Gonzaga Debate Institute 2017 1

Basler/Lee/Myers Lab Speed K

Speed Bad
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2017 2

Basler/Lee/Myers Lab Speed K

Shells
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2017 3

Basler/Lee/Myers Lab Speed K

Speed Bad 1NC Theory

Interpretation: Neither team in the debate should spread.
Violation: The Off spread the 1AC.
Standards:
First, it decreases community engagement.
Zorn 2012 (Eric Zorn, who graduated from the University of Michigan and formerly worked at
the Miami Herald, "Change of Subject: The affirmative case for reforming academic debate,"
Chicago Tribune, 3-9-2012,
http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2012/03/the-affirmative-case-for-
reforming-academic-debate.html.) GDI -WC

One of the first and most arresting images in Debra Torchinsky’s documentary “Fast Talk” is of a
young man literally foaming at the mouth — trying so hard to say so many words in so little time
that he can’t be bothered to swallow or wipe away the saliva exceeding his lips.¶ Why? Because
he’s a contestant at the highest level of intercollegiate debate, an activity that has devolved
(some say evolved) into a virtually incomprehensible rapid-fire, tit-for-tat battle in which
opponents hurl facts and assertions at one another at an estimated 400 words per minute.¶ The
members of the Northwestern University debate team that Torchinsky’s cameras followed for
the year chronicled in “Fast Talk” are clearly brilliant — in command of thousands of scraps of
data that allow them to argue either side of the given proposition — and intellectually nimble.
They’re just not that much fun to watch at work.¶ It’s a credit to Torchinsky that she’s able to get
beyond the spittle-flecked jibber-jabber and interest us in the characters behind the drama as
Northwestern bids to defend its national championship. “Fast Talk,” which has deservedly won a
fistful of awards, is showing at 5 p.m. Sunday at the McCormick Tribune Center at
Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism in Evanston (details at fasttalkthemovie.com).¶
Torchinsky, who teaches film-making at Northwestern, will be on hand afterward to preside
over the inevitable discussion of whether fast talking — inundating your opponents with
assertions that they must, at a similar pace, refute — degrades the very idea of debating.¶ Over
the years, debate judges have come to reward those most practiced at what amounts to an
impressive parlor trick. But in real life, the winner of an argument or debate is not necessarily
the person who makes the most points, but the person who makes the best points — whose
presentation, verbal imagery and focus is most persuasive to an impartial audience.¶ In real life,
a high-level argument or debate is not only fun to watch, it can also change hearts and minds
while advancing public understanding.¶ College debate, which features many of the best and
brightest on any campus, is missing a fabulous opportunity to become a spectator sport of sorts,
one that could engage and enlighten the general public and even help us explore some of the
vital issues of the day.¶ Am I right or am I right?¶ It’s not even debatable.

Second, it hinders understanding and education.

Bauman 97 (Neil Bauman, Ph.D. Northgate Graduate School, CEO at The Center for Hearing
Loss Help, “Speech Speed vs. Understanding What Was Said,” November 11, 1997,
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2017 4

Basler/Lee/Myers Lab Speed K

http://hearinglosshelp.com/blog/speech-speed-vs-understanding-what-was-said/, Accessed July

19, 2017, GDI – Harry Chu)

***edited for gendered language***

If we have good hearing and a person is speaking at a moderate speed, our ears will pick up and
our brains will process what we are hearing in real time, AND we will still have time to think
about what we have heard. In other words, we will understand and assimilate the message.
However, as a person speaks faster and faster, we spend more and more of our time trying to
“catch” the words spoken, and thus we have less and less time left over to try to assimilate what
we have heard. This is where we begin to lose it. We know the person is talking, and often we know the
general subject, but we miss the point they are making. And remember, this is in adults with both normal hearing and
normal cognitive function. The truth is, not all people are adults in their prime. More and more are becoming seniors. As we get older, we slow down.
That is no secret. So it should be no surprise that our brains also slow down. As a result, it now takes longer for us to process speech. It also takes
longer for us to assimilate what we have heard. Therefore, seniors are at a disadvantage, even when listening to a speaker who is speaking at a normal
rate. As the speech rate picks up, we seniors are at an even greater disadvantage. The result is that the faster a person speaks, the more we miss until
listening to a speaker is largely a waste of time. That is why so many seniors tune out. It is all flying “over our heads” so to speak. The same holds true
for children who are just learning the language and need time to figure out “hard” words. This slows down their processing speed. It also holds true for
people for whom English is not their first language. They need time to “retranslate” what was said. Furthermore, some people are not as cognitively
fast as others, and thus need more time to process what they hear. The above groups include a large percentage of the population. And note that so
far, we haven’t even considered people with hearing loss. Numbers of people with hearing loss fit into all the above
categories to be sure. However, our hearing losses just compound our difficulty in understanding others. But even if a hard of hearing person is in the
prime of adulthood and everything is working normally except that they don’t hear well, they still have problems. You see, our
“broken” ears
miss words and parts of words (phonemes). Therefore, the information our ears send to our brains is full
of holes and gaps. Think of a puzzle that has lots of pieces missing so you can’t
recognize exactly what the picture is about. That is an analogy to what we hard of hearing people hear and
understand. Our brains must work overtime to try to figure out the missing parts. We use what we already know
of the subject, what we know of the structure of the language, what we can speech read, what we deduce from body language, etc. to try to make
sense of what we heard. All
this takes time. And by the time we have this figured out, we’ve missed the
next few words so there are even more gaps to try to fill in. Obviously, we need a person to
speak more slowly to give our brains a chance to keep up.

Third, it promotes ableism.

Conrad No Date (Conrad, Daniel is Editor in Chief of the Trentonian, and is a Business and
Development Intern at The River Report “Spreading Kritiks,”
https://www.scribd.com/document/151003091/Spreading-Kritik) GDI-DZ

On face, spreading excludes many persons with various disabilities. People who have manual
and motor impairments cannot flow at the rapid rates necessary to participate in spread debate.
People who have auditory disabilities that prevent hearing the slurred syllables, tone, and pitch
at high speeds are similarly barred from meaningful participation in the activity. Spreading also
creates a class barrier to participating in policy debate. While resource differentials are
inevitable, spreading magnifies the impact of these resource differentials to unnecessarily
expand the scope of individuals barred from meaningful participation. Individuals with lower
socio-economic status often must work one or multiple jobs to contribute to their family’s basic
survival needs. The exhaustion created by working complicates taking a full course load at
schools, where students of lower-socioeconomic status must compete with students of means
personalized tutors and prep courses for tests that determine their futures. Only once they have
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2017 5

Basler/Lee/Myers Lab Speed K

completed their economic work and their education can their work on policy debate begin. We
must in our spare time compete with major schools like Glen brooks North and Damien. We
must compete with their coaches and squads of debaters, who cut and update a plethora of
files. Our school has no policy program, no expensive coaching infrastructure, no access to the
factors that otherwise create success in policy. We are the 51.4million Americans the Census
Bureau documented who live in crowded intergenerational homes that have no room for us to
practice spreading because our relatives are asleep. We are here because a college debater gave
his spare time to help us succeed and are otherwise entirely untrained in policy debate.

Spreading is a voter for saving debate:

Paul Harens 03
Paul Harens, March 2003. “To exist or not to exist? That is the question.”
https://debate.uvm.edu/NFL/rostrumlib/cx%20Harens%2003-03.pdf, (Paul Harens, has
coached forensics for 29 years. He is a triple diamond coach. Paul has qualified students to
the National Tournament several times in various events.)

Policy Debate is dying. Contrary to what Ms. Peters thinks there is a problem and something needs to be done. Yes there
are lots of different events, but the primary event that made the NFL what it is today is Policy Debate. However, before I get yelled
at, jumped, or mugged realize several things: 1. I do believe in this activity or I would have left it a long time ago (29 ½ years). I have
coached or I am coaching: Debate, Interp, Oratory, Extemp, and Student Congress. 2. My novice debaters do the research - they do
the work.. 3. I teach basics and never even talk theory, speed or spread (they learn that from other places). This new event is scaring
many people and justifiably so. We have [Public Forum] Ted Turner Controversy Debate because Policy Debate
has evolved into something that is not real world or real communication. Some of us are dinosaurs and
have watched the evolution (or de-evolution) of Policy Debate. Be honest, Policy Debate is close to its last breath.
Schools are dropping programs, numbers are down, budgets are getting cut, and schools are not
starting policy programs. There are NFL districts that don’t even offer Policy Debate at their
qualifying tournament. The reason for this sad state is that we, the coaches (and/or judges),
have allowed it to happen. We allow the speed, spread, weird arguments, theory arguments, no case
arguments, effects topicality, squirrelly cases, critiques, and the lack of communication/explanation of the real
issues within the topic (to name a few). A clear decision needs to be made on whether Policy
Debate is worth saving. I think it is. It is the basis of thinking and argumentation that students
have and/or could use for the rest of their lives (but not the way it is now). If an educated person
cannot walk into a policy round and understand what is going on, it must change or die. There are
several different styles (cliques – as one author has put it) of Policy Debate. To me they are: small school, large school, state,
With the
regional-states, and national circuit. The big question is: How long can any one of the cliques survive if others die?
number of schools/states/NFL districts that are dropping Policy Debate we need to do
something to change that trend. So, what do we do? Several questions (and editorial remarks)
need to be answered if we want policy debate to continue. 1. Will we continue to accept cases that skirt the
resolution or not debate the resolution? When someone takes a small minute portion of the topic (i.e. – fetal alcohol –
hermaphrodites – transgender prisoners – tele-pharmaceuticals) that no can really debate and they win we have a problem. What’s
wrong with just debating the topic? 2. Will we continue to select resolutions that require novice topic limits? Look at the resolutions
that are offered for debate. They are so broad and unfocused we have the weird stuff coming out of the woodwork. We are required
to do a foreign topic every third year. It has been said that we need these resolutions for the education of debaters. What happens
when we have no debaters to educate because of the resolutions? 3. Will we continue to ignore the basics of debate? Paper is being
wasted by not flowing a debate. The first CX question is usually, “Can I have a copy of the first AC?” Then everything is off case
arguments. You can watch negative teams and about half the time they don’t even flow. What ever happened to listening and
flowing? 4. How fast will we let them go? Right now we have asthmatic delivery, no eye contact, no
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2017 6

Basler/Lee/Myers Lab Speed K

real analysis or explanation of the evidence. Speed kills the activity and that is the reality of
things. Any speech that is given should be a speech to convince. If we can’t understand you and
you don’t explain how can you convince anyone of anything or why should you win? (Harens
continued to page 101) 5. How many handbook companies are we going to support? We have allowed the companies to run what
we do and how we do it. How many handbooks does your team have? If we really debated the topic, how many would you really
need? 6. Will we let college judges/debate camps select what will happen in our activity? These college students come in and tell the
debaters this is how it is done. The HS students come back and tell the others and we get what we have now. I used to take half of
the season to unteach what some of my best debaters had been taught in camp. Not all are that way, but most are. 7. Will we,
as coaches/judges, take the stand and stop what is destroying policy debate? So, now the
question is what do we do? It’s simple; we do a switch in paradigms. We become interventionist
if we must. As one popular commercial has put it, “Just say NO!” Say no to the speed, spread,
weird arguments, everything off case, the exchange of the first AC, we stop the things that are destroying policy
debate. It is also called judge adaptation. Let’s return debate back to what it should be, the clash of
opinion that calls for the attempt to convince. No matter what anyone says, it is a
communication activity. It always has been and always will be a communication activity. It is not
just issues and evidence. It is what you say, how you say it, and how you explain it. Policy debate is
worthwhile or some of us have wasted most of our adult lives teaching, coaching, and judging this activity. I don’t want to see
it die because it has a place in education if it can educate. Right now, there’s not much education. I have left
out one other important factor. It is not definable, you can’t quantify it, but with the kids and some coaches it is there. I call it the
fun factor. Two basic rules in all my years of coaching: 1. Did you learn anything? 2. Did you have fun? For many of the students it
isn’t fun anymore. For coaches, like myself, it isn’t fun anymore. If something isn’t fun or you’re not learning, why do it? This is one
big reason why many coaches and students are no longer doing Policy Debate. So, it is now into the laps of all coaches and judges.
Do we save the activity or do we let it die? Your choice, your decision, but it needs to be made
now or it will be too late. Don’t try and justify the education of all the speed, spread, critiques, off case, theory, and the list
could go on and on. The bottom line, do you want the activity to survive? If so, do something about it,
if not, just keep going the way you are going and shortly it will be gone. My vote is to change
and save the activity. What’s yours?

And, the role of the ballot is to produce the most inclusive, educational debate
space. The way we frame and decide our educational debates over ideology will
determine the strength of that ideology’s hold over us.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2017 7

Basler/Lee/Myers Lab Speed K

Speed Bad 2AC Theory (2:00)

Interpretation: Neither team in the debate should spread.
Violation: The neg spread the 1NC.
Standards:
First, it hinders understanding and education.
Bauman 97 (Neil Bauman, Ph.D. Northgate Graduate School, CEO at The Center for Hearing
Loss Help, “Speech Speed vs. Understanding What Was Said,” November 11, 1997,
http://hearinglosshelp.com/blog/speech-speed-vs-understanding-what-was-said/, Accessed July
19, 2017, GDI – Harry Chu)

***edited for gendered language***

If we have good hearing and a person is speaking at a moderate speed, our ears will pick up and
our brains will process what we are hearing in real time, AND we will still have time to think
about what we have heard. In other words, we will understand and assimilate the message.
However, as a person speaks faster and faster, we spend more and more of our time trying to
“catch” the words spoken, and thus we have less and less time left over to try to assimilate what
we have heard. This is where we begin to lose it. We know the person is talking, and often we know the
general subject, but we miss the point they are making. And remember, this is in adults with both normal hearing and
normal cognitive function. The truth is, not all people are adults in their prime. More and more are becoming seniors. As we get older, we slow down.
That is no secret. So it should be no surprise that our brains also slow down. As a result, it now takes longer for us to process speech. It also takes
longer for us to assimilate what we have heard. Therefore, seniors are at a disadvantage, even when listening to a speaker who is speaking at a normal
rate. As the speech rate picks up, we seniors are at an even greater disadvantage. The result is that the faster a person speaks, the more we miss until
listening to a speaker is largely a waste of time. That is why so many seniors tune out. It is all flying “over our heads” so to speak. The same holds true
for children who are just learning the language and need time to figure out “hard” words. This slows down their processing speed. It also holds true for
people for whom English is not their first language. They need time to “retranslate” what was said. Furthermore, some people are not as cognitively
fast as others, and thus need more time to process what they hear. The above groups include a large percentage of the population. And note that so
far, we haven’t even considered people with hearing loss. Numbers of people with hearing loss fit into all the above
categories to be sure. However, our hearing losses just compound our difficulty in understanding others. But even if a hard of hearing person is in the
prime of adulthood and everything is working normally except that they don’t hear well, they still have problems. You see, our
“broken” ears
miss words and parts of words (phonemes). Therefore, the information our ears send to our brains is full
of holes and gaps. Think of a puzzle that has lots of pieces missing so you can’t
recognize exactly what the picture is about. That is an analogy to what we hard of hearing people hear and
understand. Our brains must work overtime to try to figure out the missing parts. We use what we already know
of the subject, what we know of the structure of the language, what we can speech read, what we deduce from body language, etc. to try to make
sense of what we heard. All
this takes time. And by the time we have this figured out, we’ve missed the
next few words so there are even more gaps to try to fill in. Obviously, we need a person to
speak more slowly to give our brains a chance to keep up.

Second, it promotes ableism.

Conrad No Date (Conrad, Daniel is Editor in Chief of the Trinitonian, and is a Business and
Development Intern at The Rivard Report “Spreading Kritiks,”
https://www.scribd.com/document/151003091/Spreading-Kritik) GDI-DZ

On face, spreading excludes many persons with various disabilities. People who have manual
and motor impairments cannot flow at the rapid rates necessary to participate in spread debate.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2017 8

Basler/Lee/Myers Lab Speed K

People who have auditory disabilities that prevent hearing the slurred syllables, tone, and pitch
at high speeds are similarly barred from meaningful participation in the activity. Spreading also
creates a class barrier to participating in policy debate. While resource differentials are
inevitable, spreading magnifies the impact of these resource differentials to unnecessarily
expand the scope of individuals barred from meaningful participation. Individuals with lower
socio-economic status often must work one or multiple jobs to contribute to their family’s basic
survival needs. The exhaustion created by working complicates taking a full course load at
schools, where students of lower-socioeconomic status must compete with students of means
personalized tutors and prep courses for tests that determine their futures. Only once they have
completed their economic work and their education can their work on policy debate begin. We
must in our spare time compete with major schools like Glen brooks North and Damien. We
must compete with their coaches and squads of debaters, who cut and update a plethora of
files. Our school has no policy program, no expensive coaching infrastructure, no access to the
factors that otherwise create success in policy. We are the 51.4million Americans the Census
Bureau documented who live in crowded intergenerational homes that have no room for us to
practice spreading because our relatives are asleep. We are here because a college debater gave
his spare time to help us succeed and are otherwise entirely untrained in policy debate.

Third, creates side imbalance.

Talley 96 (James Talley, is a debate teacher at Sacred Heart Junior High School, debated for
Hutchinson High school, and has articles published in Rostrum the official magazine of the
National Speech & Debate Association, 1996, “Why Speed Kills,” Rostrum,
https://debate.uvm.edu/NFL/rostrumlib/cxtalley1096.pdf) GDI-WY

***Edited for gendered language***

Misuse of rapid delivery is a similar breach of ethics. The very nature of this strategy is a
retreat from argumentation, an escape from clash, an avoidance of the mutual testing
of competing claims which is intended to result in the discovery of the probable truth.
The advantage of this strategy is that it allows a speedy debater to take the easy way to victory,
but the easy way is not a proper course for the ethical debater. Like the fabricator, the speed
tactician is usually afraid of letting his arguments receive an honest and thorough testing by the
opposition. The strategy is based on two factors: the drop rule in debate which holds that an
issue unanswered from constructives cannot be answered in rebuttals; and the debater's ability
to "spread" the opposition, usually during the negative block. The existence of both the drop
rule and the negative block is an idiosyncrasy of academic debate, and neither has any necessary
relation to the truth or falsehood of any claims made in the round. To be sure, both factors have
their purposes. The drop rule is intended to seal-off constructives so that arguments do not
proliferate without an end in sight. The negative block is a consciously constructed
counterbalance to the affirmative's privilege of having the first and last word in the debate. But
when rapid delivery is employed by a negative team as a tactic for winning the round, the
original purposes of the two rules which allow spread tactics to operate become eclipsed and in
fact reversed. Both the drop rule and the negative block were [was] intended to promote
fairness, equity and sound debate. Neither [It] was [not] created to allow or promote a strategy
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2017 9

Basler/Lee/Myers Lab Speed K

which defeats the very purpose of argumentation, the clash and mutual testing of competing
ideas. Yet this is the result of speed used as a tactic. The negative team hopes that some of its
arguments will be "time-dropped" by the [1AR] first affirmative rebuttalist--not because this
speaker is incapable of speech time management, not because they take a sloppy flowsheet, not
[or] because they are without a response that would illustrate the deficiencies in negative's
positions--but because they simply have not attained the purely technical and mechanical ability
to speak at 300 words per minute. Delivery rate has more in common with debater pen-twirling
than it does with the critical thinking skills debate attempts to promote. A speed debater asks
for a decision based on two flukes of the activity, the droprule and the time constraints of the
round--rules which exist to improve the search for truth, not impede it. The round is to be based
on claims that have gone untested. The message sent is that quality, analysis, and truth do not
matter so much as quantity and pure technical finesse at flapping one's lips. This message
strikes at the justifying foundations of academic debate, and it is echoed in the words of every
debate critic who complains about a wonderful affirmative that was unable to answer a
mindless argument at the tail end of the 1AR and thus lost the round. Such critics act as if they
are forced by the rules to render what they describe as an unfortunate, unfair, or even tragic
ballot, when, they are abdicating their responsibilities to maintain the activity as a forum of true
argumentation.

Spreading is a voter for saving debate:

Paul Harens 03
Paul Harens, March 2003. “To exist or not to exist? That is the question.”
https://debate.uvm.edu/NFL/rostrumlib/cx%20Harens%2003-03.pdf, (Paul Harens, has
coached forensics for 29 years. He is a triple diamond coach. Paul has qualified students to
the National Tournament several times in various events.)

Policy Debate is dying. Contrary to what Ms. Peters thinks there is a problem and something needs to be done. Yes there
are lots of different events, but the primary event that made the NFL what it is today is Policy Debate. However, before I get yelled
at, jumped, or mugged realize several things: 1. I do believe in this activity or I would have left it a long time ago (29 ½ years). I have
coached or I am coaching: Debate, Interp, Oratory, Extemp, and Student Congress. 2. My novice debaters do the research - they do
the work.. 3. I teach basics and never even talk theory, speed or spread (they learn that from other places). This new event is scaring
many people and justifiably so. We have [Public Forum] Ted Turner Controversy Debate because Policy Debate
has evolved into something that is not real world or real communication. Some of us are dinosaurs and
have watched the evolution (or de-evolution) of Policy Debate. Be honest, Policy Debate is close to its last breath.
Schools are dropping programs, numbers are down, budgets are getting cut, and schools are not
starting policy programs. There are NFL districts that don’t even offer Policy Debate at their
qualifying tournament. The reason for this sad state is that we, the coaches (and/or judges),
have allowed it to happen. We allow the speed, spread, weird arguments, theory arguments, no case
arguments, effects topicality, squirrelly cases, critiques, and the lack of communication/explanation of the real
issues within the topic (to name a few). A clear decision needs to be made on whether Policy
Debate is worth saving. I think it is. It is the basis of thinking and argumentation that students
have and/or could use for the rest of their lives (but not the way it is now). If an educated person
cannot walk into a policy round and understand what is going on, it must change or die. There are
several different styles (cliques – as one author has put it) of Policy Debate. To me they are: small school, large school, state,
regional-states, and national circuit. The big question is: How long can any one of the cliques survive if others die? With the
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2017 10

Basler/Lee/Myers Lab Speed K

number of schools/states/NFL districts that are dropping Policy Debate we need to do

something to change that trend. So, what do we do? Several questions (and editorial remarks)
need to be answered if we want policy debate to continue. 1. Will we continue to accept cases that skirt the
resolution or not debate the resolution? When someone takes a small minute portion of the topic (i.e. – fetal alcohol –
hermaphrodites – transgender prisoners – tele-pharmaceuticals) that no can really debate and they win we have a problem. What’s
wrong with just debating the topic? 2. Will we continue to select resolutions that require novice topic limits? Look at the resolutions
that are offered for debate. They are so broad and unfocused we have the weird stuff coming out of the woodwork. We are required
to do a foreign topic every third year. It has been said that we need these resolutions for the education of debaters. What happens
when we have no debaters to educate because of the resolutions? 3. Will we continue to ignore the basics of debate? Paper is being
wasted by not flowing a debate. The first CX question is usually, “Can I have a copy of the first AC?” Then everything is off case
arguments. You can watch negative teams and about half the time they don’t even flow. What ever happened to listening and
flowing? 4. Howfast will we let them go? Right now we have asthmatic delivery, no eye contact, no
real analysis or explanation of the evidence. Speed kills the activity and that is the reality of
things. Any speech that is given should be a speech to convince. If we can’t understand you and
you don’t explain how can you convince anyone of anything or why should you win? (Harens
continued to page 101) 5. How many handbook companies are we going to support? We have allowed the companies to run what
we do and how we do it. How many handbooks does your team have? If we really debated the topic, how many would you really
need? 6. Will we let college judges/debate camps select what will happen in our activity? These college students come in and tell the
debaters this is how it is done. The HS students come back and tell the others and we get what we have now. I used to take half of
the season to unteach what some of my best debaters had been taught in camp. Not all are that way, but most are. 7. Will we,
as coaches/judges, take the stand and stop what is destroying policy debate? So, now the
question is what do we do? It’s simple; we do a switch in paradigms. We become interventionist
if we must. As one popular commercial has put it, “Just say NO!” Say no to the speed, spread,
weird arguments, everything off case, the exchange of the first AC, we stop the things that are destroying policy
debate. It is also called judge adaptation. Let’s return debate back to what it should be, the clash of
opinion that calls for the attempt to convince. No matter what anyone says, it is a
communication activity. It always has been and always will be a communication activity. It is not
just issues and evidence. It is what you say, how you say it, and how you explain it. Policy debate is
worthwhile or some of us have wasted most of our adult lives teaching, coaching, and judging this activity. I don’t want to see
it die because it has a place in education if it can educate. Right now, there’s not much education. I have left
out one other important factor. It is not definable, you can’t quantify it, but with the kids and some coaches it is there. I call it the
fun factor. Two basic rules in all my years of coaching: 1. Did you learn anything? 2. Did you have fun? For many of the students it
isn’t fun anymore. For coaches, like myself, it isn’t fun anymore. If something isn’t fun or you’re not learning, why do it? This is one
big reason why many coaches and students are no longer doing Policy Debate. So, it is now into the laps of all coaches and judges.
Do we save the activity or do we let it die? Your choice, your decision, but it needs to be made
now or it will be too late. Don’t try and justify the education of all the speed, spread, critiques, off case, theory, and the list
could go on and on. The bottom line, do you want the activity to survive? If so, do something about it,
if not, just keep going the way you are going and shortly it will be gone. My vote is to change
and save the activity. What’s yours?
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2017 11

Basler/Lee/Myers Lab Speed K

Speed Bad – Extensions and Answers

Gonzaga Debate Institute 2017 12

Basler/Lee/Myers Lab Speed K

EXT: Speed Bad – Ableism

Speed reading excludes people with disabilities - promoting ableism.
Conrad No Date (Conrad, Daniel is Editor in Chief of the Trinitonian, and is a Business and
Development Intern at The Rivard Report “Spreading Kritik,”
https://www.scribd.com/document/151003091/Spreading-Kritik) GDI-DZ

On face, spreading excludes many persons with various disabilities. People who have manual
and motor impairments cannot flow at the rapid rates necessary to participate in spread debate.
People who have auditory disabilities that prevent hearing the slurred syllables, tone, and pitch
at high speeds are similarly barred from meaningful participation in the activity. Spreading also
creates a class barrier to participating in policy debate. While resource differentials are
inevitable, spreading magnifies the impact of these resource differentials to unnecessarily
expand the scope of individuals barred from meaningful participation. Individuals with lower
socio-economic status often must work one or multiple jobs to contribute to their family’s basic
survival needs. The exhaustion created by working complicates taking a full course load at
schools, where students of lower-socioeconomic status must compete with students of means
personalized tutors and prep courses for tests that determine their futures. Only once they have
completed their economic work and their education can their work on policy debate begin. We
must in our spare time compete with major schools like Glen brooks North and Damien. We
must compete with their coaches and squads of debaters, who cut and update a plethora of
files. Our school has no policy program, no expensive coaching infrastructure, no access to the
factors that otherwise create success in policy. We are the 51.4million Americans the Census
Bureau documented who live in crowded intergenerational homes that have no room for us to
practice spreading because our relatives are asleep. We are here because a college debater gave
his spare time to help us succeed and are otherwise entirely untrained in policy debate.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2017 13

Basler/Lee/Myers Lab Speed K

EXT: Speed Bad – Education

Slower talking speeds allows for high comprehension – increases education
Zhao 97 ( Yong Zhao, Michigan State University, Oxford Academic; 3-1-1997, "Effects of
Listeners' Control of Speech Rate on Second Language Comprehension," OUP Academic,
https://academic.oup.com/applij/article/18/1/49/233475/The-Effects-of-Listeners-Control-of-
Speech-Rate-on, Accessed July 19, 2017, GDI – Harry Chu)

Another approach to this issue has been to directly measure the influence of speech rate on
listening comprehension. Instead of focusing on the characteristics of NS's speech behavior, researchers like Roger Griffiths studied
NNS's listening comprehension. Griffiths (1990b) reported a study in which he had 15 'lower-to-

intermediate' Japanese learners of English listen to three texts at three rates moderately fast
(app 200 WPM), average (app 150 WPM), and YONG ZHAO 51 slow(app 100 WPM). The subjects
were asked to answer fifteen true-false questions after each passage. Each of the 15 subjects had a chance to
listen to all three passages at all three rates. Griffiths found that 'lower scores were obtained at the fastest SRs

(speech rates) on all three texts and that the lowest mean score was consequently obtained at
that rate' (1990b 326). Griffiths confirmed his main hypothesis. Mean listening comprehension test scores for
passages delivered at slow (100 WPM) would be significantly higher than for passages delivered
at a moderately fast rate (200 WPM). However, the result did not support his hypothesis that a slower rate (100 WPM) would be
more comprehensible than a normal speed (150 WPM). In 1991, Griffiths (1991) reported a similar study in which stones were used. The three speech
rates were slow (app 127 WPM), average (app 188 WPM), and fast (app 250 WPM). A more significant difference was found between comprehension
at slow and fast rates

Slower speech rates = higher comprehension and understanding

Zhao 97 ( Yong Zhao, Michigan State University, Oxford Academic; 3-1-1997, "Effects of
Listeners' Control of Speech Rate on Second Language Comprehension," OUP Academic,
https://academic.oup.com/applij/article/18/1/49/233475/The-Effects-of-Listeners-Control-of-
Speech-Rate-on, Accessed July 19, 2017, GDI – Harry Chu)

To summarize, the participants' comprehension was overwhelmingly higher when they had
control over the rate of speech than when they did not. When they had control, the general
tendency was a slowing down of the speech rate. However, it is important to mention that the degree that each student
slowed down the rate varied Students 'self-report In the questionnaire following the listening tasks (see Appendix 3), the participants were

asked to report whether slower speeds helped their comprehension. To the statement 'Slower
speeds helped my listening comprehension', four answered 'Strongly Agree', seven responded
with 'Agree', one chose 'No Opinion' as his or her response, two said 'Disagree', and one did not
answer Taking 'Strongly Agree' and 'Agree' as 'yes', then we have 79 per cent of the respondents
reporting that 'slower speeds helped their listening comprehension.' To summarize, the data
supported the hypothesis that when given control, students will use a slower speed to ensure
comprehension, and that slower speeds do help listening comprehension. (For more detailed data see
Appendix 2) In conclusion, the results supported the expectations of the study. First, the students changed the speech rate when given control. Second,
in controlled situations, the students achieved better comprehension than in non-controlled situations. Finally, all participants reacted positively to the
use of computers to control speech rate.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2017 14

Basler/Lee/Myers Lab Speed K

EXT: Speed Bad – Debate Defunded

Speed gets debate defunded—LD proves it
Cossette 15
N. Andre Cossette, August 21st 2015, “The Art of Debate – 14th Edition”, page 63.
https://books.google.com/books?id=9uaJCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA63&dq=%22several+phillips+petr
oleum+executives+threatened+to%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi9h-jjx-
niAhU_HTQIHTrjBRIQ6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q=%22several%20phillips%20petroleum%20exec
utives%20threatened%20to%22&f=false

Lincoln-Douglas Debate (also known as L-D or Values debate) was formed in 1977
when several Phillips Petroleum Executives threatened to withdraw their sponsorship
(translation: give no money) from debate because they were so upset when the two National
finalist policy teams, led by the appropriately named Kenneth Bile, spoke at the blisteringly fast rate of over
300 words per minute. So, the debate people hastily formed Lincoln-Douglas debate to appease
(translation: kiss the posteriors of) the wealthy corporate sponsors. Originally, Lincoln-Douglas debate
was designed to be a slower type of debate with not as much dependency on evidence and
argumentation and more of an emphasis on delivery or style. Rather than coming up with a plan, L-D
debaters often evaluate whether a current policy or governmental action is right or wrong. However, as Lincoln-Douglas
debate has become more and more popular, in some regions of the country, it has sped up and
looks like one-person policy debate with the same speed and argumentation and evidence
dependence as policy debate.

Speed gets debate defunded—LD and PF are proof

McCordick 17
Jack Mccordick, 9-26-2017, "The Corrosion of High School Debate—And How It Mirrors
American Politics," America Magazine, https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-
culture/2017/09/26/corrosion-high-school-debate-and-how-it-mirrors-american-politics

***edited for gendered language***

If you were to peek into a room in the middle of a policy round, you would likely be treated to a
flurry of limbs and spittle, as a teenager expelled arguments from their mouth with such speed
and force that they would sometimes appear to lose control of their fine motor functions. When
an executive of Phillips Petroleum, then the primary sponsor of the [NSDA] National Forensics
League, observed a [policy] debate at the 1979 national championship, he found it utterly
incomprehensible. The executive aired his concerns to the league’s executive council, resulting
in an entirely new debate category called the Lincoln-Douglas debate. The more Machiavellian debaters
attempted to gain an edge by overwhelming their opponents with as many arguments as possible. This format, with its express
reference to the famous debates over slavery between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas, was designed to promote debates
about values and prioritize rhetorical persuasion. In contrast to Policy Debate’s wonkish topics, L.D. featured more timeless
resolutions. “It is morally permissible to kill one innocent person to save the lives of more innocent people.” Or “When in conflict,
idealism ought to be valued above pragmatism.” The new format earned the disdain of Policy Debate’s more snobbish competitors,
who joked that its initials stood for “learning disabled.” But for
students disillusioned with P[olicy].D[debate].’s
descent into nonsensical, mile-a-minute argumentation, it was a godsend. At least for a while.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2017 15

Basler/Lee/Myers Lab Speed K

Soon L.D. suffered the same fate as its precursor. The speed of argumentation increased, as did
the amount of evidence required to be competitive at the national level. As with Policy Debate, the
arguments became increasingly unmoored from reality. Some debaters even began refusing to debate the resolutions altogether,
formulating elaborate theoretical and critical arguments that were, at best, tenuously linked to the topic they had been given. As
L.D. descended further and further into absurdity, Ted Turner, the billionaire founder of CNN, came
along and attempted to turn the ship again. Like the Philips executive several decades earlier, he
pushed the National Forensic League in 2002 to establish a new debate format that would be
plainspoken and jargon-free. The resulting format, which immediately drew comparisons to
CNN’s “Crossfire,” was called Public Forum. Its title was an expression of Mr. Turner’s hope that any reasonably
informed member of the public could walk into a Public Forum round and be able to pick a winner. A decade and a half after its
inception, P.F. is still by far the most intelligible category in debate. However, in recent years its speed has increased markedly, as
have the mountains of evidence. The emphasis on logic and critical thinking has waned.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2017 16

Basler/Lee/Myers Lab Speed K

AT: Nobody in here has a hearing/physical disability

1. Bold of you to assume that—This only further links you into our ableism
arguments.
2. That’s not the point – our argument is that the debate community should
not bar persons with disabilities and those of lower socio-economic class
from meaningful participation in the debate space – by reinforcing the
communal norm of speed-reading, you are actively creating an image of
policy debate that includes ridiculous talking speeds, and that’s
exclusive. Even if everybody in this room can understand upwards of 400
WPM, we should still actively strive to create real change in the way we
interact with policy debate, and the way policy debate presents itself to
other students.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2017 17

Basler/Lee/Myers Lab Speed K

AT: Spreading is educational (general)

1. Educational for who?—Even if this were true, access to that education
would be limited to an insular minority, who likely already have the
resources to access education while simultaneously disadvantaging those
who most need education, which turns back their arguments about
competitive fairness.
2. Education less valuable—Yes spreading lets you read more cards but our
evidence demonstrates that you will comprehend substantially less of
what you are reading. More cards doesn’t mean more knowledge if you
can’t hear the cards.
3. Wrong forum—They need to prove spreading must happen in real
debate rounds at tournaments in order to access any offense they get
from this argument—if speed drills at practice accomplishes the same
thing you vote for us.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2017 18

Basler/Lee/Myers Lab Speed K

AT: Speed is Persuasive

Speed isn’t persuasive
Lisa B. Marshall, The Public Speaker, provides ultra-practical, science-based tips at the
intersection of leadership, psychology, and communication, “Are Fast Talkers More Persuasive?”
August 4, 2011 http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/business-career/public-speaking/are-fast-
talkers-more-persuasive GDI-EH

In the 1980’s and 1990’s researchers started to realize that although speaking faster did boost
credibility, it didn’t always have a positive impact on persuasion. A 1991 study by Smith &
Shaffer modified the earlier finding by suggesting that although speech rate has an effect on the
speaker’s credibility, the actual level of persuasion depends on the message being delivered. If
the audience was likely to agree with the message, then slowing down seemed to help or
increase persuasiveness (think slow talking Southern preachers). The idea is that providing
more time between words gives the audience a chance to agree.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2017 19

Basler/Lee/Myers Lab Speed K

AT: Critical Thinking Skills

1. Extend Bauman 97—he says high speed communication hinders critical
thinking skills. Prefer our evidence for two reasons:
a. He’s a doctor with a degree in hearing sciences with no ties to debate—
that’s better than a debate coach who has a stake in spreading being
allowed or disallowed.
b. He cites actual medical studies that confirm we physically CANNOT
process information and critically think well at speeds even lower than
what policy debate typically occurs at.
2. Spreading doesn’t promote critical thinking skills
Talley 96 (James Talley, is a debate teacher at Sacred Heart Junior High School, debated for
Hutchinson High school, and has articles published in Rostrum the official magazine of the
National Speech & Debate Association, 1996, “Why Speed Kills,” Rostrum,
https://debate.uvm.edu/NFL/rostrumlib/cxtalley1096.pdf)

The two main objections to¶ speed most commonly seen have¶ little to offer us unless seen in
the¶ light of debate's ethical dimensions.¶ The "poor analysis" complaint could¶ be dismissed
because it mistakes a¶ correlation between speed and logical¶ sloppiness with a causation, yet¶ it
is the connotation of the spread¶ strategy which is at fault here.¶ There are grounds to believe
that¶ the use of rapid delivery as a tactic¶ implies that arguments need not be¶ up to snuff so long
as there are¶ many of them on the flow. The use¶ and success of the spread send a¶ message to
debaters that the quality¶ of an argument matters less¶ than the quantity of arguments¶ lodged.
It also suggests that the easiest¶ way to a winning ballot is a veritable¶ cancer of positions, when
in¶ actuality arguing ten implausible or¶ poorly constructed disadvantages¶ requires much more
physical work¶ and wastes far more wood pulp¶ than arguing one or two finely¶ crafted and
rigorous ones which cut¶ to the heart of the affirmative proposal.¶ The only "ease" involved in¶
the spread is the relative laxity in¶ critical evaluation and selection¶ required of negatives when
viewing¶ and attacking the case, but this¶ free lunch is paid for in extra effort¶ to cram all the
spread positions onto¶ the flow and into the constructives.¶ The spread tactic requires little¶
critical skill to execute. It is akin to¶ killing someone with a shotgun¶ blast: one's aim need not
be terribly¶ good to achieve the desired result.¶ Conversely, critically examining¶ the case for its
flaws and vulnerabilities,¶ then selecting arguments¶ which target those vulnerabilities¶ is more
like marksmanship,¶ requiring study, practice, and a¶ higher dimension of critical skill.

3. It’s not enough just to prove you can get SOME critical thinking skills
from spreading—they need to prove you gain more than you lose.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2017 20

Basler/Lee/Myers Lab Speed K

AT: Lawyer Skills

There is no reward for learning to spread later as a lawyer or persuasive
speaker
Crotty 13 (James Marshall Crotty, earned a Bachelor of Science in Speech from Northwestern
and a Master’s in Liberal Arts from St. John’s College, “the Great Books School, 10-3-13, “Do
Debaters Make Better Lawyers?,” Forbes,
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesmarshallcrotty/2013/10/03/do-debaters-make-better-
lawyers/#5c55aae04932)

The authors note, however, that there are several ways in which debate differs from law. For
example, cross-examination is less important in debate than it is in law (where a cross-x can go
on if the judge allows, as opposed to debate’s three-minute limit). Secondly, debaters-turned-
lawyers must “adapt their speaking style and argument selection strategies” to the realities of
different legal forums, including “changes in emphasis, volume, inflection and language.”
Thirdly, and most gratifying, law does not reward the debate practice of “spreading”; not only
in the conventional definition of high-speed talking, but in the tendency of debaters to “spew”
a slew of equally weighted arguments in the hopes that some will be “dropped.”¶ In debate,
trolling in the weeds of minutiae in the hopes of “blowing up” -- or making paramount -- a
seemingly minor argument is de rigueur. In law, concision, common sense, and prioritization are
rewarded. Thus, Fulkerson and Lotz note, a debater's tendency to opt for “high impact but low
probability outcomes, such as famine, nuclear war, species extinction, and so on” must be re-
conditioned in law towards a focus on “what is probable.”
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2017 21

Basler/Lee/Myers Lab Speed K

AT: Patronizing
1. Our claim is not just about whether disabled students CAN have equal
access to policy debate when spreading is present, it’s also about
whether or not they SHOULD HAVE TO in the first place.
2. We never make the claim that spreading is inaccessible to ALL disabled
people. We think everybody who CAN spread still SHOULDN’T for other
independent reasons.
3. Debate is already ableist on so many levels—students are not allowed to
have note takers, sign language interpreters, prep or speech time
extensions, etc. regardless of ability. This is an area of debate where we
as a community CAN reduce ableist exclusion.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2017 22

Basler/Lee/Myers Lab Speed K

AT: Excluding spreading is Ableist

1. Accommodations for people with disabilities that result in faster rates of
speech should be given—that doesn’t defeat the general premise of our
argument.
2. Lacks debate context—Speaking quickly carries a very different meaning
in the real world vs. the policy debate world, your evidence doesn’t take
that into consideration.
3. We outweigh—More people are excluded by the presence of spreading
in debate than would be excluded by it’s absence.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2017 23

Basler/Lee/Myers Lab Speed K

AT: Spreading teaches you skills

1. We never said policy debate can’t teach you skills—look to our second
voter. The skills policy debate can teach you come despite spreading not
because of it. Call for their evidence after round—nothing in their cards
says spreading itself teaches you skills.
2. We outweigh—even if they win spreading is sometimes applicable in the
real world, they don’t outweigh our argument which is that there are
way MORE portable skills from slow and communicative policy debate.
3. Turn—they agree teaching skills is good which means if we win there’s a
risk that they contribute to the death of policy debate it’s game over. No
policy debate means no skills being taught.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2017 24

Basler/Lee/Myers Lab Speed K

AT: Kang 17 (Internet caused spreading)

1. They vastly mischaracterize this evidence—call for the card after round.
BECAUSE people started spreading, people started needing more
evidence to COUNTER spreading, and the internet then made that even
easier.
Kang, Jay Caspian. "High School Debate at 350 WPM." Wired. Conde Nast, 20 Jan. 2012. Web.
20 July 2017. – Jay Caspian Kang is an American writer and editor. He is a correspondent on
Vice News Tonight and as a writer-at-large at the New York Times Magazine. Education:
Columbia University, Bowdoin College (https://www.wired.com/2012/01/ff_debateteam/) P.J.L.

Policy debaters started talking fast in the 1960s, when a team from the University of Houston
figured out that speed allowed them to cram more arguments into a timed speech than their
opponents would physically be able to negate. Soon, students were talking like this at hundreds of
competitions across the country every year. The innovation increased the demand for source material, the
scholarly texts that support debaters’ arguments. That demand quickly outpaced supply—
debaters had to track down their evidence in libraries, then photocopy and cut and paste it
(with scissors and tape!) onto sheets of paper, which would in turn be tagged and filed away in
tubs or banker boxes. When my high school debate career ended in 1998, “information technology”
meant figuring out a way to sneak into a nearby college library, where, under the eye of a
willfully blind old lady, I would steal access to LexisNexis. The Internet has changed all that.
Today’s debaters no longer must painstakingly hunt through books and law reviews for new
material. They enjoy instant access to a seemingly infinite number of published sources—not
just articles and essays, but blog posts and even tweets. High school debaters are no longer
hunters and foragers but highly efficient, thoroughly optimized information processors.

2. Turn—the internet was supposed to make debate even more accessible

for students but because of spreading the opposite occurred
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2017 25

Basler/Lee/Myers Lab Speed K

AT: Huett-Lassman 17 (Spreading good for education)

1. Non-Unique—Slow debates can have multiple layers, they just have less
content on each layer.
2. No Internal Link—The card doesn’t give any warrants as to why multiple
layers is inherently good or educational.
3. Not relevant—This card is written in the context of LD debate, shown by
an un-underlined portion of the card which reads:
Tillman Huett-Lassman 17 (Huett-Lassman is a 2x Tournament of Champions qualifier, 7
career bids, and a debate coach. Studied economics at University of Texas. League director for
Chinese Youth Business League. Februrary 4th, 2017 https://www.quora.com/Should-spreading-
in-debate-be-allowed) GDI-BG

Spreading forces students to learn how to engage multiple arguments on multiple layers. It
isn't enough to read a normal value-value criterion case, but rather debaters
have to adapt and add theory spikes and permissibility triggers. The debate can now happen on
multiple different layers—there can be theory violations, the aff can be extra-topical, and
multiple solvency deficits.¶ This doesn't happen in traditional debate because it’s too slow. The
judges aren't sophisticated enough to understand the argumentation and the competitors have
a learned bias against progressive strategies.

4. Turn—The card links to all our accessibility arguments, an un-underlined

portion of the card reads:
Tillman Huett-Lassman 17 (Huett-Lassman is a 2x Tournament of Champions qualifier, 7
career bids, and a debate coach. Studied economics at University of Texas. League director for
Chinese Youth Business League. Februrary 4th, 2017 https://www.quora.com/Should-spreading-
in-debate-be-allowed) GDI-BG

Spreading forces students to learn how to engage multiple arguments on multiple layers. It isn't
sufficient to read a normal value-value criterion case, but rather debaters have to adapt and
add theory spikes and permissibility triggers. The debate can now happen on multiple different
layers—there can be theory violations, the off can be extra-topical, and multiple solvency
deficits.¶ This doesn't happen in traditional debate because it’s too slow.
The judges
aren't sophisticated enough to understand the argumentation and
the competitors have a learned bias against progressive strategies.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2017 26

Basler/Lee/Myers Lab Speed K

AT: Speed helps memory

1. Lacks context—There is a big difference in what “talking fast” means
inside debate and in the medical world—these studies ARE NOT claiming
that speed and memory are a one-to-one ratio and that all of us should
be spreading our words all the time.
2. At best their evidence makes claims about the dangers of little kids who
speak too slow—that’s not the issue in policy debate.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2017 27

Basler/Lee/Myers Lab Speed K

AT: Spreading ups innovation (Tandon kid evidence sorting)

1. Nowhere in the evidence does it say that spreading is good or even that
Tandon spread while he was in debate—the evidence is irrelevant.
2. The card DOES say that Tandon had to do so much research that he
wanted to be able to understand the main points of evidence faster—at
best the evidence advocates for paraphrasing, at worst for our
opponents it advocates for comprehension of evidence which our
Bauman 97 card proves is impossible through spreading.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2017 28

Basler/Lee/Myers Lab Speed K

AT: Spreading ups innovation (Tandon kid malaria testing)

1. Nowhere in the evidence does it say that spreading is good or even that
Tandon spread while he was in debate—the evidence is irrelevant.
2. The card talks about an app a former debater created that quickly
processes information to help stop the spread of malaria—not about
PEOPLE who process information quickly or speak quickly.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2017 29

Basler/Lee/Myers Lab Speed K

AT: O’Donnell 15 (Speed good for communication)

1. The card doesn’t mention speed—call for it after round, they power
tagged it.
2. Turn—Extend Bauman 97 which proves you can’t listen effectively when
people are speaking too fast. That flips their evidence to us:
O’Donnell et al ’15 (Timothy O’Donnell, University of Mary Washington, Neil Butt, Wayne
State University Stefan Burchard, Lakeland School District, New York Joseph Billon, Georgia State
University Warren Decker, George Mason University John Kastle’s, Boston College William Keith,
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee James Lyle, Clarion University Danielle Verney O’Gorman,
U.S. Naval Academy Joseph Packer, University of Pittsburgh, “Navigating Opportunity: Policy
Debate in the 21st Century”, “A Rationale for Intercollegiate Debate in the Twenty-first
Century”, http://www.ic.edu/Customized/Uploads/ByDate/2015/November_2015/
November_20th_2015/final_proof-libre135028.pdf p.41) GDI-AM

Equally compelling is the extent to which debate develops listening skills. Studies have long established
that active listening skills are important, but that most people are passive listeners, retaining only
25% of what is heard (Nichols and Stevens 1957). Active listening has been cited as an important
prerequisite for engaging in productive dialogue and for engaging other skills (Goleman 2000).
Improved listening and note-taking ability are frequently cited benefits of participation in
debate (Freely and Steinberg 2009; Goodnight 1993; Wood and Goodnight 2006). Competing
successfully in debates requires effective responses, and effective
responses are possible only when a student has listened carefully and taken
thorough notes on their counterparts’ arguments.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2017 30

Basler/Lee/Myers Lab Speed K

AT: Too fast Arbitrary

1. Debate itself is inherently arbitrary—we carry fewer rules than the
majority of other sports and activities that exist at the High School level.
That doesn’t mean we don’t try to create norms and rules for debate the
best we can.
2. Conversational pace, the pace at which the judge explains their
paradigm, how fast you speak in cross-examination, how fast you would
speak to a teacher. The line doesn’t have to be paper thin, there are
ranges of speaking in the outside world and there are ranges of speaking
here. We think it’s pretty easy to tell when somebody is speaking too
fast.
3. You can have competing interpretations of what is too fast just like you
can have competing interpretations in a topicality or theory debate.
Gonzaga Debate Institute 2017 31

Basler/Lee/Myers Lab Speed K

AT: Spreading Healthy (lung/muscle capacity)

1. Evidence isn’t about debate round itself—All the same results can be
achieved just by doing speed DRILLS outside a debate round without
causing any of our disads to spreading.
2. The card doesn’t cite any medical or scientific data but it makes that type
of claim—this is an opinion not evidence.