Thanks to Ian for a great time on his podcast. It makes me want to fire up In the Bin again, but what doesn’t? The only thing about In the Bin is that I no longer have regular updates or contact with the tournament-debating world. Although this is overwhelmingly a good thing – nearly all those relationships turned out to be utilitarian at best and parasitic at worst – it is a shame that there’s no grist for the mill. Tournament-debate is always doing something wrong.

I’ve assigned and have read (!) Alexander Hiland’s book A Short Guide to Policy Debate in which he very blatantly states many times how disinterested the tournament-oriented practice of intercollegiate debate is in argumentation theory. He doesn’t seem concerned that debate takes a theory like Toulmin’s and just manipulates it to make the tournament competition work better. It’s a good guide to policy debating, but it’s not as good as Finding your Voice which since it was actually good is no longer in print. So it goes.