General Resources

These sections are applicable to all Speech and Debate community members, and provide information on trigger warnings and implicit bias.

WHAT IS A TRIGGER WARNING?

Trigger warnings have grown more common in recent years, and their importance has not decreased. For context, a trigger warning is a statement that notifies the audience that potentially triggering and/or traumatic content will be shared. Warnings are important to include because for people with trauma or are sensitive to a topic or experience, having to listen to such material may cause them to relive their trauma, resulting in anxiety and other harmful feelings. 

So, for what topics should students share a trigger warning for? There is no definite answer to this, but usually topics that describe or even mention forms of violence (such as sexual assault and suicide) should include trigger warnings. As for other topics, if the student is wondering if a potential topic is triggering, it might be best to include a warning.

For further information, this resource created by the University of Michigan provides details on how and why to use trigger warnings.

IMPLICIT BIAS

According to the NIH, “Implicit bias is a form of bias that occurs automatically and unintentionally, that nevertheless affects judgments, decisions, and behaviors.” Whether we realize it or not, we all have some type of implicit bias, as a judge or as a competitor. As a judge, it’s important to recognize your biases and take a moment to realize the impact they may have on your decisions. As a resource, the NSDA has a page detailing cultural competency for judges. Furthermore, judges can limit implicit bias by making sure that their comments are solely based on the content and quality of the presentation given. Judges should avoid making comments on a competitor’s clothing, technology when applicable, or other factors that are outside the control of the competitor.

Competitor Resources

WHAT TO DO IF YOU COMMIT AN EQUITY VIOLATION UNINTENTIONALLY

In speech and debate, it’s important to understand the importance of equity and to strive to create an inclusive and respectful environment for all participants. However, if you find yourself in a situation where you have committed an equity violation, there are a number of steps you can take to rectify the situation. 

The first step is to take responsibility for your actions. This means acknowledging that what you said or did was not appropriate and that it had a negative impact on others. It’s important to educate yourself about the issue at hand. This might include researching the topic of your equity violation and learning more about the experiences and perspectives of those who were affected by your actions. Additionally, if your equity violation was directly against an individual, it’s important to take the time to apologize to that individual for your actions. If you find that it is a situation that is unable to be resolved through peers communication, tournaments often offer equity offices that are designed to handle equity violations. Alternatively, contacting 

FINDING A JUDGE AT LOW COST

Many speech and debate teams can most likely relate to the experience of asking all the students’ parents to judge, and still not having enough judges for a tournament. And oftentimes, the alternatives of paying the judging fee or hiring a judge can prove detrimental to a team struggling with finances.

Thankfully, there are resources and tactics available that can aid teams in finding a judge for little to no cost. Different organizations (most usually the PHSSL and the NSDA) have grants that teams can apply to, which can then be used to pay for things like judging costs. Competitors and coaches should be sure to pay attention to deadlines because most of them are usually due at the beginning of the season! In addition, alumni are often the most willing participants to judge, so reaching out to alumni from the team or in the nearby area is a good idea. Parents and judges from other schools can also judge for another school (if they are not already judging for their own team of course), which can often be helpful especially if the judge is near the tournament. Sometimes, other teams will agree to provide a judge for a tournament in exchange for the team returning the favor in the future.

If a team still cannot find a judge after trying the tactics above, there are some speech and debate equity organizations that will aid you in finding one. For example, Diversity in Forensics will help you advertise for a judge and may be able to provide funds to help you pay for one as well. If all else fails, a coach can reach out to the tournament manager and communicate the situation to them. 

SHARING PRONOUNS IN ROUND

If competitors are comfortable, pronoun sharing in rounds helps normalize communicating pronouns.  The benefits of pronoun sharing are three-fold. It makes misgendering less likely, makes trans and other gender-diverse competitors more comfortable, and it helps everyone by reducing assumptions made about someone’s identity based solely on their presentation. On the local circuit, Speechwire doesn’t provide a way for competitors to list their pronouns, which means competitors who feel comfortable doing so should verbally share them at the beginning of a round. On tournaments using Tabroom, competitors can specify their pronouns on their account so they can be shared in round blasts. In the case of a competitor being purposefully misgendered or facing other harmful comments from an opponent, they can take appropriate actions such as contacting the tournament equity office, if one exists. 

GIVING A TRIGGER WARNING IN ROUND

THE IMPORTANCE OF TRIGGER WARNINGS 

A trigger warning, also known as a content warning, is a statement that notifies the audience that potentially triggering and/or traumatic content will be shared. Trigger warnings are important to include because for people with trauma or who are sensitive to a topic or experience, having to listen to such material may cause them to relive their trauma, resulting in anxiety and other harmful feelings. Trigger warnings have grown more common in recent years, and their importance has no less decreased.

So, for what topics should students share a trigger warning for? There is no definite answer to this, but usually topics that describe or even mention forms of violence (such as sexual assault and suicide) should include trigger warnings. As for other topics, if the student is wondering if a potential topic is triggering, it might be best to include a warning. 

TRIGGER WARNINGS IN ROUND

For speech, trigger warnings are usually shared right before giving the speech or at the beginning of the round. In debate, giving a warning can be done at the beginning of the round if the potentially-triggering topic is mentioned during the case, or before the other impromptu sections if the speaker knows they will touch upon such topics. As for actually giving the warning, usually a simple “I would like to give a trigger warning; I will be mentioning [the topic]” will do the job. 

GIVING A TRIGGER WARNING WITH AN ANONYMOUS OPT-OUT FORM

Anonymous opt-out forms are often used in place of a verbal trigger warning in national circuit debate rounds. Anonymous opt-out forms are important because they save participants in the round from having to publicly disclose their triggers, which may result in them having to relive past traumatic events. Competitors can make one using any form-creating platform, such as Google Forms or Microsoft Forms. The only necessary question on the form should be “Does the person reading this consent to the discussion of x topic?” The form should also be set to keep the participants’ emails anonymous. 

INTERACTING WITH CRITICAL ARGUMENTS

A critique, or kritik (in debate shorthand, a k) is a progressive argument commonly run in policy debate and circuit Lincoln-Douglas debate that questions an assumption or harmful statement made by the opposing team or by the resolution that contributes to oppressive structures. A kritik has four parts: 1) a link to what the opponent or resolution contributed to, for example “the affirmative links to anti-black racism” 2) the impact of the negative system, for example “antiblackness causes suffering and death of black people” 3) the alternative, or the way that the kritik solves for the negative system, for example “the alt is to reject antiblackness” and 4) the role of the ballot (ROB), which acts as the framework for the kritik, for example “the ROB is to endorse antiracist strategies.” Other examples of kritiks are kritiks of feminism, capitalism, or settler colonialism. Ks are often based in leftist literature that advocates against structural violence using radical politics. A common strategy for the negative in local circuit debates is to advocate for the status quo, while kritikal arguments generally advocate for a more radical change to the status quo than the affirmative. 

When facing a kritik that argues that your case or actions in round contribute to oppression, first evaluate whether or not your case position links into the kritik. If it doesn’t, then make link defense responses that mean the kritik isn’t valid. If you did link into the k, then apologize to your opponent(s) and take other steps to amend your harmful actions. This may look like conceding the round, changing your case, and researching the literature their kritik is based off to further understand their argument and how you contributed to it, inadvertently or not. On kritiks of capitalism and other ks that don’t link your actions in the round to harmful ideologies, you can make the same responses that you normally make to any position read in a debate round. Overall, kritiks can be a great way to understand different theories of power and political philosophies.

To learn more about kritiks and progressive argumentation, these resources may be helpful: 

DebateDrills has a free course on kritiks here and a video on answering kritiks here.  

The DebateDrills YouTube channel has compiled a playlist of progressive LD rounds 

The CircuitDebater Library  is a written resource of common progressive arguments in LD debate. They also have a  Public Forum wiki and a Lincoln-Douglas wiki  where debaters can upload their cases and other prep. 

openCaselist is also a great resource for all debate events. It’s a common norm on the national circuit for debaters to disclose their cases on the individual event wikis, which provides a huge amount of information for debaters from less privileged schools to use.

WHAT TO DO AFTER EXPERIENCING AN INEQUITY

Equity violations can occur in many different ways, and can all look very different, but general steps should be taken if any occurs. Equity violations include but are not limited to inappropriate behavior, language, inequitable access to spaces and resources, types of arguments, or biases of judges. In the situation where an equity violation may occur, the best course of action may be to contact the tournament’s Equity office. Equity offices provide a space that allows individuals attending the tournament to bring up concerns about a tournament’s policies. For more information, click here for information from the NSDA regarding equity offices. 

Of course, if the tournament you’re attending doesn’t offer an equity office or your equity violation cannot be directly linked to a tournament, there are other methods to help resolve an equity violation. If the infraction were to happen after the tournament, infractions can be reported on the PHSSL Reporting Form. In addition, reach out to your coaches or any trusted adult in order to determine what the best path of action is.

BALLOT REPORTING PROCESS

When you receive feedback from a judge that you think is unfairly biased or prejudiced, there are multiple pathways available. You can consult your coach and they can provide you with advice, or you can take it to your tournament’s equity office. Equity offices at tournaments work to resolve these issues and can facilitate communication with the judge on how/why the ballot was harmful.

Team Leader Resources

HOW TO HANDLE EQUITY INFRACTIONS THAT HAPPEN TO TEAM MEMBERS

When equity violations occur, it’s important to provide support to the people involved, which can be accomplished through a variety of means. Team members themselves can provide a safe environment for a conversation to take place, but there are also other external options, such as an equity office. Most tournaments offer some form of an equity office that is solely focused on rectifying and resolving equity violations, which may allow for a more disciplined approach against equity violations. Team leaders may determine whether involving an adult, such as a coach or teacher, is necessary and may direct the situation to them. 

HOW TO TALK ABOUT EQUITY ISSUES WITH TEAM LEADERSHIP

Talking with coaches and other Speech and Debate leaders at the competitor’s school about equity issues is very important to create a safe and inclusive team environment where everyone feels welcomed. Anyone wanting to address equity issues on their team should talk to a trusted adult, even if they aren’t aware of exactly what they want done. They can also go with other people to serve as mediators in the discussion. Names/identifying information of the victims should not be brought up unless consent is explicitly given to do so. A competitor can also bring up an issue or topic to their event captain or other student leader, who can speak about it to adults on the team. Opening up a line of dialogue between team members and the adults in charge of team policy is the first step to creating equitable team environments. 

In the event that coaches and other leaders aren’t open to discussing equity issues, there are still other avenues. Students may want to speak to tournament equity offices and other equity-related school organizations. If none of these are possible, students should work to create safe spaces within their larger team environments that facilitate positive norms without involving adults who don’t agree. Seeking to create the best possible environment without support from adults can lay the groundwork for larger team-wide equity policy in the future. 

SAMPLE EQUITY CONVERSATION STARTERS FOR COACHES AND TEAM LEADERS

“I’ve noticed that ____ is a problem on our team in terms of people using these phrases/running this argument. I would appreciate your help in coming up with ways to educate people as to why this isn’t okay.”

“The team norm of ______ makes me feel uncomfortable because of _____, so I would like to talk about possible ways to stop it from happening.”

“I’ve been hearing discussions about [x issue] on our team that are harmful because of _____, I would like to talk to team leaders and the coaches about this.”

HOW TO HANDLE AN EQUITY INFRACTION WITHIN A TEAM

Speech and debate teams may face situations where a team member says or does something inequitable at a tournament or towards their own teammates. This can be challenging to handle, especially if the person is a team leader or upperclassman. The most important thing to remember for fellow team members is that calling out peers or reaching out to a trusted adult is completely valid if they feel that a situation needs to be addressed. 

Equity violations may have different levels of severity. If a team member says something inequitable, but shows an understanding of why their action was wrong and wants to resolve the issue, the best course of action for a team leader is working within the team to guide the individual on how to fix their mistake. This may include guiding them on how to apologize to the person(s) affected. It also includes being proactive with the rest of the team to understand the root causes of why the issue happened, rather than assuming it was an isolated incident. 

However, if a team member repeatedly behaves in ways that create an unsafe team environment, a team leader or other member should reach out to a trusted adult. Ideally, this would be a coach, an equity office ombudsperson, or another Speech and Debate community leader, but it could also be a teacher, parent, or other guardian. The team should work with that adult to determine the best course of action, which may include removing the offending team member from participating in Speech and Debate. The most important thing for team members to remember is that making adults present and aware of the situation is an option, and that they don’t have an obligation to handle an unsafe situation on their own. Lastly, a team member may want to anonymously contacting an adult through a team leader if it feels most comfortable for them. 

For equity violations in between these two situations, team leaders should evaluate whether the harmful behavior will happen again without adult involvement. If so, then they should contact a trusted adult.

SHARING PRONOUNS WITHIN A TEAM

Firstly, why should team leaders and coaches promote pronoun sharing within a team? Well, pronoun sharing…

Decreases instances of misgendering

Destigmatizes the process

Promotes an inclusive team culture

Allows for more understanding between teammates

Secondly, how does an individual share pronouns? When someone introduces themselves to students, they can share their pronouns along with their name (such as by saying: “my pronouns are ___”), and others will follow suit if they are comfortable. Remember, it is important to never make anyone share their pronouns, as it could make competitors feel pressured to share information they aren’t ready to share yet. Other opportunities for pronoun sharing include:

Zoom Names

Placards in congress

Pronoun stickers during tournaments

For further information and resources on pronoun sharing, please visit here.

HELPING NEW COMPETITORS AT TOURNAMENTS

Entering a new space is intimidating, especially when accounting for the various pressures and complications associated with speech and debate. However, there are ways seasoned competitors can make the space easier to join and engage with. 

First is discussing speech and debate with newer competitors, as discussing any aspect of speech and debate is helpful. Discussing a round will help them get better at adapting to the competitive side of the debate, discussing future tournaments will help them know what opportunities are available, and discussing sources/resources will help them prepare for the next tournament. 

Second, try to mitigate over-competitiveness. Frequently speech and debate becomes an activity where the only thing that matters is winning. This can scare new competitors that don’t have early success and create enormous pressures for competitors to maintain a level of success after it has been achieved. While there is no specific guide to reducing competitiveness, refraining from conversations about how some competitors are worse than others, talking to competitors from different schools with different levels of success, and steering away from putting competitively successful debaters on a pedestal can help.

Third, create a community for speech and debate outside of your team. If a competitor is from a small or hostile team, an outside community of people who share an event can be really helpful. Because speech and debate is so time-intensive, a good community is necessary in creating a support network. Creating a community outside of a team can be hard, but doing activities like group practices with other teams or sharing prep can create a community while also helping competitors improve.

HOW TO EQUITABLY RECRUIT NEW TEAM MEMBERS

The first step to recruiting in an equitable way is making sure all current members of a team are comfortable. This starts with checking the team on things like the language used to talk about opponents and listening when someone brings up an equity issue. The second step is making sure there is someone on the team’s leadership that members feel comfortable talking to about issues. Everyone should strive to lead in this way, but frequently team members may only feel comfortable bringing up an issue to someone who shares a specific identity or experience. As a result, team leaders should try to create connections for their team where issues can be brought up anonymously with members that do share similar backgrounds/identities. Lastly, it is important to reach out to potential novices that wouldn’t come as naturally, allowing the team to grow. 

HOW TO HANDLE MONETARY ISSUES AT TOURNAMENTS

Unfortunately, participating in speech and debate does rack up quite some costs. While it is impossible to get rid of all these barriers, there are actions team leaders can take to reduce some of them. 

The first step is to reach out to the school to see if they can cover costs. Schools will cover varying amounts of costs, but asking for an increase in budget to cover things like travel costs, food costs, tournament fees, hiring judges, and resource subscriptions can never hurt. While schools will likely not cover all of this, many may be willing to partially subsidize the activity. 

An additional cost to speech and debate is the cost of tournament attire. Setting up a team closet allows for the mitigation of barriers. Try to get old blazers/suits from graduating debaters or old suits from other students. This allows the team to lend tournament attire to anyone who needs it if they have a size that fits. Additionally, free resources should be shared and made public. This includes free software, but any backfiles, briefs, or books that could also be shared. Creating connections that trade prep and briefs can help create a playing field that is not as dominated by money. 

CREATING A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ALL TEAMMATES

The best way to structure a practice to build relationships is by having broad discussions while allowing contributions from anyone on the team. Frequently practices happen either in a hierarchical practice system where experienced team members stick with experienced team members or in a segmented system where the team works as an individual (or in small groups). The issues with these models are that they breed exclusion. No one will have a healthy relationship with their team if they are constantly told they aren’t good enough to work with their teammates or if they don’t have their voice heard.

Broad discussions are very useful as it allows novices to get a whole understanding of the topic, creating a stronger individual understanding of arguments. Topics could be about specific things like round strategy or finding good evidence where someone leads the discussion while inviting feedback. While other things, like a specific argument, can be a completely open discussion. Additionally, when the team does split for prep or PD, experienced debaters should not shy away from working with less experienced debaters and feedback should be given both ways. This is important because any way of viewing the round is a way a judge might. On top of that, letting less experienced debaters engage by giving feedback shows that their opinion is valued, creating meaningful relationships.

It is important to acknowledge that novices may not be used to the workload of speech and debate and they may require support. In speech, that can look like finding them a speech, and in debate, that might look helping them their case and explaining the block file to them.

MINIMIZING ELITISM AND FAVORITISM

HOW ELITISM AND FAVORITISM FORMS

There are a multitude of contributing factors to the formation of classism within teams, including but not limited to an unhealthy emphasis on results and glorifying competitors that do well. These actions also apply to the entire speech and debate community, which can cause the build up of a toxic culture. In a place where a competitor’s worth is based on their results, a skewed treatment of students will occur. 

SOLUTIONS

Within a team, it is unfortunate, but common for team leaders to start favoring certain students. If this does happen, it can result in the overstepping of duties, causing an imbalanced power dynamic. To prevent this, team leaders can set up a structure at the beginning of the season that allows other student officers or coaches to check-up and approve each other’s decisions. If something were to happen, other team leaders can step in and help correct an unfair decision or behavior.

In addition, there are tactics that do not apply to just within teams; they can also be applied to the greater community to facilitate the dismantling of the hierarchy system that speech and debate often has. The main way to combat elitism is by providing support networks, so team leaders and upperclassmen should make sure to connect with their younger teammates, especially novices. A potential way to do this is by going over ballots with them and helping them understand the feedback the judges make. Not only will this allow students to feel comforted if they got a not-so-great ballot, but it also helps students know what next steps they can take to improve. 

The speech and debate community often is a very supportive place as well, so at tournaments, older students can help introduce younger students to different people, allowing them to become integrated into the community. Building connections and aiding students with setting up their own networks can help dismantle the systems that cause competitors to feel isolated and unsupported.

MANAGING STRESS AND BURNOUT ON A TEAM

HAVING A SUPPORT NETWORK

Facing the darker side to speech and debate, most competitors can attest to being stressed and burnt out. This activity should be a source of empowerment and energy, and not a source for anxiety. And while it is impossible to completely get rid of stress and burnout, the following tactics can hopefully alleviate these feelings. 

First of all, having a support network, especially with teammates and other competitors, can exponentially help a competitor feel more connected to the community and supported (see the “Minimizing Elitism and Favoritism” section for more information). For example, prioritizing having fun and bonding with other teammates and other competitors is important, whether it be having fun activities during a practice, planning team dinners, and taking a break from prepping in between rounds. Competitors should be sure that they surround themselves with people who genuinely do care about them, and should reflect on whether the people they are interacting with are accentuating their stress and creating a noxious culture.

MENTAL HEALTH FOCUS

A student’s mental health should come before anything else. And it’s no question that speech and debate often affects a person’s mental wellbeing, especially when a student does not get the results they want. In this case, it is absolutely essential to delink the emphasis on results. Because speech and debate is such a subjective activity, it is natural and completely understandable if a student botches one, or two, or ten tournaments. No matter what, the ballot and tournament success in general should not and does not define a person.

Of course, it is easier said than done for a person to not let their wellbeing be affected negatively by speech and debate. Therefore, it is completely acceptable and encouraged for a student to take a break and skip a few tournaments for their mental health. It is recommended that they look into mental health resources and focus on themselves. If a student finds themselves again and again having negative feelings associated with speech and debate, they should reevaluate why they are doing this activity. For debaters, this may look like reflecting on the fact that they are providing arguments and advocating for some of the world’s most pressing issues. And for speech competitors, this may look like remembering why they chose or wrote a certain piece and realizing how important their messages are. Because in ten years, students will not remember what ranking they got that one round, but rather, the memories they made and the lessons they learned. Undoubtedly, if they no longer love this activity, students should, by all means, never feel guilty about leaving it. 

HOW TO GIVE FEEDBACK EFFECTIVELY, EQUITABLY, AND EFFICIENTLY

WHERE TO START

Team leaders are often faced with the task of providing feedback to their fellow teammates, which can be a delicate process. It is important to remember that feedback is subjective, and that a coach should fit the speaking and/or debating style of the student, rather than the other way around. With that being said, for team leaders, a good place to start with feedback is by reviewing a student’s ballots with them. When reviewing ballots, the student can learn to identify trends in their feedback and what pieces of feedback to pay attention to and what pieces may not be as helpful. Team leaders can also provide feedback during practices, such as over the writing of a speech or the cross-fire of a debate. Ensuring that feedback is given consistently to all students allows students to understand what they have improved on and what their next steps should be.

PHRASING FEEDBACK

When giving feedback, team leaders should strive to give feedback from a more objective standpoint, even if their beliefs may not necessarily match up with the student’s. While it may be natural to fixate on any flaws in the writing or in the presentation, it is important to also let students know what they are doing well. When pointing out a place for improvement, it is not enough to do just that, so team leaders should try and outline a way to improve for the students. They should also remember that while they may think a certain direction or delivery mechanism may be best, if a student is not comfortable with doing it, do not force them to do it. And if they are unsure about certain aspects, a second voice for feedback is usually beneficial. 

Finally, when providing feedback to a student, the person should go in with the mindset that anyone can improve. Oftentimes, success in speech and debate is attributed to natural talent, but with enough practice, any student can reach potentials they never knew they had. 

Resources for Judges

WRITING AN EQUITABLE BALLOT

The role of the judge in a speech or debate round is to provide the safest and most comfortable space for speakers and debaters to communicate the material they prepared. There are a few things that judges should prioritize to encourage an equitable competition space. First, judges should investigate and unlearn their assumptions about competitors’ identities or presentations. This means that judges should refrain from letting a competitor’s clothes, accent, physical appearance, gender, gender presentation, etc., affect their perception of the competitors’ ability and, ultimately, their decision. Judges should also use gender-neutral language on ballots whenever necessary unless the competitor(s) specify their personal pronouns. 

Secondly, judges should strive to be tabula rasa or have a blank slate mindset about the debate round or speech being presented. When a judge projects their own moral or political beliefs onto the speech or debate topic, it may result in a biased decision that strengthens pre-existing biases against marginalized groups of people or in immediately voting against debate cases or speeches that support overtly political positions.

HOW TO HANDLE IN-ROUND EQUITY INFRACTIONS

Judges should be prepared to intervene either in the competition round or on the ballot. This can happen when a judge recognizes that a round is becoming an unsafe space through the use of exclusionary or bigoted language by a competitor or the graphic discussion of a sensitive subject being given without a trigger warning. Judges should understand their position as the adjudicator of the round with the ability to stop a speech or give a competitor(s) a lower ranking or speaker points due to the impact their words may have had on other competitors. 

ANTI-BIAS RESOURCES

NSDA Cultural Competency Course – this is a required course to judge at tournaments, including NSDA Nationals and NSDA Last Chance Qualifiers.