me if i were a debater
“Again”
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@msdebate
me if i were a debater
“Again”
The quirks and perks of being in Speech and Debate
Talking to walls is a completely normal and acceptable habit
Depending on your category you start portraying other people in real life in different voices
A lot of inside jokes. A lot a lot.
Make friends that have the same issues and sense of humor as you
Find out how weirdly school rooms are numbered. Like 118 could be on one side and 119 on the other.
Forced to exercise more due to stress eating
Staying at school until dinnertime or later becomes an okay thing
Discover several times over how stupid the English language is
Public speaking gets a lot less terrifying after a while
Meet a lot of different people from diverse backgrounds and different schools
Feel free to add your own
How do debaters do the thing without crying.
We don’t
forensics ask meme!!
paper-what's the strangest comment you've ever gotten on a ballot?
tunes-what's the 3 songs on your tournament playlist?
chic-what's your go to tournament look?
ink-what's your go-to pen?
interp-what's the funniest thing that's happened to you in a round or at a tournament?
platform-what's the event that you think is cool but have never done?
congress-where's the farthest you've been for a tournament?
debate-what's the most extreme thing you've done for speech and debate?
nats- what's your favorite nationals performance?
trophy-what's your ultimate goal for this year?
championship-what's the thing you're most proud of in speech and debate?
double entry- what one talent do you wish you had?
breaks-who is your forensics goals?
postings-what color suit do you have? how many?
naptime- what's the longest amount of time you've spent at a tournament?
snacky- what do you usually eat at tournaments?
heels- what makes you confident in a round?
hairspray- how do you do tournament hair/makeup?
energy- how do you stay awake at tournaments?
female representation in debate
this has been a recurring topic within the debate community, so i decided to throw in my two cents. (i was running off two hours of sleep and no food writing this, so excuse my terrifyingly horrid syntax and terrible spelling.)
As a minority female policy debater in a competitive state, I can definitively vouch that much less females are in policy debate, nonetheless the national circuit. I’ve had a bunch of coaches try to convince me to go back to Public Forum, just for the sake that policy debate was inherently “masculine”.
“oh, it’s a style of debate for boys. you don’t wanna be stuck there!”
“it’s too tough for a small girl like you to be doing this kind of debate. everyone’s too aggressive and you’re not going to have a good time.”
What i say: bullshit. you’re wrong, you’re wrong, you’re wrong.
first, on appearance:
Unlike a plethora of other female debaters, I don’t wear makeup, I opt out of “sexy, glamorous, and attractive” wear during tournaments. And yes, that’s gotten me a lot of negative reviews on my ballot. 26 speaker points, with the comments, “you were being too bitchy during crossfire” (when in reality, my opponents were cutting me off and i was completely fed up), “you should wear more makeup, your acne is showing” (yeah, but have you considered: i don’t want to), “your outfit is too uptight and conservative”, (ok, well, maybe i like it that way). It’s extremely upsetting when a female debater gets judged on a different criterion than someone of the other gender. No one comments on their clothing choice, hairstyle, makeup, or “aggressiveness” during a round.
On the other hand, I’ve had a few other friends that were under similar circumstances. For instance, when they’re wearing some BOMB ASS eyeliner with gorgeous lipstick, the judges would hand out comments like, “you look like you’re looking for trouble”, “you should tone it down”, and “you’re showing too much cleavage and legs, honey”.
Biiiiiiiiiiiitch. Debate is debate. Just because a girl isn’t looking like your standard of perfection doesn’t mean she shouldn’t win the debate or lose speaker points. Appearance and round results should not go hand in hand. My opponents clearly weren’t affected by my choice of clothes, how i did my hair, or how much makeup i’m wearing.
I don’t know if it’s the judging pool or just the community in general, but this sort of negativity and bias is something that’s definitely pushing the debate girls away. They need to get over themselves and suck it up because they don’t get to choose what people look like, but instead listen intently to the round and with an unbiased decision, mark the ballot.
second, on prep:
this is something i’ve been hearing a lot. most of the girls in my circuit are more creative than the guys, and they create more unique and squirrely arguments for the team to share. However, since I do policy and it’s partner-based, the rest of the team tends to disagree. For me, my partner is a male of my own age, and he, with the rest of my team, shuts down my argument ideas simply because it’s “weird and hard to argue”. Everything is “hard to argue”, until you actually spend time doing research and cutting cards.
That aside, let’s talk about prep in general.
If you look at the stats, Public Forum has more gender balance than Policy or Lincoln Douglas. Why is that? several studies have shown that the number of girls participating in an event is inversely proportional to the amount of dedication needed for each event. Public Forum’s topic changes every month, and therefore requires less thorough analyses of the topic and research. LD changes every two months.
That’s where it gets interesting.
If you look at the stats, when LD was more traditional (i.e. philosophy, morals), there would be a better gender balance than, say, progressive LD. Likewise, Policy Debate, with a year-round topic, has even less female debaters. As they say, if you see a fellow female policy debater, you should stick together, because of the shared struggles of being a woman in the leagues.
Bottom line is, if it takes more prep and research, there’s less girls. Why is that? We’re obviously not dumb.
This is what I think: Girls, especially in high school, are held to a standard where they’re expected to be more social, study well, and care for their appearances. High school is literally the season where girls give a shit about what they look like, who they’re friends with, and what fun they’re going to have afterschool. They realize that doing so much research is actually a waste of time because the perceived benefits of debate can be achieved within 1-2 years of competition. By having the needs of balancing their life and debate as well, girls either opt out of the difficult events, or switch to something easier like PF or IE.
By having a social standard to meet (beauty, socializing, academics), girls tend to have more pressure to be able to organize their life and get their shit together.
For example, you see girls praising the girls that “give no shits”, because it’s something that’s so tough to achieve with the normative standard for girls and “getting their shit together. However, if you see a guy that “give no shits", it’s not empowerment anymore. By that point, it’ll just be something normal because boys are just boys. I’m not trying to push into the feminism aspects of debate, but if you look at it, girls are expected to pursue more things that are unique to them rather than the guys that only need to excel in stuff like sports and music.
finally, the pressure
Girls get so much pressure in the debate community to be the epitome of perfect. If someone calls you a bitch after a round, they tend to not put you in a negative light since you were being “too pushy” and aggressive. However, if a guy speaks up for himself, it’s applauded as being “aggressive” and a self advocate. There’s two definitions of aggressive in the debate world. One is for the girls, which describe them as savage bitches that are rude and snotty as hell. Another one is for the male debater, which describes them as someone that knows their shit and is a responsible debater.
This puts them in a double bind. If girls are quiet, the judges and everyone will want to walk all over them and would get comments like “you’re too quiet, if you’re too shy then stop doing debate, it might not be right for you”, but if they’re just a bit louder than they usually are, they’d get things like, “tone it DOWN! You’re being too aggressive and pushy. Let other people talk.”
I’ve seen girls made fun of at camp for either 1) trying to hard, or 2) not trying at all. The boys make fun and jeer at them for being an “overachieving nerd” when they prep. They call her lazy fucks when she decides to take a break from prepping. No one does that to guys, do they? Because their actions are perceived as working hard and taking a well-deserved break.
Before I wrap it up, I’d like to conclude that we shouldn’t let these social pressures put our girls down from the amazing debate community. The satisfaction of victory against the people that made fun of you is overwhelmingly awesome. Don’t let them get to you. Show the community that you’re the bigger person. Pursue debate.
family asking about debate over thanksgiving quotes:
“what do you debate about?”
“are you positive or negative?”
“wow! you must be such a good arguer!”
“your parents must never want to get into arguments with you!”
*parent chymes in* “she speaks so fast we can’t even understand her”
“do you go to tournaments like once a year?”
“debate me! go on, do it!”
and the best one
“I’m really good at arguing… i should be a debater!”
“what was the topic?”
i hate debate kids theyre always talking about debate or debate camp or whatever like we get it you are a deeply resentful person who channels ur violent energy towards talking rly fast at other equally bitter people
When you only have like one good contention
lmao have y’all seen this……is this for real
The most important word in debate
If I asked what that word is, there are lots of options you might choose. ‘Why?’. ‘Because’, ‘therefore; etc. These are all very good words to use. But I want to bring up a different thing to consider. The word “yes”
One approach to debate is to work to refute all of an opponents claims and get as much ink on the flow as possible. Another approach is to take a step back and ask “even if my opponent wins this argument, can I still win the round?” If you can still win the round even though you dropped an argument, then putting a counter-argument there isn’t exactly mission critical. This means you can argue with the more important stuff. Often this is the higher, more meta-level arguments, or the more value/criterion-kind of argument, or its an argument on your side that shows how you outweigh any possible offense they could have.
There are benefits to this approach. Flat out conceding parts of an opponents case gives you more time to develop your own arguments in your extensions in your 1AR/1NR. Also, by focusing on fewer arguments that are higher up the food chain, so to speak, you essentially list your voting issues, and more clearly paint a picture to the judge about the contrasts between your side and your opponent’s side. What it does it let you finish your first rebuttal, and then start your second rebuttal, with what is essentially a clear thesis: this is what my side argues. Clear advocacy can help judges because they know what they’re looking for.
Can this technique backfire catastrophically? It can, but the ways it backfires are more faults of over-applying it, and misunderstanding something your opponent said, rather than something wrong with conceding an argument.
New rule:
All supposed theory violations must explain why they must be evaluated before the resolution, otherwise they are treated as burdens or observations whose failure to be met is persuasive but non-binding
When you write a procedural she’ll the voters part is supposed to be about articulating why the judge should vote on theory as opposed the the resolution, but most people just say “voter for education and fairness” without explaining why that matters.
Education and fairness are more properly standards; the argument for why theory should be a voter should go more like “education is an a priori issue because it’s what we take home at the end of the round, and it’s what makes debate meaningful. The resolution doesn’t matter in light of the actual impact education has on our lives”
It’s just that debaters use blippy buzzwords pulled out of ten year old policy backfiles that never got fully explained to them by their coaches because it’s easier
Even if that link explaining why theory should come before the resolution is there, people still run theory at times when it shouldn’t be done. For example, if there are two valid interpretations for what the affirmative burden is, and both interpretations offer equitable grounds for the aff and neg, running one interpretation shouldn’t be grounds for a theory argument that it’s unfair and uneducational that they’re not running the other.
Unruly rules I learned at Debate Camp so far:
The judge is always right - even when the judge isn’t right.
Cheat whenever possible.
Never get caught.
Be immoral if it won’t lose you the round. Screw with your opponent.
Arguing at a wall improves your speeches.
You can make up big words to make your case better. (Ex. Quasitopical.)
Even if you’re BSing your way through it, just act like you know it.
Never get distracted by your opponents. Even if they’re super cute.
10 reasons to date a debater:
1.) we have the wifi password for EVERYTHING. 2.) we never run out of things to talk about. 3.) we know how to get on anyone’s good side. (And use it to our advantage) 4.) we can help with writing papers for homework (and we’re professionals at using Google) 5.) we’ll fight just about anyone. 6.) we have the best memes (and pickup lines) 7.) seriously, have you ever heard a debater roast before?? Come on 8.) we’re super badass but very cute 9.) we look good in suits (and can walk/run in heels if necessary) 10.) we mostly just require coffee and pizza, like really
all more the reasons to do debate ! ;) stay sharp kids
In a philosophical dispute, he gains most who is defeated, since he learns most.
Epicurus (via stardust-seedling)
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hey! this is a new blog made by a former middle school debater. as a high school debater, im totally down to helping the middle schoolers to prep for success in upcoming seasons and i’m here to engage with both new and experienced debaters!