Whip Speeches (for BP)

● Do NOT…
○ Go for “non-rebuttal” strategy
■ Generic abstract weighing will NOT win you the debate
■ Focus on rebuttals and doing them strategically
○ Have repetition
■ No point in repeating material or rebuttals given by opening half
■ Only wastes time and is seldom going to be credited to you
■ If you do, however, find some gaps in rebuttals given by the opening
half…
● Point out the gaps in their rebuttal
● Show why filling those gaps is important
● Fill in the gaps with your own argumentation
○ Leave anything up to judges
■ Never leave anything implicit
■ Explicate the insights that you have and why that should affect the way
the debate should be adjudicated
● Remember that your primary aim is to win on three direct comparisons to win the debate
● Make sure that your whip speech is preceded by an extension speech that is
mechanized very well
○ You can further solidify these mechanisms through added characterization,
intuition pumps, examples, etc.
● Framework of Whip Speech
○ Strategic Positioning
■ Why does the extension comparatively win the debate in of itself
■ Makes your path to victory clear and shows why you win from the
forefront
○ Rebuilding, Internal Strategic Commentary and Rebuttal (in that order)
■ Takes down oppositions claims and strengthens your own claims
○ Weighing Rebuilt Extension against Refuted Claims from the other side
■ Shows even if you don’t buy our analysis to refute their claims why does
our still weigh more than theirs
● Step 1: Strategic Positioning
○ Legitimacy and Direct Comparison with Opening
■ Novelty - How our extension is different from opening/What opening failed
to do
■ Robustness - Why is this extension more important/How we filled in
openings gaps and the importance of filling in those gaps
■ If the opposition tries challenging the legitimacy of this at some point,
contest those claims from the forefront and show either how they haven’t
engaged with the importance of your claim or why their engagement on it
is invalid/false.
 ○ Show Impacts of those Extensions
■ What are the metrics other team have set in the debate and which impact
wins on those metrics outright and why our arguments are more important
■ If these impacts/metrics don’t exist and all houses have conflicting
priorities, show why your impact and metrics are more intuitive (the most
intuitive one also almost always tends to be the one where there is a
glaring contrast and parallel arguments between both sides of the house)
and more important and how you win on the basis of those metrics and
impacts
○ Why should the judge buy your extensions outright?
■ Why even if you still buy everything that every other house says, why
what we say is more important and we win from the forefront
■ Insert all traditional pieces of weighing and compare to other teams
● Step 2: Rebuilding, Internal Strategic Commentary and Rebuttal
○ Rebuilding
■ Pinpoint where your extension is unintuitive and explain
● It could be due to a gap in mechanization by your first speaker
○ Make sure to fill these gaps up in your speech with more
grounding such as using real life examples or real life
impacts
● It could be due to your extension being rebutted by opposition and
hence showing a sign of weakness in some area of your
mechanization
○ After listening attentively to the oppositions speech, note
down where they attack you the most and which of their
arguments are the worst for you and make sure those point
specifically are rebuilt
○ Respond to these strongly and ground these responses
once they are made by showing using real life examples or
real life impacts
■ It is hence very important to listen to both member speeches very
attentively
○ Strategic Commentary
■ Make sure you are telling the judge exactly how you intend to win a
specific comparison, or what you are about to refute/rebuild and why
○ Rebuttal
■ Question if Opposition’s Arguments are built on the correct standards of…
● Comparative
● Characterisation
● Tipping Point
● Complete Mechanization
● Mitigation
● Step 3: Weighing Rebuilt Extension against Refuted Claims from the other side
 ○ Shows even if you don’t buy our analysis to refute their claims why does our still
weigh more than theirs
○ Internal Weighing
■ Often comes in the form of rebuttals
■ Eg: Characterisation comparisons
● Found in debates about social justice, political strategy, etc.
○ External Weighing
■ Weighing discrete and distinct outcomes against each other
■ Intensity, Scale, Likelihood, Uniqueness,etc.
■ (Watch Workshop on Weighing)
● How to Prioritize Material
○ Identify which claims are already floating in the debate which harm your
extensions from being able to stand
■ Explicit material from opening
■ Implicit responses from opening
○ Risk Aversion
■ In-Round Strategy: Avoid a 4th before anything else
■ Make sure the extension stands
■ Then directly deal with each team
● Start off by killing the team who has the highest chance to take a
4th and then work your way up
○ Reading the judge and the round reaction to your extension and prioritizing
accordingly
■ Try to read the judges as much as possible and try to bolster arguments
they seem to not be buying into by solidifying them by through legwork
and grounding the arguments as finishing touches through real life
examples or real life impacts
■ Don’t waste too much time on arguments they seem to be buying and
quickly wrap up the mechanization without too much finishing touches
● Note for Gov Whip
○ Followed by Opp Whip who has a lot of maneuvering capacity considering they
have more time to get familiar starting from MG as compared to Gov Whip who
has to go immediately after MO apart from the fact that there is nobody to
respond to any of Opp Whips claims.
○ How then do you beat CO?
■ Try to build up structural responses for the CO case and deconstructing
their mechanisms since no new mechanization is allowed in Opp Whip
■ Outweigh the most generous incarnation of the CO claim which shows
why you win even if the judge doesn’t buy what you say
● How to weigh Analysis Extensions?
○ Important as motions become shallower and less thought out (especially in CG)
○ In many cases where opening has taken almost all your matter, it is strategically
better to aim for a 2nd and secure it instead of aim for a 1st which is risky
 ○ If you can’t show why your arguments are more important than that of the
opening then it is a better strategy to heavily focus on responding to the other
side
○ You can try to derive further impacts from already derived opening impacts to
solidify a Gov case and take a 2nd
○ However taking a 1st is almost always possible, so if you are running Analysis
Extensions ensure that you…
■ Listen to the exact impacts and mechanisms run by opening and track
them honestly and meticulously
■ Find if there are better mechanisations/impacts for the exact same
outcomes that opening provides and then proceed to show why your
mechanisms/impacts are more intuitive/important
■ In such cases judges may get suspicious of you being derivative so make
sure to flag it properly and state that you agree with the outcomes given
by opening and their analysis but that your analysis is better
■ Make sure not to directly repeat even a single point sai by your opening
since judges may feel that you are just repackaging their analysis and
discredit all your analysis extensions entirely
■ Make sure your partner understands the precise difference in the
mechanization/context between what you and your opening
● Tracking the Debate
○ Make sure to take meticulous notes and track what each speaker is saying
○ Try to also simultaneously identify what type of refutations/rebuttals you will for
those arguments and write small comments beside these notes so that your
response building later on becomes much easier
○ While taking notes, note what are the claims, mechanisms and impacts made by
each team
● New Material
○ If you do want to include some new material, it is best to disguise it in the
rebuilding phase as judges are less likely to pick up on it in this region as they
think it part of bolstering pre-existing material. This could look like new
characterisation for mechanisms that already exist or showing incentives as a
part of response to the other side.
○ Never try to bring in new mechanisms entirely as you will be penalized
○ Also never try to repackage responses that OG gives to OO, explicitly point out
that these responses have been given by OG and build upon it if needed.