Tips for paperless debate! (using Synergy)

SECTION ONE: PAPERLESS FILES!

Before you can get started…download Synergy. Where can you find it? Simply type “Debate Synergy” into Google—it is pretty easy to install but you do want to read the manual and follow Gulakov’s directions carefully (it took me less than 5 minutes).

Steps for creating a file using Debate Synergy

Step 1- Open up a new word document and immediately save it with a new name.

Step 2- Identify a portion of text that you believe is a card and highlight it.

Make sure that: You only cut whole paragraphs. You think about maximizing warrants.

Longer cards with a greater number of warrants underlined are better than short, warrantless cards.

You never cut evidence off of a debate list-serve, a private e-mail or a debate related blog. Some teams do this but most coaches think that it is cheating and will hurt our reputation.

Also…Wikipedia is also an unacceptable source.

What makes a card worth quoting?

Qualifications Recent if the

information required may have changed

High quality publisher Information used in

context Free from bias (having

a strong opinion is fine though)

Supported by other research

Unclear or poor qualifications

Unclear author Out-dated information Unqualified blog or other

random internet source Information warped to fit

your purpose Someone who has an

incentive to misrepresent the truth

Fringe opinion

Step 3- Paste the text into the word document using the “paste text” button (Ctrl + G).

Paperless Debate and Synergy

Uh Oh….the card looks funny.

“Fix My CARD!”

Step 4- Highlight the text in the word document and click the “remove returns button” (Ctrl + R).

Step 5-citations! The last name and date of the citation

need to be at the beginning of the cite and need to be bold faced.

Like this!

Not this

You need to make sure that all citations are complete! Last name, year (Quals, rest of date, source, title,

page numbers or URL if applicable—more info is better!)

Like this!

Not like this

Step 6- Underline the Evidence:Highlight the section you want to underline and push the “underline button” (F1

hotkey)

*It is important to understand that pushing the button more than once on the same text does NOT underline the text but toggles to a change case function.

Underline carefully—get the main warrants but carefully avoid repetitive claims or extra words.

Like this!

Not this

Do not highlight—underline carefully but it needs to be the job of each debater to prep their own files.

Like this!

Not like this

Step 7- Change case by highlighting the entire card and clicking the “Small-size All” button in the “underline” drop down menu (control + F1).

The result should make it easier to read the evidence in a debate:

Vs.

Step 8- Write a concise tag for the evidence

=

Make sure that:Your tag is consistent with the intent

of the author. If the author goes on to disagree with the argument in your tag, you need to delete the card.

Your tags are word efficient and not too long.

The tag gives the card an obvious purpose in the debate. If you are not sure what it is for, that is usually a bad sign.

Step 9- Create a Block Title using the “Heading” button (F3 Hotkey)

Step 10- Create subsections within the file by using Heading 1 (not the problematic hat button). Make a header that says ***SECTION TITLE*** and it will be clear that it is a new section in the document map.

Like this!

Step 11- Utilize the “Format Fixes” to correct any glaring issues you have with your file.

Step 12: Make sure that your document maps are good.

a) No indexes. When files look like the bad example below, clicking on the document map brings people to the index, not the cards.

b) The need to be neat and tidy. Like this! Not like this

What were some of the specific things that were great re: the positive example? Only block titles were in heading 1 so that

is all that appeared It had clearly labeled sections (also

created in header 1 with ***, not “hats” that cause problems

It did not have extra random spaces—allowing more to fit on the map

After the “general section”, everything was alphabetical—not all files need to be alphabetical but the map needs logical and easy to find subsections.

Step 13: Title files properly. Like this!

Title, tournament, year, your name “China-US relations Greenhill 10 Ellis”

Not like this “Coolio stuff”(weird titles are useless) “US Relations with China Greenhill 10 Ellis” (it is

more intuitive that people will look alphabetically under C for China than U for US Relations—frontload with the most logical search word)

“China-US relations” (not enough info—might be very old etc)

“GBS neg US-China relations Greenhill 10 Ellis” (it would be much better as “China-US relations GBS neg Greenhill 10 Ellis” because the whole team may not know to look under GBS—this way, the info is there but people find it fast)

Final notes… When you turn out updates, do not

integrate them into your main file. Turn updates out as separate files so that everyone can integrate them into their main files (which have presumably been prepped differently from team to team).

Also, an advantage of paperless is that you can have multiple copies of the same card. So, add the terminal impacts etc to the files.

Not like this

SECTION TWO: PAPERLESS LOGISTICS!

Step 1- Create a blank speech document by pulling down the “speech” drop down menu and choosing the speech you are about to give.

*This will automatically be saved on your desktop

Step 2- Open the paperless file you will be using and click on the block that you need.

Step 3- Simply hit the “tilde” key ~ and the block will automatically move to your speech.

You can also use the drop down menu under speech and select one of the options to move the block to the speech.

Step 4- Move your blocks up and down within your speech document by using very basic commands:

-ctrl+alt+up to move up

-ctrl+alt+down to move down

-ctrl+alt+left to move to the start of the document

-ctrl+alt+right to move to the end of the document

World 2010 users can simply drag and drop the blocks in the document map wherever they choose.

Step 5- Once you have the speech ready to go, insert a USB drive into your computer. Click the button under the “Speech” drop down menu that has a floppy disk icon on it (Control + Shift + s)

Step 6: You need to get files to your partner and the other team efficiently. If you have internet access, Drop Box is a very quick way to

save speeches to both your computer and the viewing computer.

If you do not have internet access for Drop Box, you need to save it both to your desktop and a USB. If you only save to the USB, your speech will crash when you pull it out. Synergy should do this automatically.

Step 7- Click the “Read Speech” button under the “Windows” drop down menu.

Step 8- Mark your evidence as you are reading it by moving your cursor to the point where you stopped and pushing the tilde key (you must be in read speech mode for this to work)

SECTION THREE: AVOIDING PROBLEMS

Flow on paper! And, flow more carefully than your opponents. There seems to be a no-flow epidemic—take advantage of it and win more rounds.

Similarly, you CANNOT script your speech. You will drop arguments. Period. It is just impossible. Your computer is the equivalent of a stack of paper briefs, not a script. Debate off your flow.

Avoid theft: Regularly clean off

USBs Try to rely on viewing

computers, not USBs Never put full files on

the viewing computers

Each team must have 3 computers

Take care of your computers! Store them overnight

only in secure (locked) locations

Keep TRACK of them at school and tournaments

Install nothing extra (no games, music, videos, other software—it is a DEBATE computer)

Report repairs needs ASAP

Avoid annoying judges! Be efficient with getting files to

the other team and save during your prep time

Make it easy for them to look at cards by creating a new Word doc with only what they call for (so that they do not have to scroll around)

Realize that they DO NOT have your speech doc, they are listening—so, for example, saying “scratch that” means they want to cross off what they just flowed, not visually skip a card on the screen

Accommodate your opponents. If they are having trouble with the viewing computer etc—help them!