Interesting Ballot Comments

These are all real comments I or fellow club members have received on ballots:

Note: I love all judges, community, parent, and alumni. We appreciate the time and thoughts they give us. Some of these are just kind of funny.

"Great job! You were horrible!"
Also known as the self-contradictory ballot that makes you wonder if ballot check forced the judge to say something positive about your speech. My favorite was, "Your characterization was weak and not very believable. Drama was questionable and overdone." with the only other comment on the ballot being, "outstanding!" in peculiarly different handwriting next to Characterization. Um...what?

"I didn't know what I was doing so I voted on who spoke slower."
Not even who was clearer, more organized, or just a better speaker in general (although I've gotten those ballots, too). Who. spoke. slower. And in case you were wondering, no, it was not in their Judging Philosophy.

"You agreed to your opponent's value. And since you proved you could achieve both your value and their's much better than they could through your side of the resolution, you proved their value was highest. Since they won the Value Debate, and this is LD Value Debate, they win."
All the LDer's go *quadruple super facepalm*

"Your opponent was more assertive. I'm voting for them."
First off, they were downright rude. Second, they were wrong. Gr. Gr. Gr.

"You were a bit unmemorized and didn't seem to have it all together.  You stumbled over your words a bit. I loved it! It made you seem very authentic, like we were having a conversation!"
This judge gave me first place. She wasn't completely off her rocker, because I got a second and another first from the other judges. But I found this comment quite funny.

"Don't memorize your speech. It makes you seem unauthentic and robotic. Instead, have a general idea of what you're going to say under three main points and then wing it."
Wing it. This wasn't my ballot, it was a friend's. But you can imagine their confusion when they received this ballot in a platform. Lol.

"You hit the time at exactly six minutes. Be careful. You didn't go overtime, but I was really scared you were going to."

"You should paint your fingernails red to match the part of your speech where there's, 'blood on your hands'."
Actually some legit DI advice.

"You look great!!!"
Next to 'appearance' from a male judge. I'm not the only one who thinks this a bit creepy, right?

"Don't forget your hose."
I was wearing hose.

"You two would make a cute couple."
Thanks for shipping, judge, but I don't really want to date my debate opponent.

"Don't use a road map. This is Mars Hill, not Persuasive."
But...but...but my training! (I wasn't the only one to receive this kind of ballot, either.)

"You both should be lawyers."
This one's actually a really nice compliment, if you think about it.

"You should blink more often."
This was given to a friend of mine. I never noticed their blinking habits until then.

"You remind me of a TV preacher, in a good way."

~Kylie~

Skirt or Pantsuit? The Great Female Debater Question

Pantsuit VS. Skirt

ARE YOU READY?

FIGHT!

JK.

;P

Are you ready for one of the biggest decisions of your speech and debate career? Mostly joking. There are a lot of Pros and Cons to each side, and a lot of it has to due with your personality. I'll list all the major information here. At the end you should be ready to go (shopping).

Pantsuits

1. Pants are excellent for interpers. Bending down and crouching a skirt is near impossible. You have to be constantly conscious of which way your knees are aimed. Especially if you are doing an active interp, with lots of crazy blocking and moving. Its gives you more room, flexibility, and comfort. Which brings me to point two:
2. Pants are comfy. They may look stiff, but they're really like wearing pajama pants. No joke. 
3. Pants often have pockets, added bonus.
4. No nylons are necessary, unless you're a real stickler for the rules. In that case, footsie or knee-highs are all you will need. 
5. They match nearly any shoes.

Skirts

1. Skirts make you seem confident and precise. Pants are scientifically proven to appear less professional. A fact backed-up by my debate coach.
2. Skirts are more feminine.
3. Skirts rarely have to be re-hemmed for shoes. Pants often have to be hemmed differently for flats or heels
4. Skirts are less "blah" and leave more room for personal style. (Color, length, pockets or peplum?)
5. Skirts significantly reduce the chances of VPL (visible panty line).

There you have it! Narrow down which points are important to you and goooo shopping!

What to Do When You Feel Too Lazy to Do Speech/Debate Work

I know, you don't want to memorize your DI. Sure, there's a tournament next week and you feel like this piece would be really successful if you put some effort into it, but there's an entire internet awaiting you.

Two hours later, you've checked your Facebook and email for the three-hundredth time and Pinned eighty-two new pictures of Doctor Who fanart. You get that annoying feeling you ought to write that brief of Successful ButHumble's case. Because that brief may be the difference between a 3-3 and a 4-2. However, Successful ButHumble probably won't hit you because fate loves you, of course, and they'd beat you anyway so there's no point. Besides, there's Super Smash Bros. to be played.

And food to eat.

And friends to text.

And a ceiling to stare at.

Anything, dear God, anything but working on speech and debate.

All of a sudden you're thinking of the two-hundred extemp articles you need and you need a whole new MHI binder and that gut-wrenching sweat that takes over when you're in-round and you can't remember half your interps is chasing you like a ghost. Not to mention the briefs, and you need to fix your cases, and what were you even thinking signing up for another event?

This is the best advice I've ever received ever on the matter:

"You get out of something what you put into it." -Someone, at some point in my debate career. 

Here's the cold hard truth,

Be ready to receive last place and watch your friends celebrate wins. Be ready to be a nervous, embarrassing wreck when you can't remember most of your speech. Be ready to not know any of the Extemp topics and possibly none of the Mars Hill topics, either.

You are going to reap what you sow.

I'm sorry, I know I'm mean. I've been in that position, all of those positions, too many times myself. I've learned some tough lessons that I just don't want anyone else to have to go through.
Let's face it, we can't stand listening to that person who never practices and just doesn't care about even showing up to club half the time complain and mope about not winning. Let's try not to be that person.

Get excited. Visualize the accomplishment you feel after giving your very best speech ever. Look over any previous accomplishments and even ballots and get yourself psyched. Watch someone else's speech on YouTube. Text a friend and ask them to research with you (and only research).

 Being at peace after getting everything done is one of the greatest satisfactions, and it will increase the pleasure of anticipating and participating a tournie. Don't deny yourself that.

Now I sound like a real geek, but it's the truth.

If you ever need encouragement, advice, or a good beating-over-the-head, shoot me an email or comment.


~Kylie~

Kitkats and Impromptu: I'll Flow Your Case

 Here's something awfully neat my friend Hadley from Kitkats and Impromptu wrote up. Give it, and all her blog, a read. She's going places in the debate world, folks ;)

Just like Hadley, I don't hold the views expressed in her parody. It's satire. :)

Kitkats and Impromptu: I'll Flow Your Case: So I've decided to venture out from Disney parodies and try my hand at a Taylor Swift song. I do not hold the views expressed in this pa...

Team Policy-ers Switching to Lincoln Douglas: Four Things You Need To Know

Congrats! You're taking the plunge. You're officially switching from the toilet paper (Team Policy) debate to the big leagues...only kidding!! I do have to say, though, you're in for an adventure.

You've probably taken Lincoln Douglas classes and watched rounds. No matter how well-versed most converts seem to be, however, they always make these four mistakes:

(And it annoys the heck out of LD purists.)


1. Over-Emphasis on Evidence
 See all that glorious evidence you just looked up? Chuck it out the window. Most of it anyway.
Again, kidding.
But my point is, yes, it's still great to have applications and examples for your points. But evidence will not win you the round.

Depending on the resolution, and who you're debating, you might get sucked into what LDers call a "example war". Its when two people try throwing as many examples as they can at each other to try to prove that their side is correct. Somewhere along the line, the values, criteria, and logic are forgotten and the debate becomes 'who's applications saved more lives etc' and you might even start formulating a plan in-round as to how we can uphold the value. 

That's great and everything, but that's not what Lincoln Douglas is. It sounds nice and easy, with all your experience in Team Policy and all, but as soon as a seasoned LDer says, 

"Look judge, we can keep coming up with more and more examples, we could have millions of different applications. But as you can see, the logic behind my case is more sound. I've proved through my contentions that my value should be the one to be upheld. In fact, because of the ideas behind my points, I've proven how we can solve most of the problems presented in both our sets of applications."

You've put yourself in a very tough position.

Some times we can wrapped up in where and when evidence comes from.
 In fact, one of the most irking things is claim that your opponent's point doesn't stand because their evidence is dated, is from a weird source, or doesn't absolutely technically in a ridiculously specific way fit the resolution. If your opponent says "nine million Jews died during the Holocaust" your job is not to ask where they got that information and when it was published. It does not matter. In the least. It does not matter if it was actually eight million or ten million Jews. The point is, let's say, due to a disrespect for human life and blatant racism (disrespect for human dignity) millions of innocent people were brutally murdered and lives destroyed. If you ask them the technicalities about their evidence, you are wasting your time.
Now, if your opponent says that we never actually landed on the moon, and they're using that as a point, then okay break out your casual interrogation abilities. Just make sure you don't just disprove their application but you disprove the point behind their application. Because if their point behind it still stands, and they point that out, you haven't helped yourself much.

2. Lots of Jargon
I've made this mistake once too many times. TP is filled with many more fancy terms than LD. LDers have adopted relatively simple language to make up for the fact they have little time to explain terms due to such a short round. That, and that LD is confusing enough without throwing in Solvency and Inherency.
Experienced judges might be more forgiving, in fact go ahead and break out those mad TP skillz if you have a six-years-experience TP alumni who hates LD. But in general, most of your vocabulary abilities should be exercised in the realms of ideas and morals.
I know LDers get excited every time they use phrases like socio-economic impact, inherently valuable rights, or relative moral standards. They have their fancy vocab faults, too. But they should be making it simple, too. Intelligent, well-researched, but easily understood and adhering to common sense.
Bright line is cool...just don't call it Bright Line. Supererogatory is a no. It'll make the judge understand you and your opponent breath easier.

3. Asking for Opponent's Case
You should be able to flow everything down, but sometimes you can't. It's one of the hardships of LD. They usually cover this right away with transfers in-club, but I've seen it happen a few times. Your opponent most likely won't have an extra copy of your case, either, and it's unfair to make them look bad in front of an unexperienced judge.  Clarify in CX if you need to. Getting every detail, quote, and date down perfectly isn't necessary in LD.

4. Over-Emphasizing Dropped Arguments
Most experienced LDers know they have to say things like, "I'm grouping x, y, and z together." or "Since I de-linked a; b, c, and d do not stand." Often, though, we forget. Saying "my opponent dropped my third contention, which was Public Forums are Important, therefore it still stands, and the impact is..." Yeah, that's cool, that's encouraged." But saying, "My opponent dropped my third contention, my first second third and fourth applications definition and counter-argument number eight under that contention." and then not explaining the impact of those points individually? It doesn't work as well and tends to be a time suck. Especially if your opponent used on of the above mentioned disclaimers.

Overall, experienced TPers make some of the best LDers. I know plenty of seasoned competitors in TP who switched over one year and absolutely dominated. Some people switch over because they're made to, or because they couldn't find a partner. Whatever the reason, you're about to embark on a journey through my favorite event in forensics (next to DI).

Have fun and work hard!

Kylie

Success: Because Advice, Plus That's What Happened Today

Sooo...normally I don't brag about things. But today I placed 5th in Lincoln Douglas Value Debate and I'm already qualified for Nationals. I also earned a 7th place Debate Speaker award and 4th place in Dramatic Interpretation. 
 But the best part undoubtedly was my friends and learning to better represent the message of Christ our Messiah. I love my community (and my freedom of speech. Bum dum tish for my Stoa LD buddies ).

I wasn't the only one in my club that did well. My best friend Gloria kicked some pants in Apol, broke in LD, too, and yet another award in speaks. My favorite bro Jamie got a LD checkmark, too, and outbossed everyone claiming 3rd in HI. His sister Cailey and my sistah from another mistah broke in OI. And my Parli partner's sister Becca broke in Impromptu. So, so proud.

Now, chances are if you've made it this far you skipped all of that. Or you're my mom. (Lie: she doesn't read my blog ;p)

So here's that advice I was promising in my long title that would never be an acceptable debate tag:

#runonstentences

Anyway.
Ahem.
My readers ready?
My computer?
I'll begin.

ITS NOT ABOUT WINNING.

I know, I know, but hear me out. It's not the same message you've heard before. Not exactly, anyway.

You have four years of speech and debate. Six if you started in middle school. If you live for even eighty years, that's 5% of your life.
You will spend the rest of your life living out your talents, your purpose, your ambitions. You will continue to touch people and make decisions and arguments.
This time is not for you to succeed. Seriously. This time is to prep you for success. This is to prepare you for the other 80% (you probably spent some time as a little kid before debate...unless you did Juniors).
That's right.
You heard me.
Speech and debate is just prep-time.

You are here to perfect your speaking, thinking, and presentation ability. You're also here to learn humility, grace, bravery, and hard work. You are here to make friends and gain mentors. You are here to learn and grow.
You are not here to get trophies.
Now, of course, I've just been bragging about my trophies. They are great reminders of how far we've come, of our potential, tokens of our hard work. It's like I always say, something I partially stole from something Anne Hathaway said during one of her acceptance speeches,
"Trophies are just blunt objects we use to fight the monsters of self-doubt."
But you are the one doing the fighting. With or without a trophy, you are the one fighting the self doubt. Whether you do it by gazing at that trophy on your shelf or by gazing at that spot where you want that trophy to be, keep fighting.
But the trophies are only blunt weapons, tokens, representations of progress.

So every time you don't get a trophy, a medal, a certificate, or a green checkmark you have still gained progress. You are still learning, You are still living out the purpose of speech and debate.

In fact, if the greatest thing you ever did was win a trophy and peak at fifteen, that's kinda sad. But you won't. Trust me.

 So be happy. Smile. Encourage and congratulate others. Read those ballots. Work harder. Be honest. Fight fair.

You are so much more than the trophies you hold or don't hold. And you will be so much more than a first-place-speaker.

Briefs: Why They Are Underappreciated in LD and How To Write One

My fingers are getting type-crazy. Let's put aside the fact it's NaNoWriMo (Nationals Novel Writing Month) and I'm writing 1.7k words a day novel-wise. No, they crave to write something else.

Briefs.

No, not:

I mean when you analyze another person's case when not in-round, find all the flaws, and write notes for when you debate them again. This is mandatory for every TP debater and absolutely useless for Parliers. But people under estimate the power of the brief in LD.

Imagine going into a round knowing exactly what your opponent is going to say, everything, values, criteria, contentions, and even applications. And then imagine under each of those were arguments in detail already arranged in IRAI format (Identify, Refute, Analyze, Impact) and complete with case-specific potential CX questions.

Heaven.

How do we achieve such knowledge? The idea is everyone in my club is supposed to turn in their flows to the "flow box" or copy down at least their opponent's case, their name, and what side they were debating onto supplied paper and put that in said box that way, later, we can either individually or as a group destroy those cases. Now, there are three main problems with this system.

1. Some People Have Trouble Flowing
I swear, I'm not trying to make you feel bad. I understand that this is something the most experienced debaters struggle with and it has a lot to do with learning style. It was just something I caught onto quicker. My struggle is more with reading the flow and not skipping crucial arguments do to unorganized thought processes. When I started student coaching I heavily emphasized working on flowing and set apart a week just for that with the LD newbies, with practices with the whole club weekly.
Sometimes, though, neglected flowing happens because debaters are lazy. They don't "need" to flow, they think. But You can't complain about your opponent "falsely" accusing you of dropping arguments when you didn't flow half of them.
 I absolutely abhor getting flows back from debaters with 3+ tournie experience (that's at least eighteen rounds) that look like this:

AC
V-Security
Cri (they remembered to label but for whatever reason didn't write it down)

That's it. No Contentions, No Applications, no RA, VLs, RtPs. Just that. Sometimes, they add:

C1-America

C2-Food

C3- (again unlabeled)

Well, at least they spaced their arguments properly. But how is that supposed to help the club? so-and-so's contention three wasn't "Food". It might have been "Undervaluing Freedom of Speech Increases Poverty Rates" but it probably wasn't "Food". I'm glad they got the main point, though, and I'm glad maybe their listening too intently to flow (happens to me allll the time).

Again, not talking about newbies. Cause that's exactly what my first couple rounds worth of flows looked like. Perfectly normal. I'm talking about people with 3+ tournament, sometimes 3+ years experience who think they've "got this", don't need flow, and don't care enough about their club to give them the information they need in case they debate that person next round.

Here's one of the biggest debate tips anyone can ever give you: flow. Take the time to learn how to flow rounds, flow rounds that aren't yours, always watch the flight before or after you. Care about debate and doing well. Never be cocky thinking you don't need to flow. Because even if you opponent is a scared newbie in their very first round and all they say is "Freedom is good. Genocide is bad. Vote Affirmative." and then run back their seat crying. (It's happened to be before.) Take the time to write down in that column, box, bubble, however you flow "C1. Freedom Is Good C2. Genocide is bad." Because you need the practice and they need the respect.

Anyway, the best thing ever is when I get something back like this in the flow box:

Opponent: John Doe (His Neg Case)
NC
John Adams quote on justice
*insert his defs here*
RA/Burden Scope
V-Justice
Def- Everyone getting their just due
Vl- Freedom creates justice
Vl2-Community standard's uphold bias and inhibit justice
RtP- Justice enables us to achieve all other values, it is a gateway
RtP2- Upholds Human Rights

C1. Justice Is Absolute
Lotr quote
App-Court system.....

And so and so forth. It's cool, really. On to the second problem with the flow box system:

2. Nobody Turns In Their Flows

They throw them away.  This just has to do with brief under-appreciation, which as you can I'm out to fix. And three:

3. I Am Only One Who Likes Briefing
The exception is when an epic debater has smoked everyone in my club. Then I can usually rally them together to create a Brief of Awesomeness, combing all of our logic prowess. Their motivation is usually based off of envy, though. With the exception of a few really good sports in my club, who share my excitement.
But no one else can seem to understand why I would brief all six of my flows and everyone else's I can get my hands on. They just think I'm a nut biscuit. Okay, yes, the fact that I looove my separate brief folder with briefs arranged by competitor's last name with their Aff first that I can just flip open and viola, does make me a bit of a whackadoodle (aren't we all?). 

I love the feeling of walking into a round where I know I'll be debating a tournament-winng first-placer legend and pulling out this uber-organized "cheat sheet" I spent three hours and breathing.

 And you should see the look on some people's faces when I walk in with one of those briefs. Or anyone in my club, 'cause they know how I am.

So how do you write a brief?

Simple.

Now, I have a reputation in my club for being a super OCD and a perfectionist. But the real truth is I have severe ADHD and in order to keep myself in line I must remain organized, simplified, and clear. Otherwise everything looks horrible and confusing.

This is my personal style. First I take the other debater's point and leave it in regular font on my laptop. Then, in bullet points underneath (in italics, to separate things more visually), I brainstorm counter-arguments.

Let's take my John Doe case from earlier.

Opponent: John Doe (His Neg Case)

NC
John Adams quote on justice

•   Here we would make any comments on said quote and maybe google for a counter-quote by John Adams that overrides this one or find the context in was used in and see what happens. Most of the time, though, quotes aren't a big deal and can be skipped.

*insert his defs here*

• Here we note any unusual definitions and whether a good definition debate would be worthwhile. Good to know pre-round before you get sucked in. Also, if this is just for you not for club use compare these to yours and note if you disagree/agree with them. Include your argumentation. Continue to do this with all points.

RA/Burden Scope

• Whether or not you accept the burden scope is usually case-dependent. Since this is a Negative case, you probably won't see a Burden Scope proposal, though. Pick apart their RA. 

V-Justice

• Here we might say somethings like:
• Justice, when absolute, applies to everyone and we each must pay for the things we do wrong.
• CX Questions, are we talking about absolute moral Justice? Or just Justice in the law? Then those who do immoral things within the law are justified? So it's not complete justice? Are all laws just?
• Justice conflicts with human rights. (Such as privacy, freedom, or property). Human Rights is the higher value, this is especially good if your value is Human Rights.
• CX Questions, Is it ever good to be merciful? Don't mercy and justice conflict?
•   Justice cannot be measured.
• CX Questions, what is the proper punishment for stealing one dollar? What about breaking someone's ribs with a baseball bat? Why not five years in prison instead of four? Who decides that? How do we know they are correct? Have they ever been incorrect? (Note to self: staple cases of injustice the US court system to this brief)
• Let's say, briefly, that instead of the below definition we say John Doe used "A fair system that administers laws." as his Justice def. That means Justice is Amoral, not inherently moral.
• CX Question, does the US have any unjust laws (Note: Have those case stapled and ready.) 

• Justice is unrealistic

Disclaimer: I took these arguments against Justice from this amazing blog post by Travis Herche, which you should go read immediately and analyze carefully for even more information. All credit to him.

And so the Brief continues. I had all this material (even stapled-on extra evidence) before I even made it to the value links. You don't have to use all that information. Especially if you are debating an experienced opponent, since all lot of the CX questions will be already answered within your opponent's case and they will have already spiked arguments they see coming.

WARNING: Never become dependent on a brief. Your debate skills should always be able to hold you up during a round. Don't always be looking down, perfect the ability to think on your feet. You are not the voice that just reads the brief, the brief is just that little voice in your ear that says, "Just in case you need an extra point..."

For me, the first tournament is always the hardest and the most exhilarating. There's the regular reasons, trying out new (most of the time lame) cases and realizing you hate (not really) these res's but getting to see friends and, you know, debate. There is an added terror, too, of having no briefs. No idea about what Valor or Invictus, or SONT, or EQUIP, or any other club is running. There's also the added pleasure of attaining all these flows and ohmygosh my addiction has been soothed.

As a concluding point,

If you are in WSDC: Do not feel the pressure to write your own. The minute you see postings, come to me. I can probably help you. Ask anyone who's ever bothered to come to me. I write briefs. Long, over organized briefs that prove I have no life.

~Kylie~