The Nile Blog.
Free debate strategy, tournament prep, and coaching wisdom from champions. New posts every week! Always free!
How to Write a 1AC: Pick It, Fill It, Tell It
Pick a case that removes something, fill it with the four NEEDs every 1AC must have, and tell one story a judge can follow from your tags alone. Part 2...
1AC Structures: What a 1AC Is For, Its Pieces, and the 3 Ways to Build It
What a 1AC is for, the before/plan/after pieces, the five plan clauses, and the three structures: harms, comparative...
Four Case Buckets for the Ag Resolution by Jonathan Helton
Food freedom: Why should the government tell Americans what food they can eat? Cases that expand what Americans...
Agricultural Philosophies: Seven Narratives for Aff and Neg by Jonathan Helton
Food sovereignty focuses on the methods of production and the people growing the food. It tends to reject...
The Five Laws of Impactful Briefing
At its core, a brief is a collection of arguments with evidence. At a more advanced level, it...
The History of US Farm Policy
If you don’t farm or hunt, you don’t eat. For most of world history, this statement was true...
What is agriculture policy?
U.S. agricultural policy—often simply called farm policy—generally follows a 5-year legislative cycle that produces a wide-ranging “Farm Bill.”...
The role and limitations of stock issues - by Victor Joecks
The first insight is that every Team Policy debate round contains two separate debates. The first is on whether...
How To Use A Sourcebook - Mark Roose
Before a tournament in Georgia, my partner Josiah Weber and I bought Ethos and Monument sourcebooks. We spent...
The 2026-27 Resolutions Breakdown - Jonathan Helton
Every year, Stoa lets its members select debate resolutions. This year, I’ll be casting my ballot for agriculture...
Thoughts On TP Resolutions 2026-27 - Mark Roose
Intellectual property is my favorite. I kinda love it. It is an active sector, but not super political...
The Stoa TP Rez Vote 2026 - Charlie Said
Rez 2 comes in as my top pick for its impacts. We use transportation infrastructure for everything from...
The Road to NITOC - Principles of Success - Charlie Said
NITOC is undeniably desperate. Dreams are broken or fulfilled at NITOC. You will see your friends take crushing...
The Art of Round Vision - Mark Roose
In essence, round vision is what the name describes, a view of the round as a whole. Round...
How to Argue Significance Effectively - Mark Roose
In my first three years of debate, I thought significance was a useless stock issue. I went so...
The End of Sovereignty - How to Understand Geopolitics in 2026 - Charlie Said
For 70 years, our understanding of the world has been shaped by the “post-war consensus,” an understanding reached...
Why Good Cases Lose in Elimination Rounds - Mark Roose
What is the difference between Affirmative cases that win locally and those that win NITOC? The real question...
Rebuttals - By Isaiah McPeak
My partner used all of our prep time for the 1AR, then walked up to the lectern and...
Value Clash without Value Clash
The judge delivers the infamous judging philosophy proclaiming that they want “value clash,” but you and your opponent...
Strategic Storytelling
Any debater who has dabbled in speech knows that stories are a compelling rhetorical tool, but speakers often...
Cross Examination Tips
Cross examination is one of your most powerful weapons in your arsenal. Yet debaters often squander this opportunity....
Speaker Positions
Every single year, my partner for that year and I made an unconventional decision: to swap speaker positions...
The Notorious Gamble, Counterplans Part 1, Topicality
In this first part of a long series on counterplans, Brad Tomasovic and Charlie Said go over implementing...
You Don't Have Time
I get it, highschool is busy. It certainly would be ideal to brief every single affirmative yourself, taking...
Kairos: the Forgotten Mode of Persuasion
Have you ever had too much evidence? A brief that covers all your bases? This can be overwhelming....
Parli: Advanced Fundamentals
‘Excellence is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well’ -- John Gardner. We’re all waiting for the one ground-breaking nugget that will...
What To Do With Healthcare?
As counterintuitive as it may seem, don’t rush to Google right away. Instead, take a moment to reflect...
The Secret To Always Winning
FACT: Debate is not about winning. Debate is about learning! This is true no matter how many years...
You've Been Emphasizing the Wrong Impact This Whole Time
Have a disproportionate win rate on aff or neg? Most people do. Want to get in on a...
Stop Using Time-Wasters
You’ve been preparing and strategizing against this case for hours upon hours….Maybe it’s dredging, maybe it’s some other...
Solving All Your 1AC Problems in Under 3 Minutes
In this short blog, I am going to show you how to solve all your 1AC structuring problems....
Squirrels Aren't Competitive
We were living in dread. My partner and I had been running the same case almost all year,...
Your Goals Are Why You Fail
As the 2023-2024 season approaches, many debaters are considering where they are and what they want to achieve...
Fixing Cross-Ex: Part One
One of the most frustrating experiences a debater can have is dealing with a witness who simply will...
Lacking Ethos, Pathos, or Logos?
We’ve all had that feeling. Finding out that you lost a round that you had in the bag! You had...
What should we write about?
Stuck on something in debate? Tell us the topic, and we'll put it in the queue. We write to answer the questions from debaters and parents who ask.