Author: Matt Liu, University of Wyoming Director of Debate
Quickdraw posts are snapshot reflections that are usually spurred by observations the WDR staff have while judging at Wyoming tournaments. This quickdraw is about vagueness arguments in policy debate. Wyoming debaters love to talk about vagueness! There's some ups and downs to this phenomenon, but I think to make arguments about vagueness more effective we need to reconceptualize how they're executed. In short, vagueness arguments should almost always be made as solvency deficits, not as procedural arguments. In addition, debaters should avoid asking how the plan is implemented, and instead make arguments about what the normal means of implementation would be based on their strategic self-interest. Read the complete article below the fold.
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Author: Matt Liu, University of Wyoming Director of Debate
Quickdraw posts are snapshot reflections that are usually spurred by experiences the WDR staff have while judging at Wyoming tournaments. This quickdraw is about NSDA points. Hot take: the world would be a better place without NSDA points. At the last tournament I attended, I noticed two related phenomena that trouble me: debaters measuring their own self-worth through NSDA points, and debaters measuring their opponent's talent through NSDA points. I heard one debater say they were worried because they were going to debate "the top team in Colorado." This statement mystified me. Top team according to who? I honestly don't believe that we have a metric to determine this. Were they last year's state champion, I wondered? Nope -- it was NSDA points. I've heard other debaters either boasting about their NSDA points in an event or worried that their NSDA points reflected poorly on them. I don't like any of this. First, I don't think NSDA points come anywhere close to measuring the quality of a debater (or even an interper or platformer). NSDA points prioritize quantity of competition over quality and they quite simply can't capture the data inputs that really measure a competitor's strength. I think we should be very careful when it comes to ranking students and nothing leads me to believe that NSDA points are an appropriate way to do that. Second, I don't like either the trepidation or the overconfidence that brooding over NSDA points produces. I don't want any debater to get in their own head because they're worried about their opponent's NSDA points. I have been doing this activity for over 20 years, and I have never spent a single second of my life worrying about my debater's NSDA points. I have never once thought that one of my teams might be in trouble because their opponents have a lot of NSDA points. I encourage you to adopt the same mentality. You will be better off and more successful for it. Bonus hot take: sweepstakes points are also sus. I worry they encourage thinking about what is best for the school instead of what is best for individual competitors. Author: Matt Liu, University of Wyoming Director of Debate
“You find out life’s this game of inches. … The margin for error is so small. I mean, one half a step too late or too early and you don’t quite make it. One half second, too slow, too fast, you don’t quite catch it. The inches we need are everywhere around us. They’re in every break of the game, every minute, every second. On this team, we fight for that inch. On this team, we tear ourselves and everyone else around us to pieces for that inch. We claw with our fingernails for that inch because we know when we add up all those inches, that’s going to make the … difference between winning and losing, between living and dying.” – Any Given Sunday “Hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard.” -- Tim Notke “A dropout will beat a genius through hard work.” -- Rock Lee One of the amazing things about debate is that so many of the variables that determine your success are things you can exercise control over. Writing a new aff, researching your rival’s case, giving rebuttal redoes: these are all examples of things you can do to radically improve your chances of success. You can spend time practicing flowing, doing cross-x drills, or learning how to integrate technology into debate. You can prepare for tournaments by scouting your opponents and making sure you're prepared to debate their arguments and innovating novel arguments to get a leg up on your competition. The more you put in, the more you’ll get out. All of those are things you can do any day of the week, either on your own, with teammates, or with coaches. However, there are some things you can only do at tournaments. Tournaments are a scarce resource. You only get to go to so many. Therefore, the time you spend at tournaments is extremely valuable. This post is about how to best improve your chances of success in debate by making sure you use that time well. Read the complete article below the fold. Author: Matt Liu, University of Wyoming Director of Debate
This past weekend a program I volunteer with attended the Cheyenne Central and Alta tournaments, and in both places our LD debaters encountered novel arguments and argument structures. After the tournaments, I was sent some smart questions about the nature of LD. I liked these questions a lot and thought I’d write up something similar here. Read the complete article below the fold. Author: Matt Liu, University of Wyoming Director of Debate
Recently I worked with some of the Cheyenne East debaters to identify a need, brainstorm an idea, and produce an argument. Afterwards I realized that the way we took that idea from start to finish reflected a good research process, and it was worth writing about. This essay will walkthrough that process that we went through to show what a good research process looks like. Read the complete article below the fold. Author: Matt Liu, University of Wyoming Director of Debate
I’ve gotten the chance to judge at a few Wyoming high school tournaments this year, and I’ve loved every second of it. When it comes to the LD rounds I’ve been lucky enough to judge, one thing stands out to me: that value criterion debates seem to be shaped more by rote habit than actual in-round strategic utility. My soul read of many of the debates that I’ve judged is that debaters have been told that the V/C debate matters, that they should spend non-insignificant amounts time on it, and they should win that theirs is better; however, many debaters don’t know why it matters or how it will shape the outcome of the round. This is not to say I haven’t heard good warrants about why pragmatism is preferable to the social contract, etc, but rather that it oftentimes seems like the V/C debating is not connected to a win condition. If you zoom out, it’s unclear why winning the V/C means winning the round. The thesis of this article will be that your V/C should either give you a win condition or you should drastically reduce the amount of time you’re spending debating it. Read the complete article below the fold. If you're not already following Professor Graham on YouTube, you should be. Adrian Graham is a debater at the University of Wyoming and a coach at Laramie High School, and he produces amazing debate content that's useful for everyone, but geared toward Wyoming debaters. Whether you're hoping to learn the basics or win championships, Adrian's content is full of useful info, great strats, and a rambunctious corgi.
His video on judge adaptation is a great place to start for anyone, and we also love his takes on research, disclosure, and prep time. If you do policy, his primer on the Federal Jobs Guarantee part of the topic is amazing, and his take on reading the IRS DA is a must watch (it's crime that more 1NCs don't have the IRS DA!). Thanks for producing such awesome content Professor Graham! Author: Matt Liu, University of Wyoming Director of Debate
A few months ago, before the college national debate championship, I screen-recorded my research and file production process for one of my NDT (National Debate Tournament) assignments. My job was to produce econ "thumpers", or arguments that economic decline is inevitable (this "alt cause" is a handy tool to answer any economy argument). I thought it might be a good example of my research process that I could turn into a research video-lecture. I'll be forthright that I'm not great with video editing software. I'm no Professor Graham! My editing is rough around the edges for sure, but I think this video-essay establishes a ton of useful concept for learning research skills. The econ thumper file I produced took me about 4 hours start to finish, and I had 3 hours and 20 minutes of raw video of that process that I collapsed down into 18 minutes by speeding segments up. I've never been satisfied with any research lecture (that I've given or seen), and I think part of the reason why is that seeing research and file production is the best way to learn how to do it, but it's an hours if not days long process. Time lapse is a partial solution to that problem. You can find the video here! I highly suggest downloading the video, not watching it on Dropbox. Author: Matt Liu, University of Wyoming Director of Debate
This informal post is about advice for debating impact turns. It is intended for debaters who already have some experience and know what an impact turn is, and would like to get better at executing impact turn strategies. If that sounds like you, here are 7 thoughts on debating impact turns:
We want to hear from you! Disagree with something we said? Have a question? Feel free to jump in in the comments, we'll be sure to respond! Do you have a topic you’d like us to address in a future post? Email us at [email protected] Go Pokes! Competition buildings are: Classroom, Engineering, Ross, Wyoming Union, and Business (circled below). Central gathering: there will be space for everyone to gather in the Central & East Ballroom of the Wyoming Union (Second Floor). Student Drop-off: the best place for busses to drop off students is the Wyoming Union parking lot (circled below). Setting Google Maps to the “Wyoming Union” will take you straight there. It’s off N 15th St in between Ivinson Ave and Willet Dr. Bus Parking can be found at either of the purple parking lots circled below (Armory & 30th St, or Armory & Television Rd).
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