We don't just view our brochure as a promotional tool. We view it as a concrete promise to potential clients - namely, you. If you attend, you'll receive the following, in addition to the quality guest lectures and daily high quality instruction:
1. PRACTICE
When you arrive, you'll receive at least two hundred pages of fully briefed original topic research. This starter set will not supplant your research efforts, but will enable us to begin practice debates immediately. Your first debate will occur within 72 hours of your arrival.
You will participate in at least ten full, critiqued debates before you depart.
You will receive a minimum of one page of written feedback on each of these debates.
Every practice round will be recorded and made electronically available to interested debates and coaches.
2. SKILLS DEVELOPMENT
Each debater will participate in a minimum of six one-hour skill sessions.
These sessions will include rebuttal redos, and "speech editing," in which we record a speech, transcribe it, then work one on one on the transcript in order to construct a power speech.
Each conventional redo will be recorded and made electronically available to interested debaters and coaches.
3. TRANSPARENCY AND COLLABORATION
Too often, debate institutes are a black box. Coaches and debaters see what goes in - they see what comes out - but the rest of the process is utterly opaque. As a coach, I've had no experience more frustrating than this conversation:
"Jojo, I don't think you should have gone for seven issues in the 2NR."
"But Debate Guru said it would be sweet this summer."
"I'm deeply skeptical of that claim."
"You weren't there! She said so!"
We don't want that. It seems at least faintly absurd to ask you for a substantial investment without letting you in on the internals.
In that spirit, our day by day schedule will be posted for your inspection PRIOR to the institute's beginning, so that students and coaches can provide us feedback before the learn train leaves the station.
You'll receive electronic records of all practice and rebuttal sessions.
You'll receive a record of every lecture.
A wiki will detail argument development as it occurs.
At the end of the session, each coach will receive a single page detailing their student's progress throughout the institute.
If you have criticisms or your own suggestions, tell us - we will consider them and respond promptly to your requests. At Georgetown, you are not a money tree. You are a stakeholder.
4. RESEARCH
You will do it. We will do it. We do not view our skills emphasis as a tradeoff with hard work. Over the course of the institute, we hope to develop two affirmatives and complementary case negatives, several generic disadvantage positions, two broadly applicable counterplans and one high quality critical position.
We don't intend to produce a comprehensive brief set for the entire year. That model's obsolete. However, we intend to produce enough good evidence that a debater could win a season opener employing our evidence set.
