American Parliamentary Debate Association

By Danny Jaffe, Brandeis University ’17 If you spend some time on APDA, you will almost certainly be in a round where it is necessary to know some debate theory.…

By Rebecca Heller, Georgetown University ’16 Not every APDA tournament has enough experienced judges to adjudicate every round. This means that some tournaments use “campus judges,” or students of the…

By: Henry Zhang, Yale University 2017 Note: This article is specifically geared towards novices who participated in high school debate. If you did not participate in high school debate, consider reading…

By: Adele Zhang, Barnard College 2015 The “Overview” at the top of the Member speeches is a stylistic choice that many debaters on APDA tend to favor. It is a…

By: Ben Kornfeld, Yale University 2013 Every debater, even the best, has the occasional mental lapse. Positions are taken that were not well thought out, a contradictory advocacy is provided…

By: Sean Leonard, Rutgers University 2016 Whether you’re pretending it didn’t happen on your side, losing horribly to one in PMR that you missed throughout the round, or delivering an…

By: Young Seol, Brown University 2014 One of the best ways to improve as a debater, particularly for novices without any prior debate experience, is to simply watch lots of…

By: Jodie Goodman, Swarthmore College 2016 Some tournaments, like American University Pro-Ams, are called straight-linked tournaments. At the beginning of each round, one or more topics will be presented to…

By: Pete Falk, Northeastern University 2016 On APDA, “winning the room” means getting the judge and other people watching the round to think you are winning, or support you, whether…

By: Pete Falk, Northeastern University 2016 In order to win a debate round, you need to show why what you’re saying is important, and why it is more important than…