Author: Jayanne Forrest

Thank you for all your submissions once again! Some were actually pretty similar and correlated to a response made last week so the link to that article is below! 1.How to balance competing and school. I feel like I can’t work at tournaments and when I have to leave Friday afternoon and end Sunday night it just feels impossible to stay on top or everything. As much as we love to kid ourselves, we don’t always get work done at tournaments. I will personally admit that I took a lot of my homework with me to tournaments and never touched it until I got back home. Debating every weekend is hard to balance with school but not impossible! Here are a few tips: Make sure when you’re at school, you’re completing as much work as possible to minimize the amount of homework. This may seem obvious, but it actually takes a decent amount of self-discipline to do other work when in a class that’s not doing anything instead of just talking to your friends. Plan out the work you have due for next week, and if possible start/complete it before you leave for the tournament Be realistic with the amount of work you take with you on the trip. If you think you can get work done while you’re on the trip, take specific assignments, or ones that you...

Another day, another dollar. Another week, another column! NSDeep week 5 is here so if you need debate-related advice (not strategy or coaching), share below and we will post 3-5 responses on Friday! NO names or identifying information in your submission, please. Submit...

Check out our new poll on Facebook and vote! Do you like the new topic? Comment why/why not Resolved: The United States ought not provide military aid to authoritarian...

If you submitted anything to NSDeep over the break (last week) or this past week, check out the responses here! Thanks for all the submissions 1.How to be a nice person since no one in debate can seem to learn how to :’) I feel this 100%. Often times people get so caught up in this competitive speaking activity that they don’t pay attention to how badly they are treating people which sucks. There is also always the chance that some people are just not really nice in general (even outside debate) and I think that is a separate issue. Here, I feel being a nice person for yourself is most important. One of my favorite bell hooksian concepts are the “politics of accountability” versus the “politics of blame.” Hold people accountable for treating you badly or being rude, if you feel comfortable explaining your feelings or being an active rather than passive bystander. It is really important to continue to just try to be kind in this activity when you can. Call people out for being disrespectful, maybe even be a killjoy 🙂 but definitely try not to let the negativity of people in the activity personally affect you outside of it. Embracing a love ethic has incredible potential here. 2. What do you do when a coach says they can’t coach you anymore but you still want...

Welcome to this weekend’s Spar featuring Sara Ahmed versus Lee Edelman. Thank you to the main contributor, Ariel Olson for their variety of insights for both...