[jchen]

http://www.nflonline.org

For competitive high school debaters across the country, the new January topic (for Public Forum) is one that has already been discussed greatly in this forum. I'm interested if any of you could help me in an affirmative stance (one which states why we are winning). From my research (which hasn't been much, I've just started today, our first debate meet for this topic will be in two weeks), I've primarily found reports issued by the White House or those from pro anti-Islamism with positive arguments but I don't feel that they're entirely reliable for obvious reasons. I am more inclined to favor the negative but I am interested in an interpretation of the facts supporting the opposite. Thanks.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by jchen:
http://www.nfldebate.org

For competitive high school debaters across the country, the new January topic is one that has already been discussed greatly in this forum. I'm interested if any of you could help me in an affirmative stance (one which states why we are winning). From my research (which hasn't been much, I've just started today, our first debate meet for this topic will be in two weeks), I've primarily found reports issued by the White House or those from pro anti-Islamism with positive arguments but I don't feel that they're entirely reliable for obvious reasons. I am more inclined to favor the negative but I am interested in an interpretation of the facts supporting the opposite. Thanks.

Your best sources for non-government discussion will be in policy journals like Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Survival, and so on. They will most probably have solid essays that you can use for either side of the argument.

One I just thought of is this one in the Fall, 2003 edition of Foreign Affairs by Jessica Stern. It's on Al-Queda and how it has evolved since 9/11. Stern is a terrorism expert who worked in the Clinton National Security Council, and knows what she is talking about. Also check out this page, where FA indexes their recent terrorism-related articles. The Atlantic Monthly is a defense journal that also seems to have some good articles.

Another more general publication that is likely to have intelligent commentary is The Economist.

The bottom line is also to go see your research librarian. Your librarian is your friend.

[thunderous_funker]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
The bottom line is also to go see your research librarian. Your librarian is your friend.

So antiquated. Today, Lexis-Nexis is your friend.

All teasing aside, Simey's links are terrific. But if you can swing it, get a freakin' Lexis-Nexis account. Most schools get them for free or cheap. If your's doesn't, bug someone about it.

I assume this is cross-x debate format? In that case, without Lexis-Nexis you will be made biatches by any competitive team in the country. It is the absolute life-blood of nationally competitive teams.

I was a state champ but my roomie a few years back was the national collegiate champ on scholarship at Weber St. Winning nowadays is about 2 things:

1)Lexis-Nexis
2)"spewing" (reading your evidence so fast that your opponent cannot flow)

If you're doing Lincoln-Douglas format, forget what I said.

Great topic. I'm very happy to think that this will be strongly researched and debated by young people across the country.

Let us know how you fare and if you want any more tips. There are some pretty good heads for research, history and argumentation here in the lounge, as already demonstrated by Simey.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by thunderous_funker:
So antiquated. Today, Lexis-Nexis is your friend.

Not if you don't know how to formulate your searches. It takes practice. Type in "war AND terrorism" and you will have 10,000 hits (at least). But a good librarian can help reduce that to something manageable.

[Brien]

First of all the site is nflonline.org, not nldebate.org...

Secondly, West Coast debate has some good stuff on Team Debate and LD, you might want to check theme out. Lastly, Squirrel Killers are always good for utterly ridiculous points.

[jchen]

Originally posted by thunderous_funker:

If you're doing Lincoln-Douglas format, forget what I said.

Great topic. I'm very happy to think that this will be strongly researched and debated by young people across the country.

Let us know how you fare and if you want any more tips. There are some pretty good heads for research, history and argumentation here in the lounge, as already demonstrated by Simey.

The topic is actually for a new type of debate called Public Forum (formerly known as Ted Turner Debate but the word on the street is that he dropped funding). It's a much more casual type of debate catered to the masses (so it is similar to a debate you might see on television and is easier to follow), sides are determined by coin flip and the times are MUCH shorter, the format:

Constructive (4 min) x 2 - each side
Crossfire (3 min) - both sides ask questions
Rebuttal (4 min) x 2 - each side, switch off partner
Crossfire 2 (3 min) - partners from both sides ask questions
Summary (2 min) x 2 - each side
Grand Crossfire (3 min) - all out frenzy of cross-ex
Last Shot (1 min) x 2 - each side

I have debated Public Forum once (I did Lincoln-Douglas before) as have many others so what the competition ends up being are ex-Policy and ex-LD type debaters. I like to consider it a hybrid because statistics and evidence are VERY helpful (the policy element) but it's more about persuation (the LD element) since many of the judges are lay and flow very little if at all.

Thanks for the help though guys.

[The Ayatollah]

The US is winning the war on terror because it's killing lots of the terrorist trash.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by The Ayatollah:
The US is winning the war on terror because it's killing lots of the terrorist trash.

Did you read what the thread was about before posting that?

[The Ayatollah]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
Did you read what the thread was about before posting that?

No. The thread is broadly about why the US is winning, so I tossed in my nugget of wisdom.

[The Ayatollah]

I looked at the nflonline site and it's not very informative. Booooo-ring.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by The Ayatollah:
No. The thread is broadly about why the US is winning, so I tossed in my nugget of wisdom.

Well, it was out of place.

[OreoCookie]

Originally posted by The Ayatollah:
No. The thread is broadly about why the US is winning, so I tossed in my nugget of wisdom.

So I hope that the US government is smarter than this and doesn't need to rely on your tiny nugget of wisdom

Back to topic, will ya.

[OreoCookie]

Well, first of all, I would define what winning means. If your opponents' definition differs, you can mess with them by pointing out the differences.

This is the starting point IMHO. In a country vs. country war, �winning' would be easy, but here, you should spend a couple of sentences on that.

Break down the �winning' into smaller steps and investigate what the US has done to achieve those intermediate goals.

I think you can go on from here.

Even though your arguments in your contest may not follow this pattern directly or chronologically, having this structure in mind, helps you to sort out your weaknesses and strengths. Organized information, mmmh

[jchen]

Originally posted by The Ayatollah:
I looked at the nflonline site and it's not very informative. Booooo-ring.

Well it's not supposed to be a resource for the actual research, it's just the site for the National Forensic League. It's simply there to provide guidelines for debate/speech activities, I just posted it if anyone was interested in my purpose.

[fireside]

the US is winning the war on terror because they're making it up as they go along.

[The Ayatollah]

Originally posted by fireside:
the US is winning the war on terror because they're making it up as they go along.

flexibility is key in any military operation.

[ThinkInsane]

If you guys would like to add something useful to the thread, by all means do so, but it was pretty clear from the first post that your own personal, unfounded opinions aren't really serving any purpose.

[Lerkfish]

FWIW, when I was on the high school debate team, I once got blindsided. The topic was:

That distribution of scarce natural resources should be administered by an international committee.

Well and good. We researched the normal resources that made the most sense: food, energy, health care, wealth, etc.
(this was before computers or the internet, btw). So, I walk into the debate and find that the other team has defined scarce natural resources as firewood. This shot all our research and 3x5 card references to hell. So, we just argued the topic logically without references, and won the debate anyways.

Which is only to say that I"m giving you encouragement that thinking on your feet can save you even if your source data and quotes cannot.

If I were you, I'd research not only terrorist events in the last century, I'd widely define terrorism and use even ancient examples: The Battle of Troy, the taking of Canaan, The French Revolution, etc. By taking your definition parameters a macro level backwards, will give you more room to make your arguments by analogy, which in turn will save you from being landlocked in your sources, allow you to debate effectiveness of various solutions over time, and provide you with a moving target that keeps your arguments on point, but makes others scramble for refutation.

good luck!

[BlackGriffen]

Little surprise that so many in the Pol/War lounge are ex-debaters. I'm an ex extemper myself. I'm glad to see that they've moved away from that valueless spew based cross-ex.

BlackGriffen

[OreoCookie]

Originally posted by Lerkfish:
FWIW, when I was on the high school debate team, I once got blindsided. The topic was:

That distribution of scarce natural resources should be administered by an international committee.

Well and good. We researched the normal resources that made the most sense: food, energy, health care, wealth, etc.
(this was before computers or the internet, btw). So, I walk into the debate and find that the other team has defined scarce natural resources as firewood. This shot all our research and 3x5 card references to hell. So, we just argued the topic logically without references, and won the debate anyways.

Which is only to say that I"m giving you encouragement that thinking on your feet can save you even if your source data and quotes cannot.

If I were you, I'd research not only terrorist events in the last century, I'd widely define terrorism and use even ancient examples: The Battle of Troy, the taking of Canaan, The French Revolution, etc. By taking your definition parameters a macro level backwards, will give you more room to make your arguments by analogy, which in turn will save you from being landlocked in your sources, allow you to debate effectiveness of various solutions over time, and provide you with a moving target that keeps your arguments on point, but makes others scramble for refutation.

good luck!

Yup, good points.

That's what I meant when saying: define what �winning' means in the first place?

Especially here, I don't expect a big ceremony signing a truce or something.