Better Blocks vs. Better Templates

Mastermind writes:

Can you post something about how to work on writing efficient blocks? It seems like when I give MG's and LOC's I make arguments that come out disorganized. When I realize it's happening I re-explain it which really slows me down to a point where I look like a dumbass and almost makes it so the argument wasn't worth making. The judges with super tight flows don't have a problem with it but plenty do and I'd like to get better speaks and win more rounds. I don't think in a very linear fashion in debate rounds or in real life so I was wondering if you had any tips for how to get into that mindset or just how to get in the practice of distilling an argument down to its most important components.

I think in some ways the way you have framed the question is very revealing.  The urge to find a way to write the perfect block is understandable.  If, before the debate, we could come up with a set of slayer arguments that applied to any disad or any criticism that might come our way, then we don't even have to think in round!

Clearly the goal is to give a more organized and efficient MG, but there's a radical leap from that to the assumption that simply having better blocks will lead you giving more organized and efficient MG's.  The problem you have identified is one of technique, and not necessarily one of preparation.  Even if you had the best blocks in the world, if you were using them in a haphazard way, your speech would still be massively disorganized and inefficient.

Obviously there's nothing better than practice to help you get more efficient and organized, but there are certain ways of approaching the MG that lend themselves to efficiency.  My argument is that MG's should practice thinking in templates.  Instead of focusing on content, try to focus on form.

For example, let's take topicality.  While I never formalized this anywhere, this was the way I responded to T:

1. (Optional) - We Meet
2. Your interpretation is bad (Counter-Standards)
a. Reason 1.  Impact to resolutional precision and predictability and/or the division of ground.
b. Reason 2.  Same.
3. Counter-interpretation
4. Answer their standards using one of three basic arguments
a. Your standard sucks ("You say we need to be telepathic: no, we don't, actually.)
b. Our interpretation captures your standard better ("You say grammar - we are more grammatical")
c. Our counter-standard controls the internal link to your standard ("You say predictability - we've demonstrated above that field contextuality is the internal link to predictability.")
5. (Optional) - Don't vote on T

This isn't a block.  It's not a set of pre-scripted arguments that I would have read come hell or high water.  It is a mental model - a way of approaching an argument.  Templates like this do a couple of things for you.  First, if they are good, they lead you to focus on the most important, highest-value arguments that you can make.  On T, you know that your thumper argument is going to be one of two arguments - either a "we meet" (because they blundered with their interpretation) or "your interpretation is terrible" (because if you did your job in prep time, any interpretation that you violate should have an obvious problem.)  The second thing a template does is it prevents you from wasting time on stupid arguments.  You should treat your templates like a checklist - complete every item satisfactorily, then move on.  Don't linger on arguments that are low-value.

Templates can be as simple as a 2-part case turn model - where you first establish uniqueness for whatever claim that you are trying to make, and then make it.  It can be as simple as the 4-part refutation model, or SPOT on counterplans, or any number of different things.  All these are just basic heuristics to make sure that you are doing what you need to do, in an order that puts the priority where it should be.

The secret to giving monster MG's is to combine a rigid adherence to your basic argumentative templates with a lot of creativity and flexibility with regard to the content of your arguments.  When you have a pre-prepped block of arguments that you are going to read no matter what, those arguments are almost certainly low-value because they are unlikely to be precise in any way.  And when you are just throwing blocks at the flow hoping that something sticks - well, that's the disorganized, inefficient MG that we are trying to avoid.

That isn't to say block-writing isn't useful - but it's usually not useful for the reasons that most people think it is.  Most of the blocks you write won't really be that great, except for the most common theory blocks.  The primary value of block-writing is that it forces you to think through the way a question can be resolved in a debate round.  If you've thought about a specific question (capitalism/hegemony/climate change) and the way arguments shake down on a question more than your opponent, you probably aren't going to lose the debate on that question.  Moreover, if you've, I don't know, read a book on the topic in question, you are probably going to have smarter things to say about it.  My capitalism blocks didn't just appear magically out of nowhere - they were the product of a lot of thought and a lot of reading.  (And I lost plenty of debates on capitalism too, more than I should have, because while the content of my arguments was excellent, the template I was using to respond to the criticism was very, very poor.)

So yeah.  Technique over truth, and templates over blocks.