#rep. advice

completed

tournament etiquette (will link soon)

in-progress

questioning

late-round speeches

event overview/basics

to-do

presentation

Thank you so much, and no worries! That honestly means so much to me and I understand this completely- I never broke once in my novice year. At all. Ever. So, my advice when you don’t break:

Know you’ll do better eventually. The way you phrased it made me think you’ve broken before, in which case- you will break again! Competing on a larger scale than you’re used to is terrifying, and it’s a lot harder than competing on your local level, and the extra rounds are exhausting- you probably weren’t competing at the same level as you normally would, and that’s understandable! You shouldn’t expect it to be like any tournament you’ve been to, because it’s not. And that’s not your fault.

Don’t take it personally. No matter how personal it feels- and it usually does- it’s not personal. Nobody made a conscious choice to put you against harder teams than the rest of your pf team. Nobody made a conscious choice to give you a lay judge vs. a tech judge or vice versa. Not a single bit of that was your choice, and if you were debating at the best level you could, then that’s the best you could’ve placed.

Don’t let it get to you. Not breaking at a tournament feels terrible, but don’t let it impact your performance. Your goal should always to do better than you did at the least tournament, so don’t beat yourself up for being paired against teams you couldn’t win against. Use whatever anger or regret you have over the tournament and put that into your practice. It’s okay to be upset- I’ll admit to crying after a tournament, there’s no shame in it- but you can’t let it hold you back.

Learn from it. This might sound cliche (and it kind of is), but tournaments are a learning experience. The biggest thing I learned as a novice was to leave every tournament with at least one thing I knew I needed to get better at. So, look at what your judges said, talk to your partner, and try to adapt to that feedback. Even if your ballots aren’t good, you should always be able to know one thing you could’ve improved on. Even though the loss wasn’t your fault, it still means you have an opportunity to get better from it. That’s what got me through being a novice- especially in Congress, where there’s no novice/varsity division- every round you lose means you had something to learn from the people who beat you.

T.L,D.R.: The best way to deal with a loss is using it to get better. It wasn’t your fault, but it also wasn’t anyone else’s fault- so the only thing you can do is learn from it and make sure you do better at your next tournament.

And be happy for your teammates! This part is really hard, but don’t be a sore loser. The teams they went against weren’t as difficult as the teams you went against- you’re not worse than them. You have that experience against harder teams that they don’t, and you can use that to improve a lot.

Do you care about your ranks in this tournament? Because this will fundamentally change what you should do

If you don’t care about your ranks:

PO. If you don’t know how to PO, have someone teach you and learn quickly. This helps both if you care and don’t care. (I’ll post a guide for PO-ing later)

Crystal. Crystalling is when you summarize all the arguements in a round and argue why your side overall wins the debate. You need to have really good flow and really good fluency/good bs-ing skills because you CANNOT prepare a crystal in advance

Hope and pray a teammate won’t be in your chamber and steal their speech

Possibly, don’t speak on a bill. If it’ll do you better to give no speech than a bad speech (depends on your definition of bad), then don’t speak. It sucks, but if you’re like me, it’s because you’re burnt out

If you care about your ranks:

PO. Same as what I said before- and a lot of judges rank POs very highly. Just make sure what you know what you’re doing, and try to have a gavel beforehand, otherwise you look very unprepared

Try and get speeches from other people. It’s embarrassing, I know, but if they’re not in your chamber then it’s up for grabs if you ask me

Crystal. I’m putting this at the bottom, because as I said- it’s hard even if you take good flow, because you need to have good fluency & improv skills. If you can pull one off, go for it. Crystal your every speech, but for someone who’s not, I’d recommend to try something else

Stay up late & wake up early. I lied, this is the bottom, because IMO, to preform well, you need good sleep, and I can’t recommend this in good faith. But if you can’t PO, crystal, or get speeches from other people, you don’t really have any other choice. And I’ll be honest, it sucks. If you need help with researching, send me a dm and your timeframe and I’ll see what I can do if I see it in time. Just… take care of yourself.

Motivate and encourage yourself. You are prepped. You are ready. You are going to do amazing. If you can’t do it yourself? Send me an ask. You’ve got this, and you should know it

Do stuff to make your voice better. No milk. No chocolate. No cheese. It’ll be worth it. Drink tea, put cough drops and gum in your bag, do whatever you need to do

Finish whatever prep you need to do- and DON’T slack off. I’m slacking right now- if you need to finish padding a speech, pad your speech. Need to come up with an agd? Come up with an agd. Do what you need to do.

Double check everything last minute. Did you charge your laptop? Is your phone charging? Do you have all your prep done? Do you have snacks or lunch for the tournament? Money? Is your bag ready? Make sure you have everything ready for the day of.

Calm yourself down. I know you’ve got that anxiety in your chest, or stomach, or wherever your anxiety and stress settles, but that is what will ultimately hold you back. You’ve got this. It’s okay. It’ll also help with this next step:

Sleep- and sleep well. No matter how early you need to wake up tomorrow, try to get at LEAST six or seven hours of sleep. I know eight is recommended, but we’re debate kids- it’s not realistic. Get as much sleep as you can, it’ll make you feel way better tomorrow.

How to write a congress speech:

Basic format (+ timings) Intro: AGD, say your side, basically it - 15s to 30s

First Point: Claim, Warrant, Evidence, Impact (sometimes analysis) (I’ll explain these things in a moment) - 1m

Second Point: Same as first point - 1m

Outro: Conclusion, tie your speech back to your AGD - 15s to 30s

Now, here’s the massive asterisk over all of this:

All of this, and I mean pretty much all of this, can be changed. Your intro can take 45s if you have a great intro that needs it, as long as you meet your time limit. It can also be shorter, as long as you have an AGD and you need the time for your content.

What’s a claim/warrant/evidence/impact?

This is the structure of a point in a congress speech- Your claim is your point, basically. A warrant is why your claim is true. Evidence is a no-brainer- it’s the evidence you have to support your claim. Impact is, well, the impact of your point or why your point comes true when you pass/fail.

Here’s an example (bc it can be hard to just hear about it, believe me)

So, the bill here is pretty basic- legalizing opioids, this is from a neg speech. (I’ve abbreviated Claim, Warrant, etc, to C,W,E,I)

C: People won’t seek help/treatment (for addictions)

W: They have no incentive to

E: (I’m not typing up my card and don’t want to pull it up, lol, but basically it’s like this:)

Sitename/Institution, Date: Information

I: More drug deaths & ODs because people aren’t getting help

Now, first off- this is a very bare bones structure. I try to quickprep/put little on my pad, as it helps with my fluency. If you need to write it out, write it out, this is just an example of how it works. Some adjustments to the main format:

I don’t count this as an adjustment, but it took me a while to know that it’s okay to have multiple cards in one point, so do remember that- it can really strengthen your claim!

You can have one claim, and have your entire next point be the impact, but you’ve still got to give it a warrant and a card and impact, too. Usually, you just know when to do it

Authorships/Sponsorships - I’m not going to go into great detail because frankly, I’m not great with them - but you usually need to explain the bill, so you don’t really have the two main points- you need to explain each section/clause, not your own two claims

I’ll go into more detail in other posts, but I’ll link them here (also so I remember what I want to do)