This week’s podcast features another lengthy discussion covering a wide variety of topics that should be of interest to high school debaters and coaches. Topics include:
- Conditionality (and the recent judging hypothetical)
- Clarity / Speaking
- Speech Structure
- Practice Techniques
- Debater Flex
- Strategies vs. Court Affirmatives
- Courts Links To Politics
- Midterms DA
- Politics DA Impacts
As always, you can download the podcast directly or subscribe to our feed in iTunes.
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Maybe yelling clear doesn't go far enough. Debaters, then, have no incentive to slow themselves down. As long as they know judges will yell clear if they're unclear, they will go as fast and as unclear as possible until they are reigned in by judges at no cost to them, which in the case of younger/more insecure judges, often won't happen anyway. I think I agree with Calum Matheson's Judging philosophy that if judges do not understand arguments, they can stop flowing without yelling clear and without remorse. Debaters then might have a strong incentive to control their clarity.
You make an interesting point, but unflagged shutdowns are probably only acceptable from judges you would consider good. I doubt you would like people who just didn't get your arguments or thought clear debaters were just going to fast to randomly stop flowing/paying attention.
Shoutout
It seems to me the difference between unethical and debate shenanigans isn’t made clear for debates. Just my humble opinion. (see also last years TOC controversy)