2013 Marquette University Debate Institute

1. 2013 Marquette University Debate Institute Flowing in Policy Debate By David Henning Director of Debate at Lakeland College, The Sheb and Sheboygan North

2. Flowing in Policy Debate • Flowing is an essential skill in Varsity policy debate. It is an imperative skill to learn, and one that will provide you benefits not only in debate rounds, but in classes and at college. The ability to flow a Varsity policy debate round makes it incredibly easy to take notes in a high school, college, law or graduate school class or seminar. Master this skill now and it will pay off for the rest of your life. • Flowing a high-level Varsity policy debate round is not easy. It is, in fact, one of the most difficult, labor-intensive things you will be asked to do. Speakers talk fast and not always clearly, tag lines are often unhelpful, cites are abbreviated, and the evidence is usually dealing with advanced military or public policy ideas that do not lend themselves to easy note-taking. • There are some general tips and advice I can offer to make flowing somewhat easier. Remember that flowing skill is always a work in progress. Not even the best college judges get everything down, so if you have difficulty initially that’s perfectly normal. Below are some ideas to (hopefully) make your life a little easier while flowing in rounds.

3. Flowing in Policy Debate 1. Flow, Flow, Flow. This is essential. At the Varsity level, if you do not flow you will not win. Period. Without a good flow you cannot possibly respond to all of the other team’s arguments. If you think you don’t need to flow—you are wrong. I (or a good varsity team) can disabuse you of that idea in 8 minutes. I’ve met one person in 30 years who didn’t need to flow. If you don’t like flowing, grow up and get over it. There are lots of important things we need to do in life that we may not like.

4. Flowing in Policy Debate 2. Never give up. If you miss something, mark that spot and keep flowing. Chances are your partner got it flowed, and if she or he did not, ask the other team in CX. 3. Flow all speeches in the round. You need to flow your speeches (before you give them), your partner’s speeches and the other team’s speeches.

5. Flowing in Policy Debate 4. Find a flowing system that works for you. It often takes a long time to come up with this system, so keep at it and you will get better. Some suggestions: a. Use symbols and abbreviations whenever possible (see my Flowing Symbol handout). Treat flowing like texting or Twitting [sic]. b. Paper—yellow for case, white for off case. Use 8½” by 14” or larger paper. c. Pens—affirmative is blue, negative is black. Bring 6 of each color for each debater. Pens always run out at the worst possible time.

6. Flowing in Policy Debate 4. Find a Flowing System d. Write small horizontally. You should have enough room for seven columns (1 for each speech) across the page. e. Align the paper so that you have the longer portion (14’’) running vertically. You need that space in case the other team dumps a lot of arguments on one of yours. f. Leave lots of space between each card or argument. You never know which argument the other team will 10-point, so leave lots of space between each one.

7. Flowing in Policy Debate 4. Find a Flowing System g. Each affirmative contention and each negative off-case position gets its own piece of paper. h. Don’t try to “save paper.” Don’t try to squeeze stuff on a single page. Don’t write on the back of pages. Doing any of that can confuse you and make you miss arguments, and then you lose. Debate is hard on trees—deal with it. If you have to, go plant a few trees to assuage your conscience.

8. Flowing in Policy Debate 5. Get as much as you can of each argument on your flow. The more you get down on your flow, the easier it will be to do both line-by-line and analytical refutation of that particular card or argument. a. Get the tag line, or most of it. Sometimes tag lines are two or three sentences long (they shouldn’t be, but many debaters have long tags anyways). That will be how you signpost for the judge, who will also have flowed the tag line

9. Flowing in Policy Debate • Flow as much as you can b. Get the citation. Usually it will be short, like “Smith in 8.” Circle the citation to denote that this is evidence. If you miss the evidence citation but the other teams reads a card, place a blank circle so as to tell you there was a card read there. If you miss the cite, ask for it in CX

10. Flowing in Policy Debate • Flow as much as you can c. Get what you can of the card itself. Often, the tag line and the card will have very little to do with each other. The more you get of the card, the easier it will be to point that out later. Sometimes cards are taken out of context, or the author concludes the other way—if you get the card body flowed, it will be easier for you to notice these issues.

11. Flowing in Policy Debate 6. Pre-Flow. Do as much flowing work as possible before the tournament. You can make your in-round life much easier if you pre-flow as much as you can before you leave for the tournament. Pre-flowing allows you to concentrate on what you don’t have prepared and allows you the time to come up with better responses to those arguments.

12. Flowing in Policy Debate 6. Pre-Flow. a. Pre-flow your 1AC. Bring six copies of your pre-flowed 1AC for you and six for your partner. Use one each round to flow case debate. You need many—the last thing you want to be doing before an elimination round is wasting pre-round prep time pre-flowing when you could/should be planning your strategy. If you have more than one affirmative that you run, bring pre-flows for each with you. You can pre-flow on 8½’’ by 14’’ paper on your computer.

13. Flowing in Policy Debate 6. Pre-Flow. b. Pre-flow all your 1NC off-case arguments. Bring several copies of each, for the reasons outlined above. Use one each round you use that argument. Keep them in the file folder with that argument. You can pre-flow on 8½’’ by 14’’ paper on your computer.

14. Flowing in Policy Debate 6. Pre-Flow. c. Pre-flow all your negative on-case positions on post-its or something similar. Do the same for second-line argumentation for the 2NC/1NR. Affirmatives should do the same for the 2AC. Put one post-it copy directly on the block. Bring multiple copies of these pre-flows to replace them when needed. Do all positions, because when you need to run those arguments you can just pull the post it and put it on the flow where it needs to go rather than having to waste time writing your arguments on the flow.

15. Flowing in Policy Debate 6. Pre-Flow. d. Time how long it takes to read each position or block and put that on the post-it pre-flow and on the block. This will help you gauge how much you can get in during your speech. e. Realize that proper pre-flowing is a lot of work. Doing this work before tournaments will make everything at the tournament easier. Always do what you can at home rather than at the tournament. f. If you use a computer to flow—everything above still applies.

16. Flowing in Policy Debate 7. Practice. There are many things you can do to practice flowing. Nothing helps you improving flowing faster than lots of practice. a. Watch and flow elimination rounds. This way you can totally concentrate on flowing, since you are not debating. You may very well miss stuff—that’s OK. After the round (and stay for the decision and explanation), ask a friend or teammate to see their flow and compare. b. Judge novice practice rounds at school. This will also help your flowing (at least to some degree). Show your flows to the novices, and look at theirs after the practice round.

17. Flowing in Policy Debate 7. Practice. There are many things you can do to practice flowing. Nothing helps you improving flowing faster than lots of practice. c. Flow in your classes. Stop taking notes the way everyone else does. Flow rather than take notes in classes. That means use the same symbols, leave spaces, and mark any areas you missed or intend to question. You’ll soon find that you’ll be able to get almost every word of a school lecture flowed.

18. Flowing in Policy Debate 7. Practice. There are many things you can do to practice flowing. Nothing helps you improving flowing faster than lots of practice. d. Draw on existing skills. Texting or Twitting [sic] relies heavily on symbols and abbreviations. Use them when you flow. Combine your texting/twitting skill with flowing. They are the same thing—conveying ideas in as brief and understandable a way as possible.

19. Flowing in Policy Debate 8. Do not throw your flows away. Ever. There are many important reasons to keep your flows. a. Review your flows after the round/tournament. You can see where you missed stuff or what wasn’t clear, and you can work to improve on that.

20. Flowing in Policy Debate 8. Do not throw your flows away. Ever. There are many important reasons to keep your flows. b. Review your flows and written ballots with your coach on Monday. This can help you see why you won or lost, and also help your coach determine what you need to work on. This can also help you demonstrate (and prove) whether you “got screwed” in a particular round. It happens, but far, far less than debaters believe. c. Make a team file for each team you debate. On your flow, write the team, the side, the date and the judge. This will help you prepare for facing that team again.

21. Flowing in Policy Debate 8. Do not throw your flows away. Ever. There are many important reasons to keep your flows. d. Bring your team flow files with you to every tournament. This can help you trade intelligence with other teams. It is far more helpful to another team when they ask you about facing Team X if you can pull out your old flows of your round against that team rather than to simply try to remember what they run. And the teams that you help will be far more likely to return the favor later on when you ask them about a certain team and their arguments.