The 2022 Spartan Debate Institute will be online. I realize some people might be confused (maybe even baffled) by our decision to host the SDI online again this summer so I’m hoping to shed some light on the decision. Benefits of Online Debate First, we still believe in the transformational power of online debate to be […]
Author: Marge Strong I’m sure we are all sick of hearing about these “uncertain times,” not just because it’s an annoying phrase, but also because uncertainty isn’t fun. No one, outside of watching an amazing suspense movie, seeks out this type of insecurity. We want to know what’s coming next and when. What tournaments are happening […]
Author: Carly Watson I know I said the other posts were all that I had planned about applying to college as a debater. Once I wrote everything out, I realized it was kind of a beast in terms of content length. I put together a one-pager that had all of the main tips from the […]
Author: Carly Watson In previous posts, I talked about debate in the application and consideration phase as well as debate-specific scholarships. In this post, I plan to talk about some criteria you can use to compare different debate teams. There are tons of important non-debate benchmarks to consider when comparing schools (one last pitch for […]
Author: Carly Watson In the first post in this series, I wrote about how debate intersects with the application and consideration phase when going through the college process. In this post, I’ll be talking more about how debate can be potentially financially beneficial for students looking to debate in college. Unfortunately, too many financial opportunities […]
Author: Carly Watson Applying to college can be an incredibly daunting experience especially when you factor in trying to navigate the college process as a debater. In addition to all of the normal considerations about where to apply and attend, debaters are simultaneously figuring out how to join college debate teams and how college debate […]
Author: Bruce Najor With the criminal justice reform topic coming to an end, debaters and coaches may find themselves eager to get a jump start on the new topic. For many; however, that excitement can quickly fade when faced with the daunting task of researching an unfamiliar and broad topic. In this blog post I […]
Author: Carly Watson The season is coming to a close but the era of the process counterplan rages on. Whether it’s because the topics are too big, the counterplans are too good, or the negative ground is too bad, the process counterplan is running rampant in high school and college debate. In an SDI webinar, we predicted […]
Author: Carly Watson Every year at the end-of-season high school tournaments, a few arguments that were broken at the National Debate Tournament (NDT) pop up. Because of coaches who work in both high school and college and the public college caselist, there’s a lot of cross-pollination at the end of the year. If you’re preparing for […]
Author: Carly Watson It’s a trope that it’s difficult to get debaters to agree about anything but once the community is on the other side of the COVID-19 pandemic we’re going to have to decide what the future of debate competitions looks like. Whether through inertia, deliberation, collaboration, or a series of individual decisions, the […]
