What is Loquitur? 

Loquitur is an Internet podcast which features interviews with academic and professional experts on current National Forensic League (NFL) debate topics for the free educational benefit of all high school students competing in Lincoln-Douglas (LD) and Public Forum (PF) Debate.

Loquitur is the joint creation of Mahesha Subbaraman (on behalf of Trinity Briefs) and Brandon Sheats (on behalf of Georgia Forensics Daily).

Loquitur is neither affiliated with nor sponsored by the National Forensic League.

Our Mission

We believe in the philosophical, educational, and oratorical value of high school debate.

We are thus concerned by many of the now prevailing trends in high school debate — trends that are encouraging high school students to win debate rounds through a reliance on speed-reading, highly technical jargon (e.g., “offense”), linguistic semantics, and/or line-by-line hairsplitting (i.e., versus big-picture thinking and philosophical analysis). 

Ultimately, we believe these trends are turning competitive high school debate into a virtual echo chamber — one insulated from any appreciation for the real-world significance of the topics being debated or what it takes to be a good public speaker.

Thus, the purpose of this podcast is to reconnect high school students with the real world when it comes to arguing any debate topic, be it about eminent domain, free speech rights, government healthcare, or the morality of capital punishment. 

And in the real world, the true experts on these topics are not debate coaches or briefs authors, but those academic scholars and professionals (doctors, lawyers, business leaders, etc.) who have spent the majority of their lives studying and dealing with them.

Thus, our mission is to ensure that all individuals involved in high school debate have the chance to hear what these experts have to say first-hand.

A Resource for High School Students

We recognize that researching, much less understanding, any high school debate topic is a highly complex and challenging task. However, we also believe that online debate forums and random Google searches are not the answer to this problem.

More often than not, the best way to research a debate topic is by listening to an expert talk about it. That’s where we come in: we give you, the student, the chance to put down that giant stack of books, and spend some quality time actually listening to what the minds behind those books really want to tell you about the topic-at-hand.

Thus, we hope that through this podcast, you will gain a greater appreciation for all of the hard work that academic and professional experts do in mastering their respective fields of study — and will therefore take special care when citing or quoting the scholarship of these experts (i.e., books, essays, journal articles, op-ed pieces, etc.) in your speeches and/or cases.

A Resource for High School Debate Coaches

As high school debate coaches ourselves, we recognize the challenges that such coaches face in helping their students to research and understand a new debate topic. We also recognize the financial pressure that many coaches face which can limit their ability to access extensive library resources or purchase the latest ”brief packet” on a debate topic. 

Accordingly, we hope this podcast will help to level the playing field amongst schools in terms of debate research, affording all students the chance to learn as much as possible about the topics they are debating from the best experts in the fields involved.

Talk to Us

We created Loquitur to benefit the entire high school speech and debate community — but the success of this project ultimately depends on you, our listening audience.

So, please, don’t hesitate to tell us what you think about Loquitur.

E-mail your questions, comments, and suggestions to loqdebate-at-gmail.com.