The Evolution of Public Forum Debate Part 4: Argument Styles

Aahana Gupta | 6 min read

Public Forum debate was invented in 2002, originally named after Ted Turner (founder of CNN). In the two decades since its inception, nearly every aspect of it has changed, from the very foundations of the activity to the people who compete in it. In this five-part series, you will learn more about the evolution of Public Forum debate, and how it’s become the activity it is today. This is Part 4: Argumentative Changes in Public Forum Debate.

#1 -- Progressive Argumentation

Progressive argumentation can encapsulate many different types of arguments, but in Public Forum debate, it usually takes the form of either kritiks or theory shells. While progressive argumentation has been a staple in Policy and Lincoln Douglas debate, its prevalence in Public Forum is a newer trend. Lydia Magalhaes, a coach and experienced judge at Des Moines Christian, recalls that “when I was debating in high school, I don’t remember any sort of progressive debate.” Indeed, if you ask most coaches today, they will tell you that in their time on the circuit progressive debate was not a commonly read argument. Vivian Yellen, who previously debated for Bronx Science, says she remembers progressive arguments first being read around the pandemic era. Specifically, she says that “2021 (especially following the Tournament of Champions) was a big year for community discussion about progressive norms and debate.” That year, a team reading an identity kritik won the Tournament of Champions, bringing the spotlight to K debate, which has only grown in popularity. Sophia Gustafson, coach at Iowa City West, states that “More recently you’ve seen the explosion of K debate…you started seeing these critiques doing really well at TOC and at national tournaments, and it’s kind of just taken off from there…it’s really taken off in a beautiful way” The quality of these debates has also improved with time. Yellen corroborates this, remarking that “At the beginning they were not great quality, but over time it became like hey, let’s talk about methods. Let’s have interesting alts. Now, what I really like about progressive debate is that you get that nuance.”

Of course, K debate isn’t the only form of progressive debate that has become popular in Public Forum -- theory shells have also seen an uptick. While also previously uncommon, theory shells saw their popularity rise during the late 2010s and early 2020s as well. Dylan Morgan, assistant coach at Roosevelt, talks about how “Disclosure and paraphrasing were the first things people started to do with progressive arguments. It became more common and kind of exploded from there. We saw more frivolous theory happening.” Other forms of progressive argumentation such as philosophy based arguments and tricks have also started to emerge. While progressive argumentation is controversial due to accessibility concerns as well as debates over whether these types of arguments belong in Public Forum debate in the first place, one thing is for sure; it doesn’t seem like the surge of progressive arguments will recede anytime soon. 

#2 -- Substance Argumentation

While the shift towards progressive debate has been obvious and widely talked about, there have also been some major shifts in the types of substantive debates that are happening in Public Forum Debate. This shift has caused substance to debate to become faster and more content-dense, especially in front of technical judges. Like with progressive debate, Yellen pinpoints this change to the 2020-2021 season, saying that “No First Use topic was the first topic where I think the transformation started to extinction level debate. Teams were watching policy rounds and being like, I want to do that in PF.” The advent of technology and easier access to greater evidence and speech docs also served as a catalyst for this change, allowing debaters to read more content in the same amount of time. This shift had important implications for case strategies. Morgan, who debated in the late 2010s, recalls that “We did a lot of multiple link, sole contention cases. When I go to TOC now I see like six contention cases. I think that is a strategy I’ve seen recently.” Additionally, the types of impacts that teams were reading became bigger and bigger -- to the point where extinction impacts, which had once been unheard of in Public Forum debate have become the norm. Whether this shift has been a positive one is still up for debate. Yellen expresses her opinion, saying that “Teams are more scared to take the risk of not reading extinction, and I think that’s taken a lot of warranting out of the activity. I think it’s taken out a lot of weighing.” However, many people praise this shift, and believe that it can result in deeper and more substantive debates.