Tufts Blogs

Your fingers are either furiously mashing your keyboard to note down the opponent’s words, or your hands are scribbling notes so fast that they ache. You have to make sure you get the central points of what your opponents are saying, but also the nitty-gritty warranting and detail, lest they use it against you. You have to think quickly, strategize, and come up with and continually refine a robust case (or, refine your systematic retort to their case). These are just some of the things I’ve done at APDA debate tournaments since coming to Tufts, and my rich engagement with the debating community has been central to my social experience in college - both in terms of strengthening my links with the student community on campus, and expanding the horizons of my social circle off campus, both within and beyond the Boston area.

I first found out about the Tufts Debate Society (TDS) when I was looking through the activity directory on JumboLife to see what I could be engaged in on campus. Unlike the other clubs I had seen, it did not have any sort of exclusive application form or barriers to joining (keep in mind most clubs at Tufts don’t, but a lot of the academic speech-oriented clubs at many other universities do, so this surprised me). Nor did it even make you join it using JumboLife like other activities would. Rather, it simply prompted you to message a certain Nicholas DeVito on Facebook Messenger for details. I was quite confused. It had been a while since I used Messenger, why was I being made to use it here? Nevertheless, the novelty excited me, and I decided to send him a message. “Hey Nick, where should I go to attend the first practice?”. He replied: “Just come to Olin 007 at 7:30”. It was a Tuesday. I decided to go.

When I entered Olin 007, I was expecting a scene that matched my stereotypes of what high school debate was like: pretentious, jargon-regurgitating people nitpicking at irrelevant points with no minds to their real-world impact. Instead, I found several casually dressed students playing rap music as they excitedly discussed their plans for the semester. At first, a lot of the jargon was incomprehensible. “Case is tight!” they said (what does it mean for a case, an abstract concept, to be “tight”?). But Nick, Katrina, Jaiden, Aiden, Jehan and the other varsities all patiently explained the basics to us and showed us a practice round - I think they were debating the politics of the European Union, but I don’t quite remember. In any case, I found the format and discussion refreshing.

As mentioned before, Tufts’ debate team operates with the APDA (American Parliamentary) format as its main focus and within the associated circuit. In APDA, there are two teams, Government and Opposition, which discuss a case (written before rounds by Government, or assigned by the tournament in certain cases), and either defend or reject the proposition. Each team has two speakers: a Leader (who delivers a 7:30 (government) or 8:30 (opposition) opening speech, and a 5:30 (government) or 4:30 (opposition) closing speech), and a Member (who delivers an 8:30 speech). The leader of the government (PM) speaks first, followed by the leader of the opposition (LO), and then the member of government (MG), member of opposition (MO), followed by the leader of the opposition's closing speech, and finally, the debate is closed by the PM. 

Each speech must fulfill important strategic roles. I like to give both Member and Leader speeches: Member speeches because I get to deconstruct the framework given by the other side down to its most basic assumptions and reconstruct the debate in favor of our side, and leader speeches because I get to clearly weigh the advantages and disadvantages of various positions to the judge. Because most tournaments allow people to write about their own topics of interest, I’ve debated a wide range of interesting issues: from the proposition to change Trans Day of Remembrance to Trans Day of Visibility, to whether art museums about ethnic minorities should be focused on modern art or their traditional art, to motions regarding whether Batman or Superman would win in a fight, and the role of redlining in international relations, all of it has been debated in the same rigorous manner. And because the debates have to be fair (after all, either no side knows what’s being debate beforehand, or only government knows), your prior knowledge is irrelevant: it is about adaptively using your reasoning in the moment to come to sound arguments and make smart rebuttals, while reinforcing your stance. 

But perhaps the best part of having been on the debate team is the community. The varsities (many of whom form the e-board, or executive board, of the club) have been friendly to us novices (first-year debaters) along every step of the way. We have socials almost every other week, and interact with one another in an informal capacity all the time - heck, I just got out of a fun debate team social tonight right as I was doing the finishing touches on this article! From providing valuable feedback after my first tournament at Boston University to helping me celebrate my Top 20 speaker award and advancement to Novice Quarterfinals at the Columbia tournament, they’ve been here with me along every step of the way. My fellow novices have become my fast friends, and they’re always done for a dorm meetup or some playful banter - sometimes much needed for stress relief, especially when I have exams. And who needs more than thrilling arguments and a great community? Join TDS!