Clump and dump

Clump and dump is a time-management strategy for reducing the amount of material that must be covered. The debater first looks for arguments that can be grouped together, and responds to them as a single unit ("clumping"); and then looks for arguments that can safely be dropped without losing the round, and drops them ("dumping"). Clump-and-dump is often essential in the 1AR, when there are often too many Negative arguments to respond to in five minutes.

Carefully-planned clump-and-dumping, combined with concise speaking, can allow debaters to cover extremely large numbers of arguments in a short amount of time.

Example
Suppose the Negative has run the following arguments:


 * Topicality


 * Economy disadvantage (from the plan causing inflation)


 * Trade deficit disadvantage (from the plan causing inflation)


 * Third-world farmers disadvantage (extension of the trade deficit DA)


 * Solvency - you don't have enough money! (the Affirmative has already responded to this)


 * Solvency - they didn't tell us the committee procedures of their committee!


 * Health disadvantage (from the plan causing pollution)

The 1A doesn't think she has time to respond to everything point-by-point. First, she "clumps" related arguments. The first three disadvantages are all a result of the plan causing inflation; rather than getting into the specifics of each disadvantage, she just explains why the plan doesn't cause inflation, and then applies it to all three arguments at once. Second, she "dumps" the solvency arguments, one of which has already been responded to, and the other of which is just kind of silly. Topicality and the health disadvantage she responds to normally.

This leaves her with the following, much shorter speech outline:


 * Topicality


 * Inflation disadvantages


 * Health disadvantage