Adrian Graham (LHS) and Matt Liu (UW) will be hosting an online workshop as a supplemental tool to help Wyoming debate competitors (LD, PF, CX) prepare for the NSDA "Last Chance" Qualifier. As the online "Last Chance" qualifier is a national tournament, students are likely to encounter 'national circuit-style' arguments. We want to help prepare Wyoming students to encounter and defeat these arguments to assist in giving them their best "last chance."  If you're interested in participating, you can sign-up here: https://forms.gle/3QAuu6vkk3oMb2c18 Students will need parenta ..read more

Congrats to the NSDA National qualifiers from Hole in the Wall today, and good luck to those of you competing at Wind River next weekend! For those who are still hungry for their "last chance," UW would like to invite Wyoming high schools to compete at the NSDA Last Chance Qualifier (4/25-27) from our campus. For anyone not familiar, the "Last Chance" is just that: a final, national tournament where folks can compete one more time to attempt to qualify for NSDA Nationals.  The Last Chance is an online tournament, but we'd love if folks came to Laramie where we can of ..read more

Author: Matt Liu, University of Wyoming Director of Debate   I’ve had the opportunity to do a little research on the new PF topic. What follows is a quick primer about possible pro and con arguments for the February 2024 PF resolution:   Resolved: The United States federal government should ban single-use plastics.   Aff Ground The two most obvious aff advantage areas are the environment and public health. Of those two, I highly suggest focusing on the environmental harms of single-use plastics. Plastic pollution is notoriously bad for the environment, especially for marine envi ..read more

Hey gang! We'd like to know what topics you would like us to address. If you have any pressing debate questions, comment here or shoot us an email at ​wyomingdebateroundup@gmail.com. ​You can also always join Team Wyoming to get quick answers to any questions you might have at any time ..read more

Author: Matt Liu, University of Wyoming Director of Debate   I’ve had the opportunity to do a little research on the new PF topic. These are my first thoughts about the January 2024 PF resolution:   Resolved: The United States federal government should repeal Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.   Intro In short, Section 230 provides immunity for online computer services with respect to third-party content generated by its users. Translation: Facebook et al can’t get sued for almost all content that is shared by its users. Section 230 was part of the Communications Dec ..read more

Author: Matt Liu, University of Wyoming Director of Debate   Since the summer we’ve known that people were going to interpret “expanding” social security in pretty unlimiting ways. For the most part, we’ve got a small an awesome topic that requires the affirmative to make a giant change to the economy, most often through either a federal jobs guarantee or establishing a basic income. Fewer teams have ventured into the social security area (except when talking just about expanding SSI to the territories), but many of those that have do so in ways that fundamentally change what social secur ..read more

Author: Matt Liu, University of Wyoming Director of Debate ​Quickdraw posts are snapshot reflections that are usually spurred by observations the WDR staff have while judging at Wyoming tournaments. This quickdraw is about overviews: when you should have them and what should (and shouldn't) be in them.  Overviews are often understood to be places where you summarize or re-explain your position for a judge. I want to complicate that! Rather than thinking of overviews as summary, I want you to think about them solely as a place to locate comparative impact calculus. If you have ..read more

Author: Matt Liu, University of Wyoming Director of Debate ​​Quickdraw posts are snapshot reflections that are usually spurred by observations the WDR staff have while judging at Wyoming tournaments. This quickdraw is about sign-posting: what it is and how you should do it.  Sign-posting is how you announce transitions between arguments during a speech. This is in contrast to roadmaps, which tell the judge the order you will address arguments before a speech begins. Roadmaps are also different because they only tell the judge what order to put their sheets of fl ..read more

Author: Matt Liu, University of Wyoming Director of Debate ​Quickdraw posts are snapshot reflections that are usually spurred by experiences the WDR staff have while judging at Wyoming tournaments. This quickdraw is about NSDA points. Hot take: the world would be a better place without NSDA points. At the last tournament I attended, I noticed two related phenomena that trouble me: debaters measuring their own self-worth through NSDA points, and debaters measuring their opponent's talent through NSDA points. I heard one debater say they were worried because they were going to debate "th ..read more

Author: Matt Liu, University of Wyoming Director of Debate   “You find out life’s this game of inches. … The margin for error is so small. I mean, one half a step too late or too early and you don’t quite make it. One half second, too slow, too fast, you don’t quite catch it. The inches we need are everywhere around us. They’re in every break of the game, every minute, every second. On this team, we fight for that inch. On this team, we tear ourselves and everyone else around us to pieces for that inch. We claw with our fingernails for that inch because we know when we add up all those in ..read more