Written by Jason Stansell

We’ve all been there. We try to look up something simple such as the specs for the Switch 2 or a recipe for cornbread, and the next thing we know, we’ve spent three hours absorbing information from the internet… and never did find what we were originally looking for. This bane of the information age isn’t new—back when we relied on encyclopedias, it was just as easy to get lost. The difference is, we couldn’t carry encyclopedias in our pockets the way we do our phones now. That said, the same tips and tricks for avoiding the rabbit hole still apply just as well to the internet.

Know Your Topic

It may seem obvious, but whether you’re searching for a debate case, for an Informative Speech event, or even for an Intro for an Interp, you might not know the exact usage of an involved word. This example illustrates my point very clearly even if improper: “Resolved: The United States government should prioritize a child’s apparent needs.” Misreading the word, or even only hearing it spoken while writing out your notes, could lead one to think it was “a child’s parent’s needs”. While related, these are totally different contexts. Even small misunderstandings of a single word’s meaning or pronunciation can completely change the context of a speech or debate case.

Set a Timer

It’s a guarantee that at some point you’re going to get distracted or involved while researching.  One tip to help keep you on track is to try setting a timer for an hour to research your Informative Speaking piece on “The Problems with Videogame DLCs”. This way you have an “escape rope” to pull yourself out of Diglett’s Cave while looking into why franchises like Pokemon or Mass Effect pop out games that feel unfinished, yet are selling DLCs the same day the games are released.

Have Clear Set Goals

Let’s say you’re somehow pulling off a single-person Humorous Interp performance of Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s on First” (and if you are, I have to see it). While not being under time, you have a lot of time to work with for your intro. You may want to reference Abbott and Costello’s career in a sentence, their dozens of different acts in another, the history of this particular piece, etc. Plan out the goals first, then begin your research. If you happen across their apparent distaste for each other despite working together for decades, and are interested in it, make note of it, copy the link to that for later, but stay on task. Finish all the specific research in your goal. Afterwards, if any of the random factoids you came across still interests you, you can then go back and explore that information after you’ve already written a working concept (before your official rough draft). 

Not Everything is Worth Researching

You’re preparing a debate case on the resolution, “Resolve: The United States should switch to a papermaking system that is avocado-waste based, to reduce deforestation.” Your Con/Neg case has a lot of variables to work with. So, let’s say you decide to show that avocado waste would be better used for something else to help the environment, while suggesting bamboo as a much better alternative paper-making replacement for reducing deforestation. Thus, you need to look up alternatives to the avocado use, for the contention, correct? Well, there are many options: Animal Feed, Biofuels, Bioplastics, Mattress, etc. All of these technically hit your goal of looking up alternative options, but seeing such a list should set off those “rabbit hole” warning bells. “Do I look all of these up?” The answer can actually be yes, but not researching one by one. Look up an article that lists these things, say Essfeed’s Feb 2025 article titled,”How Avocado Waste is Being Recycled Into Profitable Products”. Sure it’s a dot com, but you’re using it as an example piece, not as evidence. The article gives you a summary of each use. Then you focus research on short references for only one or two of the more interesting possibilities. All while keeping the example piece to be able to say, after using your evidence, that there are even more possible uses that are being explored, listing them off as bullet points from your example. Even if your opponents are able to dismantle your use of the example piece, they can’t refute the evidence you researched. And guess what? Instead of spending countless hours researching and debating yourself on what is useable, you made a call beforehand to streamline the process and only needed about three hours to write your entire case.

Television Commentators

Before diving too deep into online research, a word of caution: some “talking heads” do not care about actually using evidence and have their own narrative (“to heck” with the facts). That said, ironically, comedian based commentators, more often than not provide their sources for their jokes on screen. Each of these commentators have YouTube accounts that show clips and it is easy to search them to see if there is a clip about your topic. Now, I am not suggesting using the commentators as a source, and certainly not using a comedian’s jokes (unless a quote from them completely ties up your argument for your Final Focus). However, what I am suggesting is pausing their clips on the evidence, and looking up that evidence, reading it yourself. They are cherry picking certain aspects (whether right or wrong about the topic), while the evidence they used could have a lot more information on the topic that can be very beneficial to your case.

Sometimes, Honestly, You Have To Risk It

Sometimes “dancing around” the rabbit hole can only be so effective a tool. After all, research for a Debate or Speech event is about finding evidence that creates an irrefutable argument as opposed to finding evidence to support a specific narrative. Sometimes, the only way to do that is to dive in.

Everything said and done, always be mindful when researching, of the fact that, to paraphrase John Dalberg-Acton, “Information distracts, but absolute information distracts absolutely.”