De-Briefing Debate

Whether you have used Champion Briefs, Victory Briefs, or even The Forensic Files, debate briefs are an invaluable resource for debaters, especially for those in areas where resource disparity is likely, if not mainstream. Briefs, at their core, are documents created to provide information and an in-depth topic analysis on a debate topic, most commonly, LD or PF. For the incredibly modest monthly fee of $29.99, you, yes you, can rise among the ranks of the best debaters nationally and be a part of the “transformative power of speech and debate” (Disclaimer: Terms and conditions may apply. Product availability will vary depending on location. See in-store for details).

To understand the significance of debate briefs, it's crucial to grasp their foundational purpose in aiding debaters' research. Briefs were conceived to provide debaters with a tool that serves as a baseline for researching a topic. They easily condense large chunks of information, whether that be news articles or reviews, into short, seemingly decipherable documents that can be used to dissect a resolution. Briefs are not supposed to be the only asset in a debater’s arsenal; unfortunately, for a lot of debaters in smaller circuits, briefs have fundamentally shaped what entire debate events look like.

In my novice year of competing in LD, I was shunned by my team for not using briefs. I mean, why would I waste time reading an entire brick of digital paper when I could just use Wikipedia, of all things, for my research? The challenge of searching for my evidence, quotes, and data was alluring, at the time. Being able to research and present my case, even though it may or may not win a medal, excited me.

But, as the season progressed, and I would inevitably ask my coach for help, I was greeted with: “Why don’t you just use the briefs?” And, while I later caved into the cult that is debate briefs, I struggled to correctly use the briefs in my cases. With the lack of well-informed coaching, combined with the stress of learning how to debate within a limited amount of time between tournaments while juggling other extracurriculars, briefs became my go-to for self-coaching on debate topics.

For my small school speech and debate team, briefs had become our only form of researching resolutions, even going to the point where entire contentions and evidence cards were pulled directly from briefs. No one dared write a word outside of what the briefs had intended for us to write in our cases. While a great resource for any debater wishing to get a comprehensive topic analysis within a limited amount of time, briefs should not be the main form of coaching on a team. A lot of the cases I wrote that season derived solely from what I was told to write, or not to write, in the briefs.

The widespread use of debate briefs has not only influenced individual cases but has also affected entire teams and circuits. In reality, crafting a good case goes far beyond what a brief says you should write, and being able to debate and analyze topics yourself may prove more valuable than anything you can get from a brief. However, creating cases that will win means having the experience, know-how, resources, and coaching that a lot of regions across the U.S. simply lack.

While debate briefs offer efficiency, they cannot replace the essential skills and experiences necessary for a good debate. Don’t get me wrong; briefs, as an idea, are not bad. Briefs and similar forms of topic analysis can quickly provide debaters with an understanding of a resolution that may or may not have been accessible otherwise. However, instead of being used as a guide, like they were intended to be, debaters have begun to use them to fully create speeches. As a result an event like PF, which once allowed for a wide range of ideas and tactics to address a resolution, has dwindled into a homogeneous style of debate, where everyone has the same ideology, values, contentions, and even taglines because debaters are consistently referencing the same brief. Speeches have become entirely focused on brief-originated contentions and frameworks, so much so that instead of being a competitive speaking event focused on finding the better side to a resolution, debate has turned into a competition of who is the best at analyzing a brief.

These effects are magnified in small circuits where briefs have demolished the field of competition. Debaters who use briefs typically write from the same source material, even if they’re using a different brand of briefs. The rising occurrence of this is especially seen in closer knit circuits where coaches will recommend resources to each other, and are likely to buy the same brand of briefs for the rest of their team, making entire cases predictable, and sometimes, totally plagiarized by debaters who don’t understand how to use briefs to their advantage. Briefs, or any topic analysis for that matter, are an indispensable tool for debaters. But they shouldn’t be the only ones.

What I’m getting at here is that it is not briefs that have ruined debate in small circuits; it’s our reluctance to rely on absolutely anything besides them as a resource. While there needs to be some accountability on behalf of the coaches who are teaching that briefs should be the only tool when studying a case, debaters themselves are largely at fault for this problem.

To address our overreliance on briefs, a broader solution is needed to ensure equitable access to resources and foster a more diverse debate community. The issue of briefs dominating districts may not be as probable across speech-and-debate-enriched areas, like Texas or Florida, but it is in smaller and newer circuits. The best root to resolve our issue is to provide resources, education and community to areas plagued by this problem. Organizations like Equality in Forensics, which have created regional chapters to provide speech and debate communities access to a national platform and a greater regional community, aim to resolve the issue of resource disparity among districts. Chapters are a community of like-minded students in speech and debate in the same area, who are all working towards a common goal: speech and debate for all. 

The other solution lies within the debaters and coaches themselves. Debaters need to step away from briefs and prioritize doing their own research and coming up with their own arguments. Coaches need to teach these skills of research and argumentation, work to instill into their competitors the value of hard work and reward efforts of debaters to create their cases on their own. 

Briefs are an amazing resource for debaters everywhere, but we can’t allow them to be the only ones. We need to bring back individualism in our space and "de-brief" debate.