For those who haven't yet seen it, the Georgia Debate Union was recently featured in the New York Times for innovations related to paperless debate.
A full list of paperless resources is available after the jump.
In the debate community, we are starting to see a substantial transition to paperless debate. Unfortunately, many people in the community think paperless wastes time, delays debates, and gives an unfair advantage to the paperless team. However, teams that debate with paper can easily use the advantages paperless debate offers to maximize their ability to win more debates. Since the transition to paperless is occurring so rapidly, it is necessary that debaters utilize the advantages that paperless offers to the opposing teams.
The introduction of paperless debating risks upsetting the current structure of reciprocal norm compliance as it creates new incentives for both paperless and paper teams to take actions that are in their favor at the detriment of their competitors.
Until now, locked PDFs were the second most annoying card cutting obstacle (after Google Books' security). With this simple tool, they're easily defeated. More inside.
One of the most significant problems we considered when Georgia went paperless was how to organize the sheer number of files produced over the course of a season. How would we integrate backfiles and updates to already existing files through the course of the year? It was hard enough to make sure everyone had the most recent Politics or Economy files when we could physically hand them a copy, and we thought it would be even harder when there were digital files being Dropboxed to multiple teams.
Paperless debate has benefits beyond administrative and budget considerations. It is also a massive competitive boost for a debate team. Full argument after the jump.
At the beginning of last summer, the Georgia Debate Union coaching staff made the decision to transition from traditional paper evidence to paperless debate. There are a variety of reason to make this change, and it is enough of a commitment that having clear reasons is important to keep the project on track. The purpose of this post is to outline our reasons for implementing paperless debate at UGA. If you are trying to decide whether paperless is right for you or the debate team you are responsible for, perhaps this will help you decide.
Highlight is the new underline. For paperless debate teams, its a must. Creating a highlighting macro in Word is easy and will save you hours of painstaking and tedious clicking. Instructions after the jump.
Going paperless changes a lot more about debate than just what materials you bring to the tournament. Almost every facet of the activity—from argument conceptualization to evidence production to in-round execution—will eventually be revamped to harness the advantages and minimizes the limitations of purely electronic debating.