Crossfire Basics:
• Whichever team speaks first will generally also ask the first question of each crossfire.
• The first two crossfires are one-on-one. The two participating debaters face the judge, rather than each other. During grand crossfire, all debaters participate and are seated.
• The golden rule of crossfire is to question with a purpose. Ask yourself: What am I getting out of this?
Importance of crossfire:
It is your only opportunity to clarify your opponents’ arguments. It is important to make sure you have an accurate flow of all of your opponents’ arguments, and you may use crossfire to clarify their points. However, this takes away from your time to ask more strategic questions, and it also gives your opponents another change to explain their arguments to the judge.
• Crossfire gives you an opportunity to expose weaknesses in your opponents’ case
Potential pitfalls:
• Not knowing what to ask. It may help to have a few go-to crossfire questions specific to the topic.
• Letting your opponent re-explain all of their arguments. Make sure that you politely interrupt your opponent once you have the information you need, rather than letting them ramble on through all of your questioning time.
• Pointless questions that don’t get you anything. Again, the emphasis should be on asking strategic questions designed to expose flaws in your opponents’ reasoning.
• Asking the “last” question. In your line of questioning, you may get your opponent to reveal a flaw in their case indirectly. For example, you may find two parts of the case that contradict. Ask your opponent to clarify each part individually and ask questions such that they reveal the question. Do not, however, then ask, “Don’t these two things contradict each other?” By asking the last question, you are giving your opponent an opportunity to weasel out of the contradiction. It is extremely unlikely that they would ever concede, “Why yes, that is contradictory!” so there’s no reason to ask the question.