Hark the resolution is upon us!

Labor Day has come and gone. Much to the dismay of every high school student, it signifies that 9 more months of labor are just around the corner. And while you’re probably still trying to retain those last drops of summer carefreeness, it can be a bit difficult to remain carefree when there’s a monster looming up ahead: this year’s debate season.

In a few short months, you’ll be sitting in a suit, behind a desk, in front of a kindly volunteer parent with a pen in one hand and the fate of your debate round in the other. You want to represent yourself, your league, and most importantly Christ, in the most favorable light possible. But how do we get from here to there?

Here are some starting-out-the-season tips that I discovered over four years of preparing for Lincoln-Douglas value resolutions. They’ll be helpful especially to those of you first starting out, but even if you’ve been around the block a couple times, it’s often good to get a new perspective on an old routine. To be sure, everyone has a different way of thinking, so everyone has a different method of preparing, but these steps were helpful for me to work through as I tried to wrap my mind around a brand-new topic, and I hope they’ll benefit you in some way as well.

Tip #1: Create a comprehensive definition list 

One of the most fundamental questions in any debate is: “what are we even talking about?” If we don’t have that squared away, things could go seriously wrong:

Resolution: The Judge Should Prefer Dogs Over Cats.

Affirmative:  “Dogs is a wonderful documentary about the relationship between man and man’s best friend. On the other hand, Cats is a flop of a movie that horribly portrayed the musical it was based off of. Judge, you obviously should prefer Dogs over Cats.”

Negative: “Umm… I thought we were here to talk about which pet shop to go to…?”

Any value, contention, or piece of evidence will be useless in a situation like this, where neither side even agrees on what we’re here to talk about. So before you start worrying about finding the killer value or bombshell study, take a step back and go get a working knowledge of everyone’s favorite part of debate - the definitions!

Step 1: Look at fifteen, choose five

The first thing I do when I start prepping a new resolution is to look at about fifteen or more definitions of each main word or phrase in the resolution, and pick five really clear or credible ones to include in my definitions list. For secondary words or phrases, I pick two or maybe three definitions. 

(In this year’s resolution, I’d consider  “biomedical engineering,” “restraint,” “prioritize” and “scientific advancement” to be main phrases, and “field” and “ought” would be secondary phrases - not quite as important as the big words, but still not no-brainers like “in” and “the.” Please don’t define the word “the” -- the judge will look at you like you have an arm growing out of your forehead.)

Sites like onelook.com are a really efficient way to look through a lot of definitions at once, but you can also just Google the phrase and look at the top fifteen-ish results.

Step 2: Paste entire entries and citations into document

For these 5 definitions, I copy and paste the entire dictionary entry into my document, even if it includes sample sentences or alternative meanings that have nothing to do with the context of the resolution. (I’ll explain why in a future post.) Then I highlight or bold the definition in the entry that I actually want to use. For definitions that aren’t dictionary entries (like quotes from an article) I paste the entire paragraph into my document and just bold the definition sentence.

For each definition, I also include a full citation compliant with the Stoa LD rules (specifically section III.F.2.b.). It’s tempting to fudge on citations because these are just definitions, not killer evidence cards, but it’s a good idea to have all quoted material round-ready before you walk in the room. If you happen to hit that one round where definitions really do matter, and your opponent points out that you didn’t cite yours properly, that could make or break the decision. 

By the time you’re done with the definitions for this year’s resolution, you’ll have about 24 definitions. And you’ll probably have heaved at least 24 sighs of frustration at this article. Doesn’t 24 definitions seem a bit overkill?  Well, I think it’s worth it. Next time, we’ll look at some reasons why.  ~