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...

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...

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 Argue Significance Effectively - Mark Roose
In my first three years of debate, I thought significance was a useless stock issue. I went so...

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...

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...

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,...
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