How do you balance research time with other activities?

Just a question I'm trying to wade through...Given the numerous harm and case areas on the topic, how do you adequately research to gain a general understanding of the scope of each area? I mean...anyone can string together a series of cards from Harvex without gaining any understanding of the area being debated, its strengths, or its weaknesses. Where in the world does anyone find time to cover the topic and still lead a normal life? The big temptation I'm fighting is just to slap a few cards together on a piece of paper and assume that represents intelligent arguments.

Thanks for your time! Nathan

Nathan

My answer is that debate can take a huge chunk of your time. You can’t expect to know most everything on the topic unless you want to devote virtually every minute to debate (and that won’t even do it because someone will find arguments you haven’t found). The key is knowing what you do argue in debates really well. That means spending a lot of time on your affirmative case and on your favorite negative positions. Additional suggestions: be sure to split up research duties with other people on your team--avoid duplication; have sessions where each person on the team talks about the research they’ve done so you have a basic understanding of it. A final suggestion: focus. spend a lot of time on your affirmative case. then, pick two or three main negative strategies and then really develop them. If you feel that still takes up too much time, then pick a critique that you can run each round and challenge the affirmative with it. If that’s still too much time, hmmmm, be willing to lose and focus on extension and rebuttal skills so that you can take okay arguments and win with them.

Jim