By Coach Joshua Spivey
You’ve been preparing and strategizing against this case for hours upon hours….Maybe it’s dredging, maybe it’s some other random case, or….maybe it’s dredging. Finally, FINALLY, you think you’ve crafted the best possible strategy against it, and you feel confident, nay, excited to hit it next tournament. We’ve all heard this story before: the ‘best’ strategies are laid to waste because all the debate tricks and techniques, little flairs of the wrist, undermine a cogent strategy and aren’t sufficient to win the round. In this blog, I want to target one of these highly renowned techniques that, quite simply, isn’t worth your time and may have been hampering your efforts at success: the time-waster
This is often the most ubiquitous argument written into briefs. An argument designed not necessarily to win the round but merely to suck enough of your opponent’s time that they fail to adequately respond to your other arguments. It is a tactical play that many people place much stock in but which, as we will see in this article, not only is a low-level technique failing to work against skilled teams but actually sabotages your chances of winning.
Just briefly, before we dive into the strategic aspects of this tactic, I want to talk about the fact that time-wasters should be discouraged from a theory aspect as well. The basic effect of a time-wasting argument is that it reduces the education of debate. Its purpose is not to target the true weakness of the case, either in the real world or theory, but to present a weak or false claim merely as a distraction. As this directly reduces clashes in the debate round, it also degrades the quality of education about the topic area.
With that said, even from a strategic angle, the idea of time-wasters isn't worthwhile. Why? This is for a couple of reasons: The argument is inconsequential to judges; it is unproductive against good teams; it doesn’t support your theme; and it ends up wasting your time but not your opponent’s time. That’s a lot to get through in a small blog, but I want to give you at least a high-level understanding of these ideas.
The types of arguments used as time-wasters are just as inconsequential to the judges as they are to you (you don’t think you can win off of them). Partly because you obviously don’t believe in the argument (given how little time you spend on it) and partly because it’s probably a nitpicky or silly argument, the judges simply are not going to lean in your direction because of the idea. Now, some will say, "Sure, but that’s not the point of a time-waster." True. But any argument that doesn’t positively impact the judge’s perception of the round is not worth your time. So does this strategy adequately unbalance the other team?
The simple answer is no. Why? Given the fact that this argument is clearly inconsequential, any good team will recognize the trade-off and allocate little to no time to refutation. Maybe weaker teams will spend time trying to fully explain the ins and outs of this argument's failings, but if that’s the case, then a cleaner strategy will still be a better option. This is because another failing of the time-waster argument is that it is incongruent with your theme. We will cover this topic in later blogs, but important to this topic is the fact that all your arguments should fit under a ‘philosophy’ or ‘theme’ that you want the judge to align themselves with. Time-wasters, designed to be refuted but at a high cost to the other team, don’t support this theme and hence prove to be a drag on the rest of your strategy.
Let’s get into the final reason why time-waste arguments aren’t a good tactical play. Ultimately, in the majority of cases, they end up wasting your time while allowing the other team to gain ground. How is this? Think about it. You spend time (albeit very little) framing and delivering an argument you don’t believe in and don’t think you can win the round on, basically setting it up to get shot down. The judge just sees it as a weak argument, and immediately their estimation of your arguments and your believability nosedives. You might think this is outweighed by the strategic effect on the round. No. The other team not only has an easy argument to disassemble but also psychologically gains massive amounts of ground. You’ve wasted your time with a silly or nitpicky argument, but the other team has ostensibly demolished one aspect of your case. This gives them an edge and undercuts your credibility. Imagine a scenario where the round is close, with most of the arguments being toss-ups. Similar to most high-quality rounds, specifically out rounds, there is little to give you an edge. The time-waster is the only clearly decided argument, which was clearly won by the other team. This can turn out to be a winning or losing strategy when it comes down to it.
While arguments designed to waste the time of the other team may look good on paper, I’d encourage you to remember that this strategy not only undercuts the education of debate but undermines your chances of winning. Using time-wasters is a strategy that backfires so drastically and yet is still more common than it should be!