1. HOW TO FLOW A POLICY DEBATE CDI 2016 Policy Lab

2. FLOWING: THE SHORTCUT TO WINNING DEBATES EVERY DEBATER WHO HAS ANY SUCCESS IN POLICY DEBATE USES AN ESSENTIAL SKILL – FLOWING. FLOWING IS THE MOST EFFECTIVE WAY YOU CAN ENTER YOUR FIRST TOURNAMENT OF THE YEAR AND COME OUT ON TOP OF YOUR COMPETITION. YOU WILL WIN 90% MORE DEBATES ONCE YOU UTILIZE FLOWING EFFECTIVELY.

3. IF IT’S SO IMPORTANT, WHAT IS FLOWING? HOW DO I KEEP TRACK OF THE ROUND AND REMEMBER EVERYTHING? The answer is flowing – a concise, note-taking system built to help you keep track of all the arguments made by both teams in a debate, all the way from the 1AC to the 2AR. More importantly, flowing will help you plan the speeches YOU have to give in the debate.

4. YOUR FLOW IS YOUR GAME-BOARD FOR EACH DEBATE More than likely, you’ve heard debate compared to a game of chess. Like chess, policy debate is about using critical thinking, logic, and strategy to win your arguments. Now, imagine you’re playing a board game, like chess. But, only your opponent can see the board. You have no idea how many pieces you have left in the game or where your opponent’s pieces are. Not fun. Flowing is the first step you have to take in a debate to make the round winnable for you and your partner. Arguments and evidence are the game pieces of policy debate.

5. DEBATE HAS NO “OFFICIAL” GAME-BOARD – YOU HAVE TO MAKE YOUR OWN Flowing is one of the MOST IMPORTANT norms – if you walk into a debate, every debater (and the judge) will be writing down the arguments being made by the speaker while they’re making those arguments. Whether you are a collegiate champion like or you are in your very first debate, if you aren’t giving the current speech, you absolutely need to be flowing.

6. WHEN DO I FLOW A SPEECH? Again, if you aren’t giving the current speech, you should be flowing the person speaking. This applies especially when your partner is speaking – that way, you can keep account of what arguments they have made against the opposing team so that you can win the debate in your last speeches. Flowing your partner’s speeches – even if you discussed their speech in prep time - is a key part of teamwork in policy debate. Long story short: If you aren’t speaking, you should be flowing.

7. IMPORTANT: Flowing isn’t optional. Period. There is NO POSSIBILITY that you have the ability to remember every single argument you, your partner, and your opponents have made. Some of you have never heard a policy debate speech before. You will set yourself and your partner up to lose again and again if you choose not to flow your debates. If you can learn to flow, you can begin to start playing the game of debate correctly – that’s when the fun starts.

8. ONE MORE TIME: FLOW THE DEBATE. FLOW YOUR PARTNER’S SPEECH. FLOW YOUR OPPONENT’S SPEECHES. YOUR DEBATES WILL RESEMBLE THIS: FLOW. SPEAK. FLOW. SPEAK AGAIN. FLOW. WIN THE DEBATE. Obviously, there’s more to debate than just flowing. Flowing is such an integral part of debate that you will never stop using this skill as long as you are playing the game.

9. BEFORE YOU CAN LEARN TO FLOW, YOU HAVE TO LEARN TO LISTEN.LISTEN Let’s take a minute to get zen before the fun stuff. We’ve been in the same room, all day, listening to each other talk. Be like a sponge – close your eyes, sit up straight, put both feet on the floor, breathe in, and then breathe out. Repeat. Don’t fidget, reach for your phone. Lean back, relax your shoulders, and exhale tension.

10. AWESOME! YOU’RE MINDFUL NOW! Debate is stressful. It moves really quickly, and feels high pressure in the moment. If you’re new to debate, it’s really easy to feel overwhelmed. As you’d expect, this makes flowing kind of tough. Just remember that debate is supposed to be engaging and interesting – not anxiety-inducing. If you feel overwhelmed during a debate, just breathe and collect yourself. You’ll do better than you expect.

11. FOUR RULES OF FLOWING: THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND 1.The more you flow, the more debates will start making sense. When you start seeing the game-board, you will begin to see how the different pieces of the game interact. 2.Mastering flowing takes practice and time – and it WILL pay off. Practice flowing each other; one debater practice speaking while the other flows it, as if you were going to respond for a judge. Congrats, you’re giving practice speeches. 3.Give up on writing every word now. You will never, ever be able to write down every word that is said in a speech. 4.Flowing is writing a speech outline for yourself. If you flow, you will never have to come up with 5 minutes of arguments from the top of your head. Debate isn’t improv comedy – if you treat it like improv, you’ll become the butt of the joke.

12. FLOW AN ENTIRE DEBATE ON ONE PAGE? Well, yes and no. Imagine your single piece of flow paper as one complete argument that is always in the debate, ie: the affirmative case and negative case are on separate pages. This keeps our game-board organized into separate parts that make answering and making arguments easier. Grouping arguments by type makes signposting (telling the other debaters and judge what arguments you’re addressing) easier.

13. TIPS AND TRICKS TO MAKE FLOWING A BREEZE: 1.When you know someone is making a new argument or is introducing evidence into the debate, always listen first and then write a VERY short summary of the tagline of their card. Knowing a bit of debate jargon makes this much easier later, but for now, just practice listening and THEN writing. 2.Get familiar with your new best friend: shorthand. In debate, efficiency is key, and that goes double for flowing. Learn to shorten common debate words into short acronyms and symbols that you can understand. 3.Don’t exclude new arguments for the sake of brevity. Just because you want to save space to write doesn’t mean you shouldn’t note distinctions and nuances in the speaker’s argument.

14. LET’S TRY SOME SHORTHAND NOW: Resolved: Leigha knows more about flowing that you. First, she has been debating since you were in the first grade. Second, you have known for 30 minutes what flowing is. Third, she is giving the lecture on flowing and you aren’t. In conclusion, you need to pay attention to Leigha because this is the first step in your journey as a debate champion.

15. FLOWING DEBATE EVIDENCE Flow TAG, CITE, EVIDENCE: “NEXT” and “AND”: COMMON JARGON/PHRASES and their shorthand: Miscellaneous Tips: USE A PEN: pencils break while you’re using them and erasing is only a waste of your time. Save them for your math homework, when you really need it. WRITE SMALLER: this one seems obvious, but you’d be surprised how large your handwriting is when you’re forced to write vertically and not horizontally.