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Focusing Your Preparation At The Beginning of the Season

August 22 2009 by Stefan Bauschard

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The number of arguments produced at camps this summer (list|lecture) is quite large.  Attempting to prepare for every argument on both sides appears to be an overwhelming, and perhaps impossible, task.

In order to prepare, teams need to focus there preparation.  How so?

First, teams need to focus attention on arguments that are more popular.  The simple reality is that many of the camp arguments will be run by very few teams. Unless these are teams you debate regularly, there is no point in investing effort, especially at the beginning of the year, in preparing to debate these arguments. 

How do you know what is popular? 

First, you can ask around. You can ask your friends what arguments many teams ended up running at different camps.

Second, you can look at what material at Planet Debate gets the most downloads.  There is a list here of all of the popular topics that people are researching at Planet Debate based on material access. The topics at the top are the most heavily researched and those at the bottom are the least frequently researched.  Topicality, morality, abortion, welfare reform, food stamps, the broadband affiramtive, natives, and immigration are among the post popular.   You can also look here to see what camp files are most frequently downloaded. This will give you an idea as to what versions of the argument are the most popular.

The second thing that you need to do to prepare is to develop some general strategies. For example, you may wish to rely on the states counterplan and politics, case defense and politics, a "universal" counterplan with a kritik of "persons living in poverty" as a net benefit, or a charity tax credits and kritiks of government provided social services as net-benefits.  You may also wish to develop some topicality arguments. To assist with advanced preparation of these strategies, you should consult Planet Debate's list of camp plans.

 

 

 

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