r/policydebate

Hey Everyone,

I'm here to ask for advice, because I'm trying to start up a local debate competition and I'm struggling to plan everything out. As of right now, I have a couple venues that could work out.

There are about 3 schools doing this, and I'm thinking of doing a round robin for the debates, but I want other kids to be involved so the debate might have the audience included.

The timers, judges, open-panelist, etc. will all be adults. I'm trying to set everything first so I could introduce it to the school board before school starts up again.

Anyway, I just need some help and insight from others who have done this, whether you started one or just have been to one.

I am trying to get a bunch of weird kritiks, as well as disease good case turn and LD trick answers. I have a bunch of stuff, including theatre, Dukkah masterfile, tempus nullius, K-warren masterfile, black nihilism, black malpractice, queerpess masterfile, a few wipeout files, cap k masterfile, death k, taoism, and a bunch of other stuff. lmk if you are interested. Pics under. i have much more btw

https://preview.redd.it/ryhq9zm8902h1.png?width=984&format=png&auto=webp&s=3f47eed849873c29031041a90430ed3c077c1978

https://preview.redd.it/r5azzym8902h1.png?width=1005&format=png&auto=webp&s=2857e27a2298ce552d5f77ffdf00e89948f1c931

https://preview.redd.it/nbdr4l10902h1.png?width=1000&format=png&auto=webp&s=d38ff3d488ae4a689c34f785f4e899ca34d948de

https://preview.redd.it/mw34ml10902h1.png?width=1016&format=png&auto=webp&s=f55c84502eda6399d17de1ab907fd6a160b24ace

1. EMPIRICS. Good debaters aren’t reading off the Hinduism da, dukka and three tier straight down that they got for 379$ after dming Kento Taylor on ig.

2. CORTISOl. Why not just cut your own files

does anyone have this aff from Emory ?

I see debaters that are hyper good at LBL, somehow flow everything, good judge instruction, and other things that make them “technical” what things should I do that can make me better at being “technical”

coach hates kritiks and stupid arguments, says i cant run wipeout or spark. any other case turns that are crazy but he might let me run? he also said no buddhism k or zombuddha. He hates lrc lw, and i lowk glaze em.

lots of prep sharing (legal ofc), debate convos, and older debaters to help out w questions

join here: https://discord.gg/V5Tj3Yy7

I’m going to JDI’s K lab this year and am looking for a partner. DM me if you want be my partner so we can get to talking before camp.

I’ve been working on some and looking through the college wiki, but does anyone here have any suggestions?

BUT I’m from a trad circuit in Missouri sooo nothing too crazy or left 😬

The SADL is freedom. Free files, practice debates on ANY day of the week unlike our counterparts, chats with your comrades, you name it. It's all in the SADL.

Join here:
https://discord.gg/mhxjrDEh

I’m in this one (let’s not name names) but all I know is this evil moderator wouldn’t let me prwctice debate on Monday and didn’t give me jurisdiction to run a k aff, all im saying is maybe we need a democratic debate discord

Hi all,

I know some of my friends lurk on this subreddit, so I will be vague with the info

I am a first year in high school who took a debate class and debated in the novice division. Some of our better novices got put into the JV division (theres novice, JV, open, varsity). I didn't, since at the time I had no interest in debate and I sucked. However, now I have had a change of heart and am considering taking the second debate class in the progression and debating.

My flowing is terrible; below average. My speaking is average, and my spreading/actual debate skill is horrible; i can't understand the opponents strategy, what to run, when to run, and I really struggle with the rebuttals and CX.

How can I improve my debate skills and become good? I really want to go to state and maybe even nationals in the future, and debate in college.

Who ran spark this year? I just want to see what their 1NC stuff looks like to compare it to mine, so are there any people in NDT or HS that have spark on their caselist?

I go to a big policy school and I got first speaker at novice state but I’m scared about the change from novice to var next yr, how do I lock in and continue to do well?

Aight, so I kinda understand truth testi\ng, but I dont rlly know what reverse truth testing is. Can someone explain it to me pls

Been thinking about this a lot after watching some rounds at a local tournament last month where, the parent judges clearly had no idea what fiat meant and were voting on "real world" implementation concerns. NSDA has that short video requirement but let's be honest, a five to ten minute clip with no quiz or follow-up isn't really training anyone on anything meaningful. The tricky part is that policy debate judges aren't a monolith. You've got experienced tech judges who care deeply about flow and evidence quality, and then, you've got first-time parent judges who are just trying to figure out what a 2AC is. A one-size-fits-all module probably undershoots for one group and overwhelms the other. Speechwire one-pagers help a bit at the tournament level but there's no enforcement mechanism and coaches can't babysit every judge in the pool. Mutual preference systems sort of paper over the problem rather than fix it. A tiered certification approach could work better than what we have now. Something like a basic module for new judges covering fiat and flow fundamentals, then an optional advanced track for people who want to judge elimination rounds. Keep it voluntary but build in tabroom integration so tournaments can actually filter by certification level if they choose. That way you're not mandating anything that creates resentment or drives judges away, but you're giving tab rooms a real signal about who knows what they're doing. The enforcement question is the hard one though. Would leagues actually require it, and would that just deepen the judge shortages that are already a real problem at the local level? That tension between raising the floor and keeping the pool large enough to run tournaments feels like the core thing nobody has a clean answer to.