The Art of Rebuttals | Emma Lo

[MUSIC] >> Imagine a cookie. >> A really good cookie. >> Now imagine more. >> This is pretty much the on point podcast. I'm Nolan Schrode. >> Sorry, I was eating glizzy. And I'm Avian Grant. >> Wait, Avian! [MUSIC] >> He's found his linging for the new episode of the on point podcast. >> I have never listened to that. I mean, I love that podcast. And if that audio wasn't clear enough, your speaker today is Emma Pukila. >> And interviewing her is Luke Podcaster Elshoff. >> Emma Lowe is a D1 yapper who specializes in specifically online debate. >> She gets all of her tips from r/what and we'll be sharing those with you today. >> And Luke is adorable. And I guess he has other experiences as well. >> Welcome to me and Avian's podcast, Emma and Luke. [MUSIC] >> Hello and welcome back to the on point podcast. Today I'm joined by Emma Lowe. And let me pull up this list of achievements she sent me. So Emma Lowe has been doing limited props recently. And I think this season so far she's qualified for apologetics or pre-qualified for apologetics. And she's won multiple tournaments to the extent. And then in terms of debate, this is her sixth year, fifth year in debate. But this is her third year in team policy. She's made nationals every single year. And for team policy, she's pre-qualified to nationals each year as well. Just pretty cool. This year she's won three tournaments and made it to finals in a fourth. In a fourth, do you mean four tournaments? >> Yeah, so four tournaments in the finals, one three of them. >> Okay, that's cool. Well, thank you so much for joining me today, Emma. I really appreciate it. >> Yeah, of course. >> Cool, so today we're going to be discussing rebuttals. I think specifically in team policy because you said this is your third year in team policy. You've had some Lincoln Douglas experience, right? >> Yeah, I started out with Lincoln Douglas for my first two years of debate, but the last three years have been team policy. >> Okay, and I think team policy in terms of what we're going to be discussing today is much more applicable in team policy. Rebuttals is much more applicable to team policy. But I'm sure some Lincoln Douglasers can apply some things from this interview as well. But before we move on to rebuttals, I think it's important to talk about one thing that I've noticed as I've watched some of your debate runs, especially in finals, is that you have a very, I guess, particular cadence when you speak in terms of your speaking style. Is this something that came naturally to you? Or is it something that you tried to practice over time to become better at speaking, having a professional tone throughout? Because that's one thing that I've noticed a lot from you and your partner. It's like, you guys almost are lawyers that are coming up on the podium and talking all professional with this extensive vocabulary. Is this something that you practiced? I would say working on varied vocabulary throughout the round is definitely something that I've practiced. I would say the cadence of my voice and how professional it sounds is something that came naturally to me from the beginning. And I've actually had to dial it back. I've had judges tell me to be more conversational in debate and speeches. So that's actually something that I've tried to dial back from the beginning because I don't want to have a "debatery tone" while I speak. And a lot of judges like that more conversational style. But yes, like using an extensive vocabulary sounding confident about what you're talking about. Essentially, spaking it till you make it is the approach that I've taken to debate speeches to everything. Because when you speak with confidence, that automatically gives you a much more professional sound. And it also gives you the ability to expand your vocabulary as well. Because if you're not confident in what you're saying and what you're speaking, then I think it's really hard to do those things. Right. It's funny because I think most speakers, they actually try the opposite strategy that you're doing. They start off really conversational and they want to be more professional as they speak, but you're the other way around. So that must be interesting. Yeah, it's been a unique journey. That's fun. So let's move on to now that we're talking about your speaking style. Tell me a little bit about your rebuttal style. Or I guess like you and your partners or partners throughout the years, has your rebuttal style changed over time? Or is there some type of emphasis that you like to make with how you do your rebuttals? Is there any strategy or approach that you take when you take prep time or in the round? Just give me a general rundown of your rebuttal style. Sure. So I've had three different partners over the three years of TP. And I would say my rebuttal style has changed. And that's sort of, depending on the partner too, because of their strengths and weaknesses, it's more valuable for me to exhibit different strengths and weaknesses, I think, with each partner. And I think also part of changing my style has been, of course, growing in my own strengths and figuring out what works best for rebuttals. Now, for a little bit of context, every single year, I've always been the 1N and the 2A. So I've never actually personally been like the 2N or the 1A. I've seen my partners do it every single year, but I personally haven't had experience there. So I'd say specifically for 1N and 2A, my approach to those is a little bit different, because in the first negative rebuttal, I would say my approach there is a lot more detail-oriented, because I'm responding to the entirety of the 1AC's case. And one thing that I've developed specifically this year is bringing a lot of clarity to the round in that first negative rebuttal, because I view my job to bring the focus back to the negative, as final speech of the negative block, and then to set my partner up for success in the 2NR, so that I'm thoroughly responding to their speech, convincing the judge of why a negative ballot is warranted, and then of course setting up my partner so that they can finish out the round in the 2NR. So I think that's a little bit more of a specific approach. And as a 2A, I would say my main focus there is of course bringing it all the way back to the affirmative narrative, the entire main idea that we've pushed throughout the round. Yes, it's responding to the specific arguments of the negative, but throughout the speech, starting and ending it with that specific affirmative narrative, I think has been really helpful. So that's a little bit about my approach this year to that, and we can go more depth about my specific approach for this year. How it's changed over the years though is, I would say in my first year, I was still figuring out what to do with team policy debate. And I think my approach that year was more just focusing on my 4-point refutation, getting the arguments. I used a lot of grouping arguments that year, and I think my 4-point refutation that year was a little bit lacking because I would respond to something, but I wouldn't always tag what I was responding to. I wouldn't always impact the argument. And that's something that I think I've honed throughout the years. Last year, our approach as a team was a lot more narrative-based, so we approached the round with a very specific idea and thread, but I think also within that, I lost some of my specifics-oriented responses. And then this year, I gained some of that back in terms of responding to arguments very specifically. But again, I also am trying to still keep that narrative-based approach that I've woven in throughout my other years that honestly started with LD, because LD really helps you to create that narrative-based approach. That's true. As a former LD year, I can definitely confirm that part. I want to touch on one thing that you mentioned, which is you're this 2A for affirmative and then the 1N. I've noticed that a lot of teams do this. I personally don't. What advantage do you see in splitting what speaking position you are, depending on what side you're on? I think the advantage here is that specifically, it has always played to our strengths, because I'm very good at detail-oriented presses, and that has been really good for a 1N, but in terms of synthesizing the round and bringing it down to the main points. For the negative sides specifically, my partner has always been better at that than I have been. So that's why I've been the 1N every single year. But for 2A, I'm also, when I know the topic really well, I'm good at bringing it down to the main points, bringing it back to the narrative, which is why I've been the 2A every single year as well. So I would say it definitely depends on each specific partner's strengths and weaknesses as to whether it's beneficial to splitting the rounds or not. Okay, yeah. I can definitely relate to that at some level. In terms of rebuttal and how you position yourself in the round, what do you take into account first? Is it the response to the arguments, or is it the stance that you take in the round, the narrative that you try to pose? How do you frame your arguments in that way throughout the rebuttals? Do you just weave a narrative throughout the speeches, or do you just try to respond to the arguments in terms of just beating those arguments out so that just by sheer argumentation, what's your approach in terms of refutation of these arguments? I think both are absolutely necessary, and in terms of the narrative, it's not as though you just have to keep on repeating yourself for every single response, and you're not bringing up any sort of substance or a response that's specifically oriented to the argument. I would say where the narrative comes in is when you're impacting your argument to the round. That is, you give a very nuanced response to the argument that you're trying to respond to. You use four-point refutation. Of course, you use the evidence that's been presented in the round. You use the details that's been presented in the round. But then how you impact that argument out to the judge, I think, is where you can also bring your narrative in. So, for example, if you're facing a case that is very much based off of nominally doing something versus actually impacting the real world, then when you're responding to an argument, then you can say how this impacts the round is then it essentially... It essentially, for lack of a better word, it brings it back to your narrative. You can... I'm sorry. I'm trying to think of it as an example off the top of my head. I think what you can do is that when you're responding to the argument, you then, of course, you bring it back to your narrative by telling the judge how this specific argument, this significance argument... Well, you can't, for example, like motorcycle helmets. You can't tell whether a motorcycle helmet is an HGSA appropriate or not. And then how you impact that to the round is this plays into the fact that their policy does nothing to affect the current system, which is why an affirmative ballot isn't warranted. So, again, bringing it back into that narrative. I think the narrative also you can use in terms of introducing your speech and then concluding your speech, telling the judge how all of these specific arguments relate to each other is through this one big picture idea, and that's why their policy fails. Okay, that's really good. I appreciate that. And we're going to go back to impacting and impact calculus a little bit later in this episode. But for now, I want to take a little bit more time to examine the positions and how it differentiates or how it's different from one side to the other. So what would you say is like the general approach that the affirmative team does besides reinstating their narrative compared to the negative team? How do these two sides clash in terms of like principle as they're debating each other? What do you mean by in terms of principle? Like, for example, affirmative, they're trying to go back to the narrative. But what is like their goal in the rebuttal? And how does that differentiate from the negative team's goal in the rebuttal? I think actually both sides have a very similar goal, which is to convince the judge that a ballot is warranted for them and not for the other team. So as an affirmative team, I think your approach should be to show the judge why you have presented all of the evidence that is necessary in order to warrant an affirmative ballot, why your policy is evidentiary backed, and it's also backed in terms of the principle that you're building your policy off of. So as an affirmative team, I think that that's the primary goal, is to show that the evidence backs up your case, and this is sufficient contrary to what the negative team claims. I think on the negative side, your ultimate goal again is to convince the judge, not necessarily beat down all the arguments and say, "I win," because that's not necessarily going to convince the judge 100% of the time. I think what negative teams need to keep in mind is that the judge wants something to vote for, not necessarily just to vote against the negative team. So it's to offer a reason to the judge why siding with the negative team leaves the status quo in a better place than what the affirmative team would do. So it's telling the judge why a ballot is warranted for you and not just merely because the affirmative team hasn't presented just a non-evidentiary back case. Of course, that's an argument that you should make in terms of being a negative team, but if we're talking about stock issue of significance is what I'm really getting at, is that if you're talking about stock issue of significance, a lot of judges won't exactly be fully convinced by that unless you give them something to vote for. So as a negative team, you're also trying to aim to show why your side is evidentiary backed, why the evidence sides with you as a negative team and why it shows that the current system is better than the one that the affirmative team would be implementing. And then, of course, as a negative team, I think you also have the dual responsibility to show why the affirmative, of course, isn't evidentiary backed and that can be persuasive, but I think the most persuasive point is when you can show that the affirmative doesn't have the evidence behind them. They're not upholding their burden, but at the same time, as a negative, as when the judge votes for you, they're leaving the world in a better place. Right. I'm going to piggyback off something that you said that I really liked, is that you want to give the judge some substance on what they're actually voting for. You can't just say, "Oh, they don't have the evidence in order to quantify their harms. You can't prove their plan, and so we can't vote for them." But you need to give them an actual reason for voting for the negative team and impact your argument. And so on that note, when do you think, what do you think the balance is between refuting arguments and convincing the judge that your plan is, or not your plan, your side is more superior? I think both go hand in hand. And if we go back to the basic idea of four-point refutation, if you're thinking about it just beating down, the arguments would be the first three steps. So telling the judge what the argument is, responding to it, giving your reason. And then how you weave in why the judge should vote for you is in that fourth step of four-point refutation that is impacting your argument to the round. And I think that's something really important and something that I've had to work on my entire debate career and something that I think everyone can work on to some extent is telling the judge after you make your argument why this matters to the round. And that makes your arguments go hand in hand with convincing the judge and, of course, beating down the arguments of the affirmative team. Right. And I think another thing that goes hand in hand with that with beating down the arguments and also impacting it to the judge to convince them is really goes back to organization and how you, as you yourself mentioned, like four-point refutation, how you organize your speeches. And so I want to kind of shift our attention to like more of the organizational aspect of rebuttals. What strategy do you take in terms of organizing your speeches? Do you clump your arguments to respond to them line by line? What are the benefits and the cons to each strategy? Sure. So I personally use a combination of both of the two because I've tried both extremes and found that for me personally, it works better if I use a combination. I'll respond. I'll try to respond line by line. But if I notice that there is very similar arguments, like say in the first part of their speech and then maybe like halfway down in another part of their speech, I will respond to both of those arguments at the same time. But in going line by line, when I reach that second argument that was halfway down the speech that I already responded to, I'll refer the judge back to my earlier response so that it's still line by line, but I've clumped the response earlier in the speech, if that makes sense. In terms of both strategies, there are pros and cons definitely to both of them. For line by line, it makes it very clear to the judge that you've responded to all the arguments and then of course what your responses are, which I think is really helpful, especially for bringing clarity to the round, making sure that the judge doesn't miss any of your arguments, which is a common pitfall I think of clumping, is that you can miss arguments that you respond to just because you forget because you're jumping all over the place, and the judge can also forget that you responded to a specific argument if you don't clearly draw the line for the judge as to which arguments you responded to. So that's a strength of line by line. The downfall of line by line is that it can water down your responses because if there's a lot of arguments that you need to get to, it severely cuts down on the time you have to expand on your responses. And if you have responses that are very similar, then you're basically repeating yourself for two sections of a speech when you have a very limited time to address the arguments, and oftentimes a quick response for a complicated argument, a quick response isn't going to cut it, and you're going to need to expand upon the argument at hand. So there are pros and cons to line by line. And then for clumping, the pros and cons are pretty much the exact opposite. Clumping isn't quite, I would say, as organized as line by line. You can easily miss responses, you or the judge. But clumping also saves you time in that when you're responding to multiple arguments at once, you can flush out that particular response in order to include all the nuance that you wanted to. Yeah, for sure. And so one thing that you mentioned was, in reference to responding to a lot of the arguments, and especially in the wanting R, it can be a big burden to respond to all the arguments. And the responses sometimes get watered down because of the amount of responses that you have to respond to. I worded that wrong. But you get my point. With wanting R, when you have all these responses, how do you balance the responses with what you're actually trying to say? So my question to you is, how do you balance your time? Well, what techniques have you done for time management? Obviously, you're not the wanting R. But in terms of time management in general, how do you keep yourself on track of the arguments that you're doing? And is this a struggle that you've had? Yes, it is definitely a struggle that I've had. I think it's a struggle that every single debater has is trying to keep on time with your responses. I would say prioritizing the responses that take the most time at first definitely is a priority because the responses that are quick often are for arguments that aren't important to the round and really aren't going to be voting issues at the end of the day. So if you are running out of time, again, prioritize those big arguments, the arguments that will be ballot against you if you don't respond to them adequately. Whereas some other minor responses, oftentimes if you drop them, the opposite team will drop them too because they realize that that argument at the end of the day isn't going to sway the ballot. So priority number one, prioritizing your responses. And then number two, working on concise responses. So for this, I think especially for the affirmative and the one AR, it's really good to either one, practice your responses beforehand or to at least think about the main points that you want to address in your response because thoroughly you're going to be receiving the same arguments most of the time on affirmative, at least the same big arguments against your case. And if you think about those responses beforehand, if you think through what you want to say beforehand, and that helps you be more succinct and concise during the round. Gotcha. So how would practicing those responses actually go? Like just thinking about the common arguments against your case, maybe stealing someone's negative brief, and then seeing what they're going to say against your case, and then just practice speaking against those arguments. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, I think it also comes from running the same case at multiple tournaments is after the first tournament, you're going to figure out what the main arguments are against your case. And personally, since I mean, I haven't been away, but for my 2AC, I've also had to think about responses beforehand, because as the 2A, I want to get through all the responses of the 1N, and then bring up my own points to the round to further expand our case. So being concise is also really necessary there, so that I can set up the rest of the round for success for us, in terms of expanding our case. So for what I've done for there is, yes, think about the responses that I'm going to have. Sometimes I've also scripted out the response, because the very act of scripting it out forces me to be concise in wording what my response is going to be. Do I read my scripted response in round? No. But I know exactly what I want it to look like, so that it can be concise and effective at the same time. Okay. That makes a lot of sense. I'm going to take you back to an answer that you had to one of my questions. I'll be back when I ask you what your goals were with rebuttals for the 2, or not the 2, the affirmative and the negative. And you mentioned that it goes back to evidence, and how which side can prove their position best with evidence. More so the affirmative team, because the negative team doesn't have to prove it with evidence. Just disprove the evidence the affirmative team presented. But on the note of evidence, what is your approach with evidence in rebuttals? Because I know a lot of judges and competitors alike may just go out and scream, "Oh, rebuttal abuse, you can't bring evidence into the rebuttals." That's not fair. But I think there is some level of fairness to bringing evidence in the rebuttals. And so when do you bring up evidence in the rebuttals? And do you bring up evidence for repeat arguments? And what's your general policy for bringing up evidence in the rebuttals? Yeah, so I mean general policy for rebuttals is you're expanding upon arguments, you're not bringing new arguments into round. Now what that doesn't mean is, it doesn't mean you can't have a new response to an argument that has already been brought up. Like you can respond to an argument in a new way. I'd say I couch that with a little bit of caveat for the 2AR, is that if you've been responding to an argument a certain way in the entire round, and then you completely do a 180 and change your entire response in the 2AR, I would question the ethics of that particular approach. But in terms of bringing up evidence in rebuttals, I would say it's absolutely okay. And I think it's actually very appropriate to bring up evidence in rebuttals because arguments should have warrants behind them. And that doesn't mean you throw out your warrants for the rebuttals. It means that you bring up the warrants in the rebuttals, but you're not bringing up entirely new out-of-left field arguments. So personally, I do bring up evidence in the 1AR. My partner brings up evidence in the 1AR. Sometimes there will be evidence in the 2AR, less so. And then usually in the 2AR evidence, all the evidence has been presented in the round already. Sometimes it is necessary to bring up something that's already been read into round just to remind the judge that is already there. The negative team has forgotten about it. So I'd say it's a very, very rare case when you would bring up a new piece of evidence in the 2AR and for it to actually be ethically okay. Right. Yeah, I agree with you on that. But let's say that you have a very particular case, or you're debating a very specific case, that you really need to have evidence in order to properly debate it. And they bring up like these points in the 2AC. And you're in the rebuttal or maybe 2NR, whatever the case may be. And you have like all these pieces of evidence that you need to respond to it. But you also have to balance that with actually responding to the arguments that they presented. So I guess when you have to use evidence in the rebuttals, how do you balance not making new points to clarify your position in the round against their team? But also how do you balance that evidence with the responses to the arguments that they're presenting? Yeah. So the evidence, are you saying that the evidence wouldn't be related to responses at all? Right. So like it's a case that let's say it's really specific. And in order to like clarify your position as a negative team, I guess maybe like some general points on what their case actually is about. You need to clarify that in the speech. Or else you don't really have grounds to debate them on their arguments. How would you balance that with actually responding to their case? Or which would you prioritize? I would prioritize the clarification first, absolutely. Because if you don't establish that ground work or that framework upon which you're debating, then all of your other responses there, if they're not going to be valid upon the affirmative framework or the negatives framework, then you absolutely have to clarify the framework at the beginning of your speech. I would keep it succinct and short. Tell the judge why their framework isn't appropriate for the round, why your framework is appropriate for the round. If you have evidence about it, bring that up. I would say keep the evidence as short and succinct as possible. And that comes with cutting your evidence wisely. So picking out the phrases that is really going, that are necessary for you to read. And then anything that's unnecessary, just fluff. Don't read that through the evidence. Use your rhetoric and your reasoning to impact that evidence to the round. And that's going to be much more persuasive. You reading fluff from the evidence and then repeating the fluff yourself. So yes, clarifying first, absolutely. But keeping it succinct and short. And then also, I think distinguishing to the judge that this is a clarification, not a response. So you're clarifying the round. I think before I'd like to get into my responses, there are two clarifications I'd like to make. First is this, second is that. Now with that, I'd like to get into my responses. Right. So I'd like to move on to probably like the last section of this episode, which I think is probably the most important. I'm sure you can agree, which is impacting. And specifically like impact calculus. Do you actively try to calculate the impact of the arguments that have been presented in the round? And do you do that for both the affirmative and the negative team? Yes. So for impact calculus, absolutely. I would say do that for both affirmative and negative. Tell the judge why your argument should be prioritized over the other team's argument. And exactly why that matters to the round. And I think in terms of impact calculus, you're not calculating numerically per se. This argument is a tiny bit more important than the last argument, but a little less important than the next one. I would say most arguments, they can either be one of two things. They can be an argument that warrants your ballot or an argument that's persuasive, but not exactly a voting issue. So if you have an important argument that absolutely decides the round, then yes, you tell that to the judge. If this argument alone warrants an affirmative or negative ballot because of XYZ, because an affirmative team needs to prove that they have a significant impact on the current system, because the negative team needs to prove that our policy won't actually deliver the advantages that it has, and they simply haven't responded to this the entire round. So telling the judge why this reason alone is a reason to vote for your side, I think is probably the most effective way that you can use impact calculus rather than just trying to nuance the arguments in terms of where they rank on the ladder of importance. That's not exactly helpful, I think would be confusing to a judge. So just delineating between those two types of arguments is good. Yeah, because I've done this with impact calculus and specific teams and even like Ethos blog posts, it can get into like the real nitty-gritty aspects of debate theory, talking about all these advanced techniques and methods that you can use to show why at the end of the day your arguments to be valued the highest through impact calculus, you look at these different things, like you bring out a calculator, you look at both arguments, if you got which one has the most value, it can get really, really advanced really fast. And so I guess your style from what I got from your answer, it's not going into all of these advanced methods, but just bringing it back to the basics and looking at which argument should be valued the most. Do you look at every single argument in that way? And that's how you really respond to it through four point refutation. Or do you just prioritize the arguments that mean the most to the judge and the round? And do you look at both sides and those arguments and show why your side so when at the end of the day? Which of those two sides do you pick? I think actually those two sides can go hand in hand because the arguments that matter most to the judge are going to be the ones that are again most important to the round and those ones you will use four point refutation in order to respond to those. I think it's important to try and respond to every single argument in the round, but some responses don't need to be lengthy responses that are entirely fleshed out. If it's just a question, oh, what is this mandate in your policy exactly mean? That takes a one or two-centage response and it doesn't exactly really matter to the round as long as you've clarified yourself. It's not going to be a voting issue or swaying the judge. But in terms of responding to the arguments that again are most important to the judge, yes, you just need to bring it back to the basics because as you were talking about debate theory, it can get really complicated. You can bring out a calculator, you can say, oh, significance is more important than solvency or inherency is more important than disadvantages and we have to weigh those first. But honestly, your everyday judge, even your everyday parent judge who's been around in the league for a long time, probably isn't going to care about your idea of debate theory. They're going to obviously care about, oh, well, advantages versus disadvantages. Have they upheld that their policy is needed in the current system? But those types of basic questions are going to be what they're asking, not necessarily if I took out my calculator and then assigned this point value to each of the stock issues and then assigned the point value to each of the advantages, disadvantages. I think this one weighs a little bit more than that one. They're not going to be doing that. They're going to be examining it as a policymaker one, not necessarily a debate nerd one. Right, yeah. And I think one of the things that you mentioned is talking about the best arguments have been brought up through the rounds. And because you're the 2A, I think this is most pertinent to you. Because when you're the 2A, you probably have responded to the same arguments every single speech, let's say. Especially depending on your case, you probably have the same responses and you've echoed those responses throughout all of your speeches. So as you're 2A and the last speech is, do you do voting issues? And is that really your way to, I guess, summarize or encapsulate the arguments that have been going on throughout the round? And in the voting issues, do you specifically refute the arguments themselves or do you just summarize and show why at the end of the day your side should be preferred? Yeah, so I've done it both ways. I do include voting issues for every single round because I think that tells the judge exactly why you should vote for the affirmative team and even if your voting issues are short, I think it's important to at least name what they are for the judge so that they have something tangible to walk away from the round with. Now, in terms of whether you refute within your voting issues or whether you're just summarizing your position because you refuted the arguments earlier in your speech, I think both methods are valid and I think it's simply what works better for you as a debater and what works better in terms of the specific round that you're in. Because if the round is very geared towards your narrative and if all of the responses are within, say, the idea of your voting issues, like if they're all within the idea of security, you can respond to all of those within your voting issue. And that would be probably the easiest method to go because it's building your narrative and taking down the negatives narrative at the same time. Now, where I think it's valuable to respond to arguments and then leave the negative scene behind and then focus solely on affirmative arguments is when there are numerous detail-oriented responses that don't necessarily relate to your narrative but more relate to the schematics of your case. So that, I think, would be helpful to respond to before your voting issues because if you respond within your voting issues, it actually detracts from your narrative and it takes away from the main idea of your case because you're trying to focus on all of these, say, solvency-related issues within a voting issue that's supposed to be about the advantages of your case. So just using a more nuanced approach that way, finding out what works best for you as a debater, what works best in terms of the ballots, and then also, again, examining what type of arguments are you responding to and should they be put in a voting issue? Maybe, maybe not. Right. You can definitely get distracted really easily in your voting issues with my new points that have been presented in the round. I've definitely caught myself doing that on several occasions. But absolutely, that you're a new debater or even an advanced debater. And one thing that I've learned from this interview is it goes back to impacting, impacting, impacting, impacting. It's super important to the round and to your position. And so if you're a new debater or more an advanced debater, how do you get better at impacting or how do you get better at rebuttals? How do you practice this? Do you have any drills or practice techniques that you've used or would recommend anyone to use to become better at the rebuttals, to become better as a team, so that you have that edge in the round? Yeah, so there's a couple of things. First of all, it all comes back to the basics because it's not about using fancy debate theory in the rebuttals or nuancing your arguments so that according to X, Y, Z theory, that then you automatically win. I think what you need to focus on is first your four-point refutation skills. So again, ensuring that you first tell the judge what argument you're responding to. You give your response. You give the reasoning behind your response to the warrant for your claim. And then lastly, you tell the judge why that matters to the round. And that's sort of what we've been talking about this entire episode is how you impact your arguments to the round. So just practicing with your responses, with common negative response, with negative arguments that you're going to give. Practice that with your partner, with your parents, with your friends. Just giving your response, giving, again, your reasoning for your response. And then most importantly, explaining why that matters to the round. I think just doing that drill, four-point refutation, outside of rounds is really helpful. So just practicing that on, yeah, whenever you can. And I think secondly, in terms of getting the edge in the round, I think what you mentioned in your question was something important that I want to touch on is communication with your partner. Because if you don't communicate with your partner, if you don't talk about the arguments, then you're going to seem as a disjointed team. And something that I've had to work on throughout the years is communicating with each of my partners. This has been a little bit different every single year. And the way we work together has been a little bit different every single year, but still communicating to each other. What we think are the most important arguments in the round, but most importantly, why that matters to the round. We'll often pass sticky notes back and forth, just what my partner and I would do pretty much every single year. We pass sticky notes back and forth, writing down exactly what this means for the round, why they're wrong, telling each other those things. I think is really helpful within rounds to try and gain that edge as well. All right, so I guess from now on, you can cast me at family reunions practicing my four-point reputation. So thank you so much for your tips and your tricks and your advice and your insight and everything that you've done in this episode. I really appreciate it. And of course, thanks for joining me today, Emma. Yeah, thank you for inviting me. Of course.