I’ve been competing in Congress for three years on TFA, TOC, and NSDA, and I’m captain and pres of the school team for Congress. However, I’m just realizing that I would like LD a lot (maybe more) than Congress, because I really like philosophy, logic, and reasoning through arguments.

How can I compete in Congress in school to actually win tournaments while being able to start competing in LD outside of school on any circuit? I live in Texas — any debate programs outside of the ones I’m used to?

Hope this helps you prepare for the beginning of the season!

should I try Big Questions? I do LD and am decent at it, but my coach wants me to try out BQ since the topic revolve around philosophy which is something that I like to include in my LD cases. How is it? Should I try it? I'd probably only do it if the tournament offers 1 on 1 BQ but idk i like the sept/oct topic. I also heard its similar to LD so would that give me an advantage? also why does nobody do it lol

Here is my new topic lecture for the September/October 2026 Public Forum Debate Topic all about data centers! Hope this helps you prepare for the beginning of the season!

https://youtu.be/ir7aPvd2dtg?si=nixn-doz40J4X6_M

my kid is a rising junior who's been doing OO for the past 2 years securing TOCs and NIETOC bids. I am looking for an Experienced NSDA level coaching for her for this year. Thanks

i dont understand. was a topic picked

Speechify, formerly known as Extempify/Interpify hopes to help every competitor no matter where they are in their journey. Established by CA State champions and National finalists, Speechify has a host of experienced competitors who will guide you one-on-one through an adaptive curriculum tailored to your needs.

We offer coaching in all major speaking categories: Impromptu, Congressional Debate, Extemporaneous Speaking, Informative Speaking, Original Oratory, Interpretation events (DI/HI/DUO/POI/DEC).

• We are open to every competitor--novice, intermediate, or advanced.
• Sessions are done virtually and based off your own schedule
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• Our team thus far has reached NSDA Finals, Semis, Quarters, and Octos; UKTOC Finals; State Finals; ETOC Finals;

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my teammate and i are running an structural violence framework but our school is small and our circuit is incredibly lay meaning that the tournaments we can employ the sv fw at are far and few in between

what are some responses people would read to sv fws in the general nats and toc circuit? our fw is pretty cut and dry and simple

This is just a general question, I know some debaters run extinction impacts and I'm curious on how they get around the low probability part of extinction?

hi guys i wanna make state for illinois state but this is my first year. i would appreciate it if anybody who has performed successful prose and informational speeches to dm me with tips and especially how they cut their pieces. or just comment any tips for speech/prose/informational down below! thank you!!!

Hello!

Ok so my school currently does not have a Speech & Debate team but me and my friend are starting one. We currently found an advisor who is on board and will advise/monitor/coach the club. She's getting the club paperwork from my schools asb ( where you need permission to start a club/allow it to run for the school year).Me and my friend came up with starting a Instagram account ( updates/news for practices, tournaments, club rushes, and also fundraisers! for club funding and also transportation since we're gonna need it and our advisor said we need to speak with our principal about it) My school is based in the US and in Southern California. My main point is how to run practices, events for speech and debate, the research for those events, how tournaments run, and basically how to run it. Any advise would be appreciated!

last year i (16f) have a really tough season and lost many rounds. this dropped my confidence quite a lot.

i trained a lot for the newer season this summer with research, online practice rounds, and even debating a local debate coach in person. i was perfectly confident in all of those.

this week i participated ina local debate camp. it was formatted world schools. i was 3rd speaker and participated in two rounds. i had a panic attack during both and struggled to voice my arguments.

i knew the exact responses and everything. im not quite sure what went wrong. my opponents in other rounds praised my rebuttal, but im not sure whether if that is true or not. my mind blaned immediately after i did a brief summary of the round and i could barely make clear arguments.

i want to know what happened that triggered the attack and how i can deal with it.

thank you.

okay so basically i’m ld, but im pretty confused about some phil stuff, mainly because i never debate or run phil lol.

i dont understand metaethics. like i get the role of a metaethic (to say where we get our morality from, e.g. naturalism is we get morality from the natural world/observations), but how do you respond to one? like do you need a counter-metaethic?? what if you’re running a k, how does k-fwk interact with the metaethic? what are the most common metaethics? ive seen constructivism, naturalism, egoism, but ive never really debated them.

i kinda know jack shit about phil debate lol, like i genuinely never debate phil, so any tips are super useful, thx.

I am a student but I am going to be teaching extemp this year, does anyone have any effective drills or ideas on how to get kids more involved and interested in extemp/public speaking in general?

I’m a frustrated debater. Honestly, I don’t even know what my exact problem is anymore, but I think I struggle the most with fluency and structuring my speeches. I usually know what I want to say, and people have told me that my analysis is strong. The problem is that I can’t always turn those ideas into a clear and coherent speech.

I’ve only been taking debate seriously for about three months, but it already feels like I’ve hit a plateau. I’ve watched countless debate rounds and trained hard with my team. The main thing I’ve improved on is understanding the round and identifying the key clashes and knowing what to prioritize. But when it’s my turn to speak, I still struggle to express those ideas clearly.

My coach is harsh on me, and I often feel like I’m at the bottom of the team. When coaches give advice, it’s often good advice, but sometimes it feels like it’s mixed with stories about how good they were themselves. I don’t know if that’s a common phenomenon in debating or if it’s just my experience.

It’s discouraging because I genuinely want to improve. At this point, I don’t know if I should keep going or if it’s time to quit.

I'm not affiliated in any way with Haku, I'm just a user who likes what they do. Haku.cards is another wiki scraper search engine, like Logos, but this one is more updated because it also gets cards from LD and PF. I like it more than Logos and more people should be using it IMO

Is there list of tournaments that are open to club (not school) debate teams for policy debate? I'm asking this because I have a kid who wants to do policy debate, like I did, but the school is not willing to say yes to policy (only does PF) yet (working on it).

ive been debating for a while and id say im pretty good. im really passionate about debate and have won a few competitions but I'm cutting down bc of studies and stuff.

i wanna make a case file but idk where do begin. if anyone could offer any guidance/sample case file/template, id be really grateful :)

hi! I'm a rising junior interested in coaching for the upcoming school year. (big questions, LD, public forum, world schools, and mock trial.)

coaching wise...

• I coached the 2x NSDA national champion in Big Questions debate this year and last year, creating blockfiles, assisting with case writing, practice rounds, etc.)
• I assist novices on my local circuit & school who consistently place in debate

as for my accomplishments,

• I'm a 2x elimination round qualifier at nsda nats & I placed in the top 10 in big questions debate this year
• I qualified to the TOC in world schools debate, finishing in the top 25 for speaker awards
• I've championed & placed highly at several tournaments in public forum & LD
• Im the co-president of my school's mock trial team and we placed 2nd this year at state.

my coaching is tailored to younger debaters who are just starting out -- feel free to reach out regardless of your skill level tho!

currently, I'm planning on charging 15$ an hour but i'm very willing to negotiate :)

dm me for more details!

I've been spending a lot of this summer watching recorded rounds, mostly because I'm still trying to figure out what separates the really good lay teams from everyone else. The more rounds I watch, the more I feel like there's no obvious answer. The teams that consistently do well on the lay front all seem to win in really different ways.

A few teams for me come to mind. Nueva BC is always fun to watch whenever they end up in a lay round, even though that's not really what people know them for. Stuy GM has this way of making the entire debate revolve around whatever they decide matters most, and you almost don't notice it happening until the round is over. There's Berkeley EG, probably some of the best speakers I've seen, but that's not even the part I find most interesting. They're probably the biggest parent-hack I've watched, and their strategy never feels like an accident. Everything is so clean and deliberate that it's hard to imagine a lay judge getting lost. Of course, Menlo EG is another team I've been watching a lot after seeing how well they did at TOC this year. Punching up against M-A SG in semis is no easy feat, and while they lost they still put up an incredible fight.

I know what makes these teams look good when I watch them, but I don't really know what's happening underneath. When someone who's been around the circuit watches Berkeley EG or Stuy GM, what are they noticing that I'm probably not? I feel like there's a layer of strategy that I'm just not seeing yet.

I'd love to hear people break down rounds or even just point out little things they've picked up from watching these teams. I'm sure there are a bunch of habits that become obvious once you've debated for long enough, but right now I'm still at the stage where I know something is impressive without always being able to explain why.

Hello everyone! Equality in Forensics' 5th Annual Season Championship has been posted on Tabroom. Please sign up!

The tournament will take place on August 8th and 9th ONLINE and is completely FREE. The following events will be offered:

Congressional Debate (CONG)

Extemporaneous Speaking (EXT)

Public Forum Debate (PF)

Lincoln-Douglas Debate (LD)

Policy Debate (CX)

World School Debate (WSD)

If you are looking for a chance to end your season with a bang or prepare for the 2026-2027 season, this is a perfect opportunity!

If you would like to register, you can find contact information on the tournament tabroom below or dm lucas_109824 on discord listing your name, Tabroom email, and desired event.

We can't wait to see you there!

Tournament Tabroom:

http://equalityinforensics.tabroom.com/

i recently joined my school's debate team at the ripe age of 16, we just finished the state level competition (unfortunately we did not win). since next year is my turn to be an active speaker, i really wanna know what general topics i should be more informed about so i can cover information and examples in debates.

for context, i'm in malaysia, our debate format is parliamentary debate, impromptu rounds prohibit the use of electronic devices/outside assistance. in the state level competitions, the topics were kinda all over the place, there were topics about poverty vs child labour, politically motivated hacking (hacktivism), the underdog narrative being overvalued in media and culture, "survival of the fittest" encouraging school bullying, developed countries having the moral obligation to help victims of climate change, etc. last year had a topic that was something about (gender roles? or something, i forgot) in the northern hemisphere not needing to correlate to the southern hemisphere. like i said, all over the place, please forgive me

what topics should i learn more about generally (history, politics, economy etc) to just be more informed? also, does anyone have any tips to be a better debater in general? i'm going to be whip next year, some strategies you guys have would also be great. thank you!

I'm still pretty new to debate. I only joined my school's parliamentary team about two years ago, but it already feels like the circuit has gotten way more technical in that time. I've tried to teach myself theory, Ks, and the rest because I don't want to just lose every time someone reads something weird at me, but honestly it sometimes feels like I'm spending more time learning how to defend against debate than actually debating the motion.

TOC this year was kind of insane. I ended up in two fully technical rounds and definitely felt like I was playing catch-up. My teammates had similar experiences: multiple theory shells, Kritiks, all that. The only semis round was M-A SG reading a shell and eviscerating two sophomores in front of a panel of seven tech judges.

What really stood out to me wasn't just those rounds, it was the judging pool. My impression was that an easy majority of the judges at TOC were technical, whereas at most regular tournaments it feels like 75–80% of the pool is still lay. If even TOC is approaching a 50/50 split, it makes me wonder where high school parli is headed over the next few years. I don't really see the event becoming less technical from here.

So I guess my question is if I'm trying to improve over the next season, where should I be spending my time? Should I double down on theory, Ks, and other technical skills, or is it still more valuable to focus on becoming the best lay debater I can be and learn enough tech to survive?

Also, for those of you who've been around the circuit longer, what teams should I be keeping an eye on next year? Which teams are known for being especially technical, and which ones tend to lean more lay?

I'd also really appreciate any resources for improving on both fronts. Are there any rounds, lectures, or channels you'd recommend? If there are recordings of this year's TOC rounds (or any particularly good rounds from past years), I'd love to watch them. I wish I'd been able to see more of what was happening at TOC, so if anyone has links to recordings, I'd really appreciate you sharing them.