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“On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me
Ten advanced tech tips for debate”
In the spirit of the holiday season, Kankee Briefs will release daily articles for the next twelve days as part of the “Twelve Days of CX-Mas.” Despite the series’ holiday themed title being seemingly oriented towards CX (Policy) debate, these guides are usable for all forms of debate (with a particular focus on LD). As a matter of technically, the “The Twelve Days of Christmas” are related not to the days preceding Christmas as popularly imagined, but rather the days after Christmas, so enjoy Christmas themed articles for weeks AFTER Christmas has already occurred.
Today’s guide is related to debate technology and how to maximize your time to cut more and higher quality cards.
1. Use Verbatim and Cite Creator.
Usage of Verbatim is easily the number one tech tip for any debater, as it aids in document formatting, card cutting, speech document creation, Opencaselist wiki entries, readability modes, optical character recognition, and much more. For many experienced debaters, this tip may seem beyond obvious, but many debaters lack Verbatim as a tool they have available and understand, and by extension, are much slower at formatting and cutting cards.
Additionally, the Google Chrome extension Cite Creator is immensely useful in terms of citation creation, and requires minimal effort in terms of pressing the keys control+alt+c and correcting the citation as needed.
Verbatim and Cite Creator are fundamentally the crux of circuit debate and ought to be utilized as the first and foremost tool to become familiar with before utilizing other tech tips, as many are reliant on the software to function. For those unfamiliar with Verbatim and/or Cite Creator, other guides (such as one linked here) explain the concept more thoroughly, and it include examples to follow along with as needed
For those already in the know about Verbatim, there remain some semi-advanced techniques for Verbatim that are worth knowing about. Speech document creation allows the easier compilation of cards from block files into a single speech document. Speech documents allow you to send cards to a separate speech document from merely a button press of the tilde key (~) as opposed to copying and pasting individual cards one-by-one from a block file into a Word document.
Additionally, a somewhat new feature in Verbatim is the in-built Excel flow template which has hotkeys to ease flowing, such as hotkeys for the creation of aff and neg flow tabs. This has additional functionality beyond a mere Excel or Sheets file as it utilizes VBA programming to add shortcuts and formatting tricks. For those unlike myself who flow online, the Verbatim flow templates may be worth looking into.
There are also several simplistic, but valuable tools under the doc or card drop down menu in the format tab. These include the standardize highlighting button, which is helpful when combining files with different highlighting colors, or the auto number tags button, which is useful for the numbering of answers to an argument
Using Verbatim is the only tech tip that potentially requires spending money, as you need access to Microsoft Word to run Verbatim. Verbatim is a free add-on for Microsoft Word, but it requires a paid Microsoft Office subscription to access Microsoft Word (alternatively ask for access through your school). There are free versions of debate software such as Cardr or Debate Template, but I have found in my experience that Verbatim has typically been superior.
2. Always Scout the Opencaselist Wiki
The LD Wiki found on Opencaselist allows previewing other teams’ previously broken arguments from past tournaments/rounds, and is particularly useful for strategizing for possible positions in the few minutes before a round begins. However, pre-round prep is merely the most basic usage of the Wiki. During pre-tournament prep, the Wiki helps make a to-do list for arguments that require blocks,as you can compile your opponent’s arguments from the LD Wiki and note what arguments necessitate new blocks and answers. This is particularly useful for a circuit tournament (as disclosure on the Wiki is much higher), as you could look up everyone in attendance (or at least the major schools and/or teams) and create blocks accordingly. At a minimum, I would say you ought to have blocks answering core arguments from the largest and/or most competitive schools attending a tournament (alongside answers to core generic arguments).
Additionally, you can use cards found from the LD Wiki to improve the quality of your own arguments by swapping cards you cut with better cards from others. Never will you find the best possible card on every possible issue, nor will you always have the most up to date cards. The research burden encapsulating every possible fringe kritik, impact turn, and creative counterplan is too high for any one person or team to meet on their own, which is why people utilize cards from debate briefs and the LD Wiki as a supplement to their own research.
Obviously, you ought to prioritize creating your own arguments and cutting your own cards first and not be entirely reliant on other people's arguments. Don't use other people's work as a crutch to avoid self-improvement in regards to your own research skills, as you will limit the educational and personal skill development benefits of debate if you’re a debate “script kiddie.” However, also don’t be entirely self-reliant, as everyone has been known to use the cards of others and beginner level debaters can improve by looking at the works of those better abled than themselves.
Additionally, when scouting your opponent’s arguments, it's also useful to use arguments on the LD Wiki to supplement backfiles. Every school ought to have an impact core, which contains at least one impact card on each issue, and an impact defense file, for the sake of always having an answer to any scenario irrespective of how fringe or uncommon the argument may The former minimizes future prep work, as there is no need for every team member to cut an economy impact card (especially if it’s a repeat), and the latter ensures that you will ALWAYS have a carded answer to any argument regardless of if it is newly broken position.
3. Use Google like a Pro
The basic functionality and utility of Google hopefully needs not be explained, as somehow you managed to access this article. However, beyond the most basic Google search are multiple customizable search parameters to optimize your Google Search capabilities.
One of the most basic search parameters is to only look at results within a certain timeframe in order to filter out arguments before a certain date or to help ensure your evidence is fairly up to date.
Many cards are reliant on a relatively timely context in order for them to be valuable. For instance, evidence regarding US-Iran relations isn’t great if it was written before Trump’s first term, as he withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal and was rather aggressive towards Iran. Similarly for the Jan-Feb LD topic, evidence about the prosecution of Israeli individuals for war crimes is infinitesimally less useful if it was written before October 7th of last year (the date of the Hamas attack that began the war in Gaza). When cutting cards, when applicable, think of the most significant and the most relevant recent event that alters the context of the topic and aim for your cards mostly being written after that event. On the subject of timeliness, also remember to think in-context of how recently the issue came up. If this was a recent event, don't search for scholarly articles
Additionally, Google search term operators (full list linked here) allow for more specificity in terms of your search, such as ensuring a certain word/phrase MUST be included with quotations, or excluding certain words/concepts to avoid overlap with a different subject with a minus sign. Sometimes it's useful to search within a certain website that has a speciality in a certain issue, such as searching Foreign Affairs for news about international relations and other countries. This can be done with the “site:” operator, such as searching news from Foreign Affairs regarding Trump’s foreign politics with the search “site:https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ Trump.”
As a follow-on to searching particular websites, custom search engines allow you to only find search results from a specific selection of new sources. Generally speaking, certain search results are more beneficial with specific news sources tailored towards that subject. For example, for recent news, you want at least Reuters, AP, Hill, Economist, Politico, etc. For foreign policy, you want the Nation, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Times, lowy Institute, Arms Control Association, and Foreign Policy, etc. For domestic topics, you usually want Heritage Foundation, Slate, New Republic, New Yorker, Vox, etc. For economics topics, you want Bloomberg, Forbes, WSJ, etc.
By focusing on a certain genre of news sources, your search results will usually be more relevant and/or more likely to find high quality articles in comparison to a generic search that is inclusive of anything and everything on the internet. These rules are not cut and dry, and there's several websites like the Washington Post or New York Times that cover a variety of issues, so vary your searches with both generic searches and custom search engines.
4. Autohotkey is Your Friend
Autohotkey is a programming language which (in comparison to others like C++, Java, Python, etc.) is fairly uncomplicated and is often reliant on running programs or substituting words when entering a key phrase. For instance, the AutoCorrect program supplements spell check native to Windows. The AutoCorrect script takes a list of the most commonly misspelled words and their roots, and automatically corrects them for you (if the script is running in the background). For instance, misspellings of the words mountain as “mountian,” or neighbour as “neigbor” will automatically be swapped to their correct spellings instantaneously, and it does not require selecting the correct spelling indicated by red squiggly lines.
AutoCorrect is an example of hotstrings, which is one of the most basic forms of Autohotkey programming. I, as a non-computer science savant, have utilized Autohotkey for multiple debate purposes and have written a script that helps automates the process of filling in speech documents with generic formatting AND will paste theory arguments into a document on demand.
For instance, for a 1NC speech document, you will likely have a document heading alongside headers for your multiple offcase positions and answers to each advantage. This can take a few moments to set up, especially if you don’t have Word templates. However, with the Kankee Briefs script, all that is necessary is for you to open a new document and type “\1NC” and the document will be instantly filled and formatted with the following text.
This script also will paste premade theory answers and shells without needing to find your theory document (or unfortunately for some, write a shell). For instance, typing “\AT: Condo Bad” will write the following:
Finally, the last functionality of the script is to create general templates on how to generically answer a position like theory or a counterplan. For instance, generic counterplan answers would follow the POSTL acronym with answers regarding permutation, offense, solvency deficit, theory, links to the net benefit). Below is a template for kritik answers that can be inserted with the “\AT: Kritik” command.
A full list of commands with my script is below. Note that all scripts begin with the character “\” as it’s an uncommon character and helps ensure my program is not run accidentally.
Speech setups:
\1AC
\1NC
\1AR
\2NR
\2AR
Generic Aff Answers:
\AT: Counterplan
\AT: Kritik
\AT: Theory
Aff Theory/Answers:
\AT: Disclosure Theory
\Condo Bad
\PICs Bad
\PIKs Bad
\International Fiat Bad
\Multi-Actor Fiat Bad
\Consult CP Bad
\Vague Alts Bad
\Reasonability
\AT: New Affs Bad
\AT: ASPEC
Neg Theory:
\AT: Condo Bad
\AT: Solvency Advocate Theory
\AT: PICs Bad
\AT: Perfcon
\AT: International Fiat Bad
\AT: Multi-Actor Fiat Bad
\AT: Agent CP Bad
\AT: Consult CP Bad
\AT: Severance Perms
\AT: Intrinsic Perms
\AT: RVI
\AT: Reasonability
\AT: Functional Limits
\AT: Plan Text In A Vacuum
To utilize this script (alongside the AutoCorrect script mentioned above), click here for a Google Drive folder with executable (.exe) and base code (.ahk) files.
There is a minor issue of Google Drive recognizing the programs as viruses given the fact that they are executable files. It should be safe to download as I wouldn’t risk the benefits of years worth of reputation with Kankee Briefs for the sake of infecting high schoolers’ computers with viruses.
However, if you don’t trust the executables, download the .ahk files alongside Autohotkey and Scite4AutoHotkey. These are basically text files that cannot do anything unless you have Autohotkey AND run the script - you can review the script in its .ahk text format without any risk of the program doing anything. This will both allow you to review the code to ensure there isn’t anything malicious, and also makes it easier for you to modify the theory arguments or speech templates to your liking. Use the in-built Autohotkey script to executable converter to make it an executable file. Sorry for the difficulties - if there is a better means of making a download link, please let me know at karkingkankee@gmail.com.
If you merely want to take the script as-is and don’t intend to modify it, download the .exe files. In order to utilize the script’s hotstrings, you will need to run the program by double clicking it in your downloads folder. Alternatively, if you wish for these scripts to always be running, as I would recommend, press the windows+R key to open the run menu, and then typing in “shell:startup” into the Windows run menu. This will open the startup menu where you can add programs that will automatically run whenever your computer is turned on, meaning that the program will always be running (as long as you don’t kill the program with the task manager).
This concept with Autohotkey is exploitable for more potential debate software, such as creating templates for block files or folder structures. It can also expedite writing somewhat longer terms like perm do both or reasonability with a hotstring like \pdb or \rsn. Given my experience with coding, the quality of this script is not superb, and I recommend others to improve upon it if they possess the ability higher than myself.
5. Use Template Folders and Document Templates
Often when setting up a new folder for a new topic, there are many documents that you would like duplicated with no topic specific information as a template. For instance, creating a new topic template folder with your core folder structure and/or template block files can universalize your formatting and minimize on work aiming to find documents. When coaching, I created a template file that we copied for each new topic and then filled in all the topic specific information in document/folder titles.
6. Utilize Gaming Mice to More Efficiently Cut Cards
Many keystrokes are required for highlighting and underlining cards, which then adds up to a great deal of time when considering the sheer amount of cards that some teams cut - gaming mice decrease the amount of time required to cut a card via making your keystrokes more efficient. This idea is not original to me, as there is a pre-existing video explaining the utility of debate gaming mice, but I can't find it.
Gaming mice have additional functionality with side buttons that can be remapped to more efficiently highlight/underline/emphasize cards. You can also remap side buttons for creating tags/blocks/hats/pockets, pasting unformatted text, or swapping tabs. You can also set programmable keys to do multiple commands at once, such as condensing and shrinking text at the same time.
This has two main benefits - it both decreases finger movement time to move your fingers from home row to the correct function key, and it also allows you to cut cards without moving your right hand off the mouse. Even if these are relatively minor efficiency gains in terms of cutting a singular card, when multiplied for all the cards in block files, affs, disadvantages, kritiques, counterplans, and topicality shells, you gain a lot of time, and by extension, more time to cut higher quality cards.
Independently, as one may believe given its name and typical usage, gaming mice are also conveniently good for gaming. I also found it quite useful when doing computer-aided design (CAD) work, and is likely helpful for computer science, so the debate gaming mouse will have usability beyond debate. For reference, I have a wired UtechSmart Venus gaming mouse (which can be found at the link here), but by no means is it definitely the best gaming mouse available (a Bluetooth version is likely preferable for most debaters).
7. Be Aware of General Tech Tips
Often being better at computers, by extension, marginally makes you better at debate as you’ll be more efficient during prep time. Note commonly used Windows shortcuts (such as those linked here) and aim to use them as much as possible whenever you are using a computer to train yourself until they become second nature. Obviously shortcuts such as control+c, control+v, and control+a are very useful, but swapping between programs with alt+tab, splitting your screen with windows+arrow keys, or opening the task manager when Word won’t respond with Ctrl+Shift+Esc are also shortcuts of note. Two of my favorites are opening a new folder with windows+e, or searching for a program in the search bar by pressing the windows key and then typing in the program (as opposed to browsing your home screen or scrolling through your start menu)
Minimizing fluff, such as clearing up the start menu (as explained here), and preventing additional notifications that may interfere in-round is worthwhile. I would utilize ad-blockers such as UBlock Origin to make articles easier to read (though a different adblock is likely needed instead of UBlock Origin given Google’s upcoming restrictions to adblockers)
In Chrome, utilize groups for your tabs to sub-organize cards in terms of categories or potential utility. Many debaters cut the best cards first, and then cut less worthwhile cards in a second round of card cutting - these second round cards could be included in a “maybe useful” group. Another useful category is a “gain access” category of potentially useful cards you cannot currently read as you lack permissions. Whenever it's convenient, you can look through this category and find means of accessing them.
8. Creatively Access Evidence
Don't let inaccessible articles restrain what cards you cut - debate ought not be restricted to whose schools library resources are the best. If you don't have the means to read a potentially good card from Bloomberg, find other means to read it as opposed to suffering from lacking good cards. An easy means of accessing articles is asking others for help, such as a library, or on a debate Discord (such as this one linked here).
For news articles, you can use archive.is or the Wayback Machine to access an archived copy of the full text of the article. There is also the Bypass Paywalls Chrome extension which works in the background to help you access otherwise inaccessible articles. Note that this requires adding developer permissions to Chrome and uploading the Github file to create a custom extension; however this is much easier than it sounds. For peer-reviewed research papers or scientific articles, use https://www.sci-hub.ru/. For books, use https://libgen.is/.
9. Use Large Language Models (LLM) to Aid Your Understanding
LLMs like Gemeni or ChatGPT are relatively new tools with potential debate applications. Some have taken to overusing and exploiting them for the entirety of the completion of research assignments or case writing, which usually produces fairly awful results that you cannot adequately defend as it is not your own work. LLMs are a tool with specific practicality, and they can be very helpful in terms of explaining concepts and clarifying potential confusion on a topic.
I would recommend doing research preliminarily, and then read some debate briefs for more context. If you don't understand something, it will help elucidate misinformation or misunderstandings. One of the number one tips for high quality debating is a high familiarity with topic knowledge, and more generally the world writ large. To the extent LLMs can help you learn, use them, and to the extent you’re cheating yourself out of learning, effectively regurgitating LLM results, don’t use LLMs.
I have found LLMs very useful for helping explain a sentence that you do not understand as it is fairly complex (or you lack the necessary context and knowledge of philosophical precepts). Attempt to read the sentence yourself, and treat the LLM as asking a teacher/professor for clarification by pasting it into LLM for the purpose of explaining the sentence.
You can also use LLMs for the purpose of correcting minor issues with formatting. For instance, LLMs can help fix text errors with bad OCR corrections/source text that would otherwise make articles somewhat intelligible. It can also change something written in all caps to capitalized case.
10. Prioritize Non-tech Advice
Beyond the limits of technology contain people with particular expertise and experience in debate who have often done debate for decades. None of the tips listed above will be a substitute for actual debate skills - some of the best debaters still read off of paper and care not for excessively large back files or the latest uniqueness evidence. If their ability to refute arguments is superior to yours, it matters not if your card cutting is more efficient. Only debate skills in it within themself can win rounds, which is often aided with the help of those more knowledgeable than yourself. Personally, the first true policy debate coaches I talked to when entering college progressed my debate knowledge faster than I had done independently in the past years of high school debate.
Prioritize asking questions towards debate coaches and have them review your speeches and arguments. Participate in an urban debate league and/or communicate with local college debaters. Many colleges are very helpful towards HS debaters and will assist, as there's often a high school to college debate pipeline. It's often in their own self-interest in helping you become a better debater as you can aid them in winning future tournaments after graduation.
Consider attending debate camps to expand your skills. I would recommend policy debate camps as they have a higher standards of evidence and argument quality in comparison to LD. If you can cut cards and debate on par with higher end policy debaters, you will be leagues ahead of LD debaters who haven’t had training that undergirds circuit LD. If debate camps are inaccessible to you, watch publicly available Youtube video recordings of debate camp lectures. I have listed several channels on the Kankee Briefs resources page (linked here).
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