2.6 Flowing a Debate
Keeping track of arguments made during a debate is not easy. It requires some serious multi-tasking: listening intently to what your opponent is saying, taking notes so you don’t forget these arguments, and thinking about how to respond in your next speech. Doing this well requires good listening skills as well as good penmanship! There’s nothing more frustrating than looking down at an indecipherable scribble while you are translating your notes into spoken words.
The best practice for taking notes during a debate is to take them down with pen and paper on a flow. This will give you a written record of the arguments raised in the debate. To flow, you need a blank piece of paper, preferably without lines. (Raid a printer if you don’t have such paper.) While this sounds like an old-fashioned solution, taking notes on a laptop or tablet is far more cumbersome, and as with most elements in a debate, speed is at a premium. Place the paper with the longer edge at the top (landscape layout) and use a ruler to divide the paper into five columns of equal width. If the paper is standard size, that means roughly 2.2 inches per column.
If you are the affirmative, you can prepare the first column of the flow in advance. Along the left side, write down any definitions, your value, and your contentions, leaving some room in between since the negative may have several attacks on each. After the first speech in the first sample debate, the flow might look as follows:
| AC | ||
| Intro: harsh penalty for cannabis | ||
| Value: utility | ||
| 1.Americans want legalization | ||
| Pew survey | ||
| all groups would gain utility | ||
|
2.Legalizing promotes prosperity |
|
|
| Creates many jobs and growth | ||
|
3.Improves safety and health |
|
|
| Fewer deaths and medical problems | ||
After listening to affirmative’s constructive, the negative adds its responses to the affirmative’s arguments, so when the negative gets up to speak the flow might look like this:
| AC | NC | |
| Intro: harsh penalty for cannabis | Intro: child eats cannabis gummies | |
| Value: utility | same | |
| 1.Americans want legalization | 1. children harmed by cannabis | |
| Pew survey | Study ignores disutility to children | |
| all groups would gain utility | can’t prove overall utility gain | |
|
2.Legalizing promotes prosperity |
2. Reduced productivity from workers |
|
| Creates many jobs and growth | jobs will be lost elsewhere | |
|
3.Improves safety and health |
3. Driving while high not safe |
|
| Fewer deaths and medical problems | people may use both | |
| Substitution effects unknown
4.study what happens in states |
|
Then the affirmative responds to the negative’s arguments, so after three rounds the flow might look like:
| AC | NC | AR |
| Intro: harsh penalty for cannabis | Intro: child eats cannabis gummies | |
| Value: utility | same | |
| 1.Americans want legalization | 1. children harmed by cannabis | 1. Little harm to children |
| Pew survey | Study ignores disutility to children | Can’t ban all risk |
| all groups would gain utility | can’t prove overall utility gain | far more utility than disutility |
|
2.Legalizing promotes prosperity |
2. Reduced productivity from workers |
2. No evidence job gains are short-term |
| Creates many jobs and growth | jobs will be lost elsewhere | Tax revenue clear utility gain |
|
3.Improves safety and health |
3. Driving while high not safe |
3. No doubt road safety better |
| Fewer deaths and medical problems | people may use both | only issue is extent of substitution |
| Substitution effects unknown
4.study what happens in states |
Education will improve safety
4. no need to wait |
During the fourth and fifth speeches, these arguments will be further extended–or dropped. By the end of the debate each debater will have a complete record of the debate in the flow.
