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 entire eight-hour car ride to Atlanta poring over them: reading every page, marking cards, tagging evidence, arguing over narratives and strategies, following up research to confirm stories. Most of the arguments were atrocious, but that was fine. We weren't buying the briefs to run them blind; we bought them for easy information access.

As I build out the Pre-NITOC sourcebook, I have been thinking a lot about how I used sourcebooks. When I was a student, I found them incredibly helpful. I believe the reason the perceived value of sourcebooks is down is that they are being used incorrectly. I used the word perceived because I (biased, of course) would argue the value has actually gone up. 

Many students say sourcebook quality has fallen, others say student research is better, and some say the market has been overrun with brief rings. I don’t find any of this to be convincing. The quality of sourcebooks five years ago was very poor; I used less than five cards from the average brief. I can tell you, even Nathan Quilici and Ross Wilson level of research pales in comparison to former greats like Martinez, Alcazar, Giddens, Said, etc. And the brief rings of today, like SB, don’t generate the quality or quantity of organizations like the KLF or OAG, not to mention how intentional clubs were to be effective brief producers. 

Nonetheless…. How Should A Sourcebook Be Used?

The greatest benefit of sourcebooks is that they offer you a hyper-focused, argumentative research document on the exact topic you need. (1)

A sourcebook is NOT meant to replace your team briefing.
A sourcebook is NOT built to win rounds on its own.
A sourcebook is NOT designed for your specific team.

You and your partner should have your own style. Since every team has their own way of debating, you should not expect a sourcebook (built for the whole community) to perfectly fit your needs in an important round. These are built to be a general-use presentation of hard facts and some generic strategy of how the writer would argue. Nile sourcebook strategies are written by top debaters, but even top debaters may be running strategies that you don’t like or don’t know. If you are different from that writer, then the brief is not going to work verbatim. 

So what do you do with a sourcebook? Read it, think about it, then adapt it for yourself. Sometimes this means reading the brief, understanding the arguments and what the author is trying to get at, then ignoring every card and going to find your own. THAT IS OK. That does not mean the brief or the sourcebook is useless. What the brief did is speed up your learning process, expand your argument variety, cut down the time it would take to dredge through all those arguments you didn’t want, and set you on a course to craft a winning negative strategy. 

There are at least four rules to know when buying/using a brief you did not write.

1. Do NOT run a brief blind - if you have not read it, don’t use it

Your ability to run a brief is 20% having the brief and 80% understanding the brief.  If you don’t understand the arguments as you run them, you’ll fumble badly.  You won’t be able to form a coherent strategy either, which will hurt you in the rebuttals.  In my experience, you’re better off going Impromptu Neg than using a brief you’ve never read.

2. Generate your own arguments first.

See the above note.  Owning your arguments is paramount.

3. Always, always write your own briefs, evidence collections, and strategies.

Arguments are just pieces of the puzzle.  Strategy is how you put the puzzle together.  You need pieces to make the puzzle, but a jumbled mess of pieces doesn’t make a puzzle either.

4. Use everything you can to understand the world/topic/industry/country that is being argued about.

Knowledge base is your consistent tool that helps you even on Impromptu Neg.

Charlie’s Note: Ainsley and I never bought sourcebooks to get arguments.  We actually bought them to get intel on what arguments other people would run.  I can’t say I recommend everyone do this, but if the sourcebook includes a brief on your Aff, you should definitely consider getting your hands on it.  Managing the meta > going along with the meta.

1. ‘Why buy a sourcebook when I can just ask Chat for all the information? A few reasons: Chat will give you what you want to hear; it often lies, it has old data, and it consistently changes narratives, bends facts, misunderstands statistics, etc. The obvious follow-up is to mention that a sourcebook brief could suffer from all that. True, but a few things distinguish them. First, it is way rarer for a sourcebook to suffer those issues. Second, having a physical compilation of evidence that is designed to serve the purpose of destroying a case is like a magic box of tools. You are shown argument ideas, endless sources, and another human's perception of the situation and its solution. This is incredibly helpful when you understand its purpose. 

 If you are interested in having the support of a sourcebook, Nile Debate is offering the largest Pre-NITOC sourcebook, complete with nearly 30 documents (negative briefs, generics, and topic studies) written by current dominant debaters, powerful alumni, previous champions, and age-old coaches. You can see the offering here.

Good luck and God bless.

Mark Roose
Nile Debate Head Coach

I would like to thank Charlie Said for reading the first draft of this blog.