The Nile Blog.
Free debate strategy, tournament prep, and coaching wisdom from champions. New posts every week! Always free!
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 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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Squirrels Aren't Competitive
We were living in dread. My partner and I had been running the same case almost all year,...
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...
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