Policy

  

Our camp provides an intense experience preparing and practicing arguments on the 2008-2009 policy topic.

  • TONS OF EVIDENCE
    You won’t go home with a few paltry pieces of evidence and you won’t spend endless hours as a research slave. Our unique research program gives you the tools to produce high quality evidence in large volumes. Before our camp begins, our staff prepares evidence files with disadvantages, kritiks, counterplans, and topicality arguments. This assures that you receive the highest quality evidence. Working with our staff, you augment these files during the camp with evidence that you cut, and as the camp continues, you prepare files from scratch, getting full assistance from our staff. Last year, our policy staff and students prepared over 4500 pages of evidence with 10 full affirmative cases, multiple topicality shells, case specific answers to over 11 cases, 11 disadvantages, 10 counterplans and 12 kritiks. All of the evidence produced while you are at the camp is emailed to you plus you choose the files you want printed for use while at the camp.
  • SMALL LABS
    You do not sit in large lectures for most of the day at our camp. You do not research in a corner of a library and you do not sit in a lab with 16 to 20 other students. For most of your day, you work in a lab with 3 to 5 other students interacting one-on-one with one of our staff members. Our staff includes nationally competitive NDT-CEDA debaters and coaches for policy debate. Most importantly, our staff are people who care about working with you to make you the best that you can be.
  • ALL EVIDENCE IS INDEXED AND READY TO USE
    The evidence you receive at our institute is completely indexed, shelled, and typed (no more hard-to-read handwriting!). The files include affirmative cases with 2ac frontlines; responses to many affirmative cases; shells, backup briefs, and responses for disadvantages, kritiks, and counterplans; and topicality arguments, definitions, and responses. Here is a list of the evidence we produced this past year: Click here for a list of the evidence from last year’s WNDI.
  • ADVANCED THEORY
    Students learn advanced theory including cutting edge strategies for arguing permutations, dispositionality/conditionality, plan inclusive counterplans, a-spec, kritiks, and impact comparison. And, again, you don’t just hear about these arguments—you engage in them so that you can win with them.
  • DRILLS WITH REDOS
    Students do drills arguing for and against disadvantages, kritiks, and counterplans. We do not rely on lectures. We work with you to frontline a kritik, to answer a permutation, to write add-ons, etc. Our drill sessions are excellent ways to improve your debating skills because we focus on specific skills. During the first week alone, you’ll focus on your delivery, refutation, cross-examination, topicality, disadvantage, counterplan, and kritik argumentation skills. And, during these drills, you do redos so that you are technically and strategically proficient in each and every area critical to winning. If you choose the three-week program, you engage in additional drills that you design to meet your specific needs.
  • FULL DEBATES WITH REDOS
    Policy debaters engage in at least 10 debates (2 week) or 18 debates (3 week) with full critiques and redos. At the end of the 2nd and 3rd week sessions, there are tournaments with full elimination rounds. We give over 2 hours for the debates so you have lots of time to work on what you need. Our staff will give feedback on your strategies, your delivery, your line-by-line, all of the key elements needed to win.
  • THE THIRD WEEK IS SIGNIFICANT
    Students who continue into the third week of the policy camp will work with our staff one-on-one to get the most in-depth instruction and practice. Want to argue against international fiat, effects-topicality, or politics internal links? You got it because we will focus on your specifically requested areas. We’ll prepare strategies against other camp arguments, discuss and utilize in-depth theory, go deeper into the arguments you will run during the year, and explore performance and other cutting edge argumentation. AND, absolutely unique to our camp, you engage in practice debates with staff members so you get the toughest, best competition (and, hey, our staff members are good debaters but they are also nice!). Finally, you participate in a championship tournament to showcase the debate knowledge and skills you have acquired at our camp.

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