Improving Our Refutation and Word Economy

Tuesday began with a lecture by Neil about On-Case Refutation. As the students continue to debate practice rounds, they've been gradually improving their ability of taking out their opponent's arguments and diversifying their responses to case. Before lunch, the students ran a drill where they practiced making offensive and defensive responses to a case in small groups critiqued by an instructor. After lunch, the students ran another practice round, which was followed by a Word Economy Seminar. After the seminar, the students pulled out one of their old flows and re-gave a rebuttal while focusing on improving their word economy even if that meant speaking more slowly. After dinner, Jonathan Alston gave a spectacular lecture on dealing with lengthy frameworks that make a lot of arguments. His particular focus was responding to arguments labeled "a priori" and how debaters could deal with frameworks that made arguments independent of the standards.