Victory Briefs
VBI Website – Maintenance
The website for the Victory Briefs Institute 2012 is down as we do some overnight maintenance. We will have it back open on Friday, April 6.
Please pardon our delay.
Three Ways to Improve Your Mental Game by Adam Torson
Most debaters spend their time working on two things – the quality of their arguments (research, case-writing, blocking, etc.) and their technical skills (drills, etc.). All that is great, but if you can’t execute your preparation during the tournament, and especially in important rounds, your work is for naught.
Debate is a mental game. Some people have a natural ability to think clearly and execute their strategy under pressure. If you are one of those people, you can stop reading. If your mental game is already strong, over-thinking it can hurt you. If, on the other hand, you sometimes struggle under pressure, here are a few things you can do to improve your state of mind during important rounds.
The Basics of Evidence Ethics by Adam Torson
As with any academic endeavor, it is inappropriate to misrepresent evidence in debate. The virtue of intellectual honesty is central to any forensic endeavor, and debate writing is an important model for academic writing in other settings (where breaches of evidence ethics can result in severe repercussions). Mistakes are inevitable, but students, coaches, and judges should all be careful about being too lax when it comes to evidence ethics.
There are definitely some grey areas for what kind of evidence use is acceptable, particularly given that in debate it is standard practice to line down cards significantly and read them very quickly. That said, there are some basic rules that will take you most of the way in preventing inappropriate evidence use. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Teaching Weakness: The Indulgent Logic of Mutual Judge Preferences by Stephen Babb
Mutual judge preferences (MJP) have rapidly become an oddly unquestioned convention on the LD national circuit. From the perspectives of current debaters, this is more than understandable. As long as the rules are what they are, what a deal!
The more difficult question falls upon educators in the activity: coaches, tournament directors, committee members, judges and the like. Should MJP be as irreproachable as it appears? Should it remain the dominant norm at “circuit” tournaments?
The best possible world probably wouldn’t reject MJP altogether, but nor would it accept the policy as a widespread and prevailing norm. Read more →
Where I’d Like to See CX Go by Stephen Babb
Perhaps more than any other speech, cross-examination represents LD debate’s unique opportunity to have a truly discursive experience. With rapid speech frequently eroding the communicative dimensions of the 1NR or 1AR, CX gives debaters a chance to slow down the conversation and seriously engage one other’s positions.
Unfortunately, the fact that CX isn’t comprised of recorded arguments as such often leads debater and judge alike to assign the speech diminished importance. Debaters rarely seem to care about the results of the exchange and their judges follow suit.
Here are five recommendations for making this speech time worthwhile—not even the most efficient debaters can afford to do otherwise. Read more →