November 23, 2025
Prep Time Mastery: Making the Most of Every Second
Written by Mahek Acharya Prep time is one of those things that separates good debaters from great ones. It’s not about how much time you have, it’s about what you do with it. You could have all the prep time in the world and still walk up to give a terrible speech, or you could…
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November 16, 2025
Soft Voice vs Projection vs Yelling
Written by Jason Stansell “I am the Captain of the Pinafore!” “And a right good Captain too!” – from “HMS Pinafore” By Gilbert and Sullivan I realize that it seems a little awkward to start out a blog singing, but there is a reason for that! Singing, and especially musical theatre, can teach us a…
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November 13, 2025
Helping Your Student
Written by Mahek Acharya So your child just joined debate or speech, and suddenly you’re hearing terms like “OO”, “contentions”, and “flow”. You want to help, but you’re not quite sure how and, more importantly, you want to make sure you’re helping in the right way. The truth is, there’s a fine line between being…
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November 11, 2025
How to Research Topics Without Going Down the Rabbit Hole
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…
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November 9, 2025
The Pros and Cons to Different Types of Interp Pieces
Written by Jason Stansell In Interp events like Dramatic Interpretation (DI) and Humorous Interpretation (HI), students can choose from a wide variety of performance pieces. For Program Oral Interpretation (POI), however, you get the exciting challenge of weaving multiple types of pieces together into one cohesive performance. While this blog focuses on the individual strengths…
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