Here are some ridiculous whip myths I have heard during my five years debating for Hart House. "I should summarize the content brought by all the teams in the round." "Whip speeches must be sorted by themes." "I should not add any new content in a whip speech." Let's go through each of these myths and explain how to construct a persuasive whip speech.
Content in whips
Different debaters have two vastly different problems with whip speeches: no content, or too much content. We will start with the first problem: not enough content.
Avoiding adding new content and only summarizing your extension is the fastest way to get low speaks and lose debate rounds. The judges have already tracked your partner's speech — they do not need repetition. Instead, they need new reasons why you are winning. To that end, whips are the best place to add in content which wins you the round.
- There is little opportunity for other teams to respond, so you can sound authoritative.
- You speak near the end of the debate, so the judges are zoned in and have your speech fresh in their minds as they deliberate.
- Since you speak at the end, you can strategically reposition your teammate's extension to win, even if it wasn't explained properly.
Yes, you cannot explicitly add certain forms of content. You cannot run a brand new argument which is not rooted in your extension's case. You cannot add a new mechanism which is distinct from your extension's.
But here is what you can do to add new content:
Add context. Point out additional context about the world which changes how certain arguments interact in the round. Your partner needs to have a case/mechanism/impact relevant to the new context, or other teams need to have arguments which have been a main clash throughout the round. Common error: not explaining the implication of your context to the judge.
"Blow up" the impact. Make your partner's impact seem very important by adding more depth to it. Weigh on multiple metrics, add second-degree impacts, add new impacts which are tangential to the main impact but still a result of the mechanism. Common error: weighing or impacts too far removed from your partner's case, so the judge does not credit you. Ask yourself: will a judge be certain my whip is directly connected to my partner when they first hear the speech?
Flipping and weighing. Flip an opponent's argument and weigh the harms of the flip. Useful when your extension is not saveable and you need to win in one speech. Requirements: (1) identify a mechanism and impact your opponent has claimed, (2) show why their outcome is actually a benefit for your side or a serious harm for their side, (3) weigh why that benefit or harm is more important than other arguments in the round.
Organizing a whip
The second problem is having too much content or empty content. Typically, debaters encounter this if they have spent too much time writing down every argument and not enough time actually thinking.
A) Organize arguments into clashes and decide how to address each clash.
- Engage in the clash by showing it is unimportant and your extension's clash is more important. (Two parts: why they are unimportant, and why your extension is important.)
- Engage in the clash by refuting some arguments inside the clash and weighing why your extension's argument is more important inside the clash.
- Ignore the clash only with a clear explanation — at least 15-20 seconds on why the clash is not worth spending time on.
B) Decide on a goal and build the whip speech around it.
You don't have enough time to do everything in a whip. Trust yourself to make the correct decision about time allocation. Possible goals:
- Rebuild the extension to address refutation or a critical flaw
- Weigh your impact (on one or more metrics) or your metric
- Refute your opponents
- Weigh/mitigate your fronthalf
- Explain the implications of your analysis on how the judge should adjudicate the round
- Address confusion/clarify the clashes
It is very rare you have to do everything on this list in a round. Usually you do just 2-3, or spend 1 minute on several and 4-5 minutes on one main goal. Rank your goals and spend sufficient time addressing the highest priority ones.
C) Write less of what everyone else is saying, write more of what you are going to say.
The important part of every team's argument can be summarized in one to three sentences. As a whip, you have almost 60 minutes to think of a solution to the motion which the other speakers only had 15-30 minutes to solve. The vast majority of thinking during the round should be about how to win on the harder arguments.
Leave the obvious stuff alone — someone else will probably deal with it before you and render all your refutation useless. Focus on difficult questions, like how you will weigh your partner's extension, or if you can see any obvious holes in the extension.
D) Critically assess if what you wrote is worth saying.
In strong rooms you will often find some of your speech has been said by other speakers, or has become useless because of how the debate moved organically. Good whips throw away the redundant parts of their speeches and come up with something new — even if it means panicking 5 minutes before you speak.