I am giving up on predicting that I will be more regular about posting to this blog. I really have the best of intentions, but often get caught up in other things and neglect it for so long it is almost embarrassing to post again! 
But, I’m going to post now and hopefully post again soon – no promises!
I wanted to update the previous list of resources that I provided on this blog with some additional resources that have appeared online since then. Some of these are additional items on the National Debate Coaches Association’s website – which, in my humble opinion, is the best policy debate resource out there at this point. Some are new wikis available to the debate community. Some are simply spots in already existing webpages that have some great consolidation of items from around the web. Hopefully, you will find it helpful.
This blog is designed for high school policy debate, but I find that most of the information is just as applicable to college policy debate. They have three or four high school coaches (most of whom had pretty successful college debating careers) who write for them and I have started forwarding some posts to my college debaters as discussion and educational items. The comment section of a lot of the posts offer just as much educational information as the posts themselves. This is another resource offered by the NDCA and its a great one!
Introduction to Policy Debate Textbook
Planet Debate has taken a number of great articles written over the years and put them into a single location organized in a usable format for educators. I found it when looking for Dan Shalmon’s “Consult NATO” article from the Hitchiker’s Guide and I’m glad I did. Articles like these are great educational resources for debaters who may not have access to a ton of experienced coaching, but are motivated to learn more about different debate arguments. Its also a great resource for teachers who would like to organize their classes with reading material, etc.
With the surge in paperless debate this coming year, these resources are going to be important. There are a number of pages available on paperless debate, but since Whitman was the first large squad to go completely paperless and is kind of leading the charge for other teams, I decided to link to their page in particular. If you want a broader perspective, you can check out the Paperless Debate Wiki.
This is yet another NDCA project. Although it does not focus totally on debate education, it is a great resource for students and coaches alike. It has quite a few educational resources (Maggie Berthiaume has posted some great stuff on institute attendance and electronic resources from summer institutes), some travel resources (for example a chart of airline fees for baggage, etc.), and some great “issues facing debate” posts.
I am going to have a separate post on topic specific resources for this year’s debate topic, but these are general resources that, in combination with the list I previously posted, should put people on pretty good ground as far as policy debate is concerned! Enjoy!
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