Point of Information

Fast Times at SNFI

View results of Sniffy’s two intra-camp tournaments here.

Parliamentary Debate Summer Camp: 4 of the greatest words to grace the English language.

Many of California’s top Parliamentary debaters are currently at the Stanford National Forensics Institute, learning all about the joys of Parliamentary Debate.

UPDATE: Working as the “Eye” of POI is Jeff Leibenhaut, who brings you this review:

After debating for just a year, I was excited to go to debate camp in order to reach a more advanced level in parliamentary debate. SNFI turned out to be just what I was looking for, as it helped me improve through lectures, labs, and practice rounds.
Campers started practicing the first day, as a jargon quiz was given after a presentation on argumentation. Campers were then sorted into labs (beginner, intermediate, and advanced) based on the results of the jargon quiz. An average day at SNFI had three lectures, two labs, and three practice rounds. Lectures were offered at both an intermediate level and an advanced level, they were : Art of Argumentation, Topic Analysis, Anatomy of a Debate Round, Research & Writing Briefs, Proposition Case Construction, Proposition Strategy, Standards and Weighing, Topicality, Disads, Counterplans, Terrorism/Religion, Economics, Hegemony, Supreme Court Cases, Oil, Kritiks, POIs, Judge Adaption, Delivery, and Psychology of Winning. The labs were headed by Kate Falkenstein (beginner), Matt Vassar (intermediate), and Nick Robinson (advanced); instructors would elaborate on the lectures to their labs based on the experience level of the students.
The lectures and labs explained both common and uncommon aspects of parliamentary debate. Examples were the explanation of how to run good extra-T and effects-T shells, along with regular T shells. The balance was very helpful, as it preps debaters for out-rounds and allows for a more varied neg approach. It should be noted that the SNFI strategies were far more applicable to policy rounds than value rounds, but this is in no way a problem as students learned how to adapt resolutions to policy rounds and the advantages of doing so. This camp is recommended for debaters of all levels, especially for those that love debating policy resolutions!

Leave a Reply