How to: Kritik Debate

In this video, Anthony explains how to read a kritik in a debate.

First, you obviously can’t read everything that a specific author has ever produced, so you may not find the specific conclusion you thought you were going to find. Going in with a rigid understanding of what the text means isn’t helpful because there isn’t necessarily one particular right way to evaluate or understand a text. Don’t take this as an insurmountable task, but rather that important discussions of rigorous scholarship across broad, diverse literature is taking place and should be exciting to read.

Second, you need to really understand that tags are important, but they don’t need to be paragraphs. No run-on sentences that don’t end. They need to be thoughtful stories that articulate the evidence. Anthony suggests annotating like you’re in english class - write questions, look up words you don’t know, etc. You have to be willing to become a student again in order to be a good kritik debater.

Anthony also gives some ideas for what to do in the impact and alternative portions of the debate. Anthony also gives some tips for how to think about the debate when utilizing the K.