When I first joined the NCFCA, I was overwhelmed by all the things I had to learn. Depending on how long it has been since you were a novice, you may have forgotten what it was like to learn all the terminology and ways of doing things. Wait, so what is the difference between Inherency […]

This is a guest post by Isaiah McPeak of Ethos Debate.  I’ve been coaching debate since 2003. Tactics and strategies have come in and out of style. Giovanni asked me to identify some tactics that are underused right now but should be used more often. Here’s what I came up with! Hope it helps 🙂 […]

Book gleaning is a series of posts that highlight specific books and what we can take from them to apply to public speaking. In this post, we’ll be discussing the book Made to Stick, by Chip and Dan Heath. Why do some ideas thrive while others die? And how do we improve the chances of […]

Winning Affirmative debate rounds is an essential part of your tournament strategy. If you routinely lose an Affirmative round, that’s a big red flag. You should be able to win all your preliminary Affirmative rounds, leaving you with just one Negative round you need to win in order to get to outrounds. One of the […]

Every once in a while, it’s good to be reminded just how much persuasion lies in the delivery of a speech. That is, after all, the point of this website. A good speaker can talk about any topic and make it interesting to the audience. The effective use of vocal tonality, humor, pacing, and hundreds […]

There are plenty of benefits of being the Negative team. One of these benefits is that you have a lot less to prove. The other benefit is that you don’t necessarily have to take a fierce stand on anything until the Affirmative team has. When the Affirmative team proposes their plan, they are taking a […]