PADDING SPEECHES
Introduction
Once you’ve decided your argument, written your rhetoric, and come up with what you want to say during your speech, it’s time for the last step of pre-round preparation possible in Congressional Debate… padding! Very simply, padding is the act of writing your speech down on the final medium from which you deliver it. Most commonly, this is a legal pad, but this resource will also explore some other common options that are used in the congress circuit.
Padding before the round is ideal, but it’s perfectly okay if you need to pad a speech last-minute if you’re a professional procrastinator. Since padding is the final step of pre-round preparation, it’s also the easiest part to do during the round when needed (although you should still avoid this if possible, it’s far more helpful to spend this time writing refutations or extensions instead).
Importance of Round Adaptation
One of the biggest differences between congressional debate and other speech events is the amount of in round adaptation that is necessary. In most speech events you have a pre-written speech that you might memorize and you deliver that speech over and over again. In CD, in round adaptation is necessary in order to score well. You do this in a few ways, the most common of them being refutation, which was covered in an early chapter. In order to effectively refute people, you need to be able to adapt your speech’s flow, so that it makes sense. That’s why you can’t just write down your speech word for word onto your legal pad and call it a day.
Classic Legal Padding
The most common medium of padding is a legal pad. These can be bought on Amazon for cheap — between $1.50 and $2.00 a piece. Legal pads also come in a large variety of forms, each with their own benefits and drawbacks. If you’re a debater that tends to gesture with your legal pad, you might favor a thicker one that makes gesturing with that side more difficult. Depending on the color you write with, a yellow legal pad might make things easier to read compared to a white one. Point is, find a legal pad that fits your style, whatever that might be.
Once you’ve decided which legal pad to use, it’s time to start padding your speech. The first method of padding this page will go over is traditional padding.
The biggest note with traditional padding is the shortening of phrases. The goal is to make your speech easy to understand, such that even if you get lost, it’s incredibly easy to pick up where you were without looking for your exact spot. Thus, any signposting is standardized across all speeches and never written out. Instead, write an ‘I’ to mark your impact, ‘SQ’ for status quo, or ‘W’ for warrant.
Intros should be (almost) entirely memorized, so most people don’t write more than a line explaining it. For example:
McDonalds $13/hr, rep clown > serious MinWage. Econ policy ≠ laugh, affirm.
That introduction is typically around 75 words lasting 30 seconds. But by memorizing and shortening it, you leave more room for refutations and extensions, which might not be memorized since they’re developed during the round.
The second note towards this shortening is, well, shorthand. Instead of writing ‘increase’ or ‘decrease,’ use up and down arrows. Is, isn’t, are, and aren’t all become equal or inequal signs. And just about anything else you can remember that can be shortened, should be shortened.
In terms of sources, these are typically the longest parts of a speech if fully written out, so it’s helpful to create your own system to remember different things. The New York Times could become NYT; Washington Post into WaPo, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies becomes CSIS. The list is only limited by what you can remember, so try and use common abbreviations wherever possible to make this process easier.
For more unique shorthand, stick to what you’re good at. If you’re fluent in another language and it has a shorter translation of a longer, common English phrase, it might be a smart idea to write that phrase in the other language.
👨⚖️ William Tong, a final round PO at the 2021 TOC, uses the mandarin character for Taiwan (台湾) when mentioning the island.
Since traditional padding is the standard, there aren’t really any significant pros to the method. Rather, the drawbacks of the other methods simply aren’t present and act like benefits. That is, with one exception — prepping in-round. If you’re in the middle of a round without a speech ready, it’s either impossible or unfeasible to go to a printer and print out your speech. Similarly, sticky note padding takes even longer than traditional padding, making it unpreferred during time crunches like padding in-round. Thus, regardless of the benefits of new padding methods, traditional padding remains the go-to for in-round padding situations.
As for cons, the main one is the difficulty of adapting your speech, which is the primary reason sticky notes and iPads were popularized post-pandemic. If you get dropped by the PO and need to go late-round, you’ll either end up erasing 70% of your speech or just start over from scratch. If you choose to pad before the round, time can also be an issue, with traditional padding taking substantially longer than simply printing a speech out or using an iPad.
Padding on an iPad?
Every differing type of padding style up until this point has had one thing in common: the use of a legal pad. Speeches given off of an iPad, well, don’t use a legal pad. Quite simply, they’re the most revolutionary and polarizing type of padding on the circuit.
It polarization is noted not because of a disdain for the use of iPads by competitors (most are either indifferent or in favor of such technology), but instead by local leagues and circuits. For example, the Illinois Congressional Debate Association (ICDA) outlaws debaters from using technology while speaking.
“Neither speakers nor questioners may use electronic devices while speaking or questioning.” ICDA Rule 37a
Thus, it’s incredibly important that you check with your local league rules before using an iPad to give your speech. That is, unless you’re willing to risk disqualification or forfeiture of awards.
It also can be polarizing for judges. While the vast majority of judges do not give a preference one way or another between using a legal pad or an iPad, there are a select few that may dock ranks for speaking with such technology.
This slideshow includes a compiled list of screenshots for different speeches written on an iPad.
This slideshow includes a compiled list of screenshots for different speeches written on an iPad.
Nick Ostheimer placed 4th at NSDA Nationals in Congressional Debate: House while using an iPad
So if there’s all these harms, why would anyone use iPads in the first place? One word: adaptation. If you want to completely re-organize your speech in the middle of a round, all you need is a few cuts, copies, and pastes and you’re there. If you have a card you want to add, you can just copy it straight from the website.
Adaptation is exceptionally easy for any online tournament when using a computer, and iPads replicate that for in-person tournaments.
Howevcr, like most things in life, there is not just one approach towards padding or shorthand or speechwriting. These are all suggestions and guides. For example, while Nicholas Ostheimer uses block format to write his speeches, Breck DuPaul writes out on Google Docs almost word for word. There are pros and cons to both of these methods so experiment and see what works well for you!
Check out the examples below!
For a more detailed explanation of advanced argument structure, check out Nick's lecture on YouTube.
Printed Speeches
Printed speeches is the other form of padding popular pre-pandemic. If you are one who likes to prepare and pad speeches days before the tournament starts, this might be the form for you. It’s incredibly fast compared to the alternative padding methods — just put some glue or tape down on your pad and attach the speech you’ve written out ahead of time. This speed is the primary benefit of printed speeches, and the main reason it’s so common with novices.
Similarly to traditional padding, you want to shorthand as much as possible. Although you can fit a word-for-word speech when printed, you should refrain from doing so such that you can find your spot when you’ve forgotten a phrase. After all, you shouldn’t be reading your speech off your legal pad. Instead, you should be able to pick it up every once and a while and figure out where you need to go quickly and without pausing… writing out every single word prevents you from doing that effectively.
Thus, all the notes about shorthand and notation are just as relevant in printed speeches as they are in traditional padding.
But if there’s so much time saved by simply printing speeches, why isn’t it so popular? It really comes down to three main reasons:
Memorization. You know how every teacher says “there’s been studies done, and writing notes in a notebook helps you remember content significantly more than typing them” or something like that? Well, they’re telling the truth. If you want to memorize as much of your speech as possible, writing it out instead of just typing it goes a long ways.
Inability to prep in-round. You can’t just exit the chamber, print a speech, and come back in without missing crucial information from a speech that you might need to extend or refute.
Struggle adapting your speech. This is probably the main rationale behind why printed speeches are so unpopular at the national circuit level. The whole goal with iPads and sticky notes (as this page will explain later) is to make adaptability much easier. Even with traditional padding, you can erase a line here or there without problem. With printed speeches, what’s there is there, and it’s very difficult to cross out a rehash status quo block and replace it in the margins.
Sticky Note Speeches
In the years after the COVID-19 pandemic, sticky note padding have become arguably the single most common form of padding, especially on the national circuit. Simply, sticky note speeches attempt to replicate the adaptability of online speeches for digital tournaments with the legal pad accessibility for in-person tournaments.
Here, each section of your speech (status quo, warrant, and impact) are written on sticky notes that can be easily taken off if needed. If someone gives an impact that’s identical to yours, just peel off the sticky note and add a new blank one where you can write out a new impact. Instead of erasing large parts of your speech and being unable to fit new information into the margins, sticky notes allow for a quick-and-easy switch of any area that’s suddenly become rehash.
Same with printed speeches and traditional padding, shorthand is essential. However, there can be some subtle differences with the help of your new sticky tool. Instead of writing out ‘SQ’ to represent the status quo or ‘W’ for warrant, you can opt for different colored sticky notes that represent those blocks. Maybe blue fits well for your impact, green for the status quo, and yellow for the warrant. Just make sure the colors can be easily differentiated and that your writing is clear as day (don’t use blue pen on a blue sticky note).
As for drawbacks, the main one is time. Simply put, padding with sticky notes takes substantially more time than printing that same speech or just using an iPad. It’s even slower than traditional padding, which is why the old style is still the defacto method for anyone who needs to pad in-round. So while sticky note padding prevents you from needing to start your speech from scratch, it’s not the preferred method of preparation in the rare event that you do need to.
But sticky notes also have cool benefits for speeches, even if they’re padded traditionally or printed. Specifically, they can be used to add to the margins with refutation or extensions. This is especially helpful if you want to re-use the same speech multiple times in a season, but remove the round-specific refutations that get added in after a tournament.
Round Adaptation
Ultimately, the goal of sticky note speeches and iPads is the ability to adapt your speech on the fly as the round progresses. The lacking ability to do so with traditional padding and printed speeches acts as potentially the greatest con of the methods.
So, how exactly do you adapt with your pad? Largely, this means writing in the margins of your pad. If there’s refutation you want to add or an argument you want to extend, make that note on the side of your existing speech and continue as normal.
What gets more interesting is when you have to drop an argument from your speech altogether. In these cases, you can simply peel off a sticky note or cross out that section of your speech.
The last point of round adaptation is the need to flip sides. If the debate is ever particularly one-sided, you may need to give a speech on the opposite side of the legislation than that which you’ve prepared.
In these situations, there are a few things you should do in regards to padding:
Shorthand. If you were using a few symbols and arrows before, double it when you flip. Now, the purpose isn’t just to save space, but to save time (for which shorthand is highly effective). Plus, you don’t have to worry about forgetting what your shorthand means since you’ll be speaking shortly after your speech is fully written out.
Use Traditional Padding. It’s the fastest method of padding by far, and in these situations, speed means everything.
Of course, both of these tips, and just about everything else padding-related goes out the window if you’re using an iPad. In that case, you should develop your own form of padding that best fits the technology used and the techniques you prefer.