to dominate your average cross-x. That brings us to our third, and most important, form of question. The final type of question is the argumentative question. Argumentative questions produce direct clash by refuting something your opponent said. An argumentative questions says (although you should never word it like this): “I think you are wrong about X: what’s your response to that?” In Part 2 of our cross-x skills focus, I’ll address why argumentative questions should make up the vast majority of your cross-x -- and how to pull that off right. Do you have a topic you’d like us to address in a future post? Email us at [email protected] Go Pokes!
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