Bubble flowing

Bubble flowing is a flowing style in which arguments are flowed in chronological order, but then connected by circles ("bubbles") and lines. Whenever an argument is responded to, the debater circles it and draws a line to its response. This creates a visual indication of what has and hasn't been responded to, and makes it easy to find arguments and their responses on the flow.

Advantages

 * Users can instantly see drops without even reading any text - if there's a bunch of text that isn't bubbled, it's a dropped argument. This goes for minor responses as well as major arguments.


 * Bubble flowing does a better job than sequential flowing at keeping track of arguments that respond to several points simultaneously, or multiple points that respond to the same thing - the user just draws several lines. (Proponents argue that bubble flowing is just as good as sequential flowing at handling point-by-point, but better at handling clump-and-dump.)


 * Users can visually track the full progression of an argument, from beginning to end, even if the structure of responses is chaotic.

Disadvantages

 * Bubble flowing may result in a messy flow, as lines and circles can overlap. In addition, some debaters dislike the way it looks.

Variations
Bubble flowers differ in how they handle 2NC responses to the 1AC: some draw lines all the way across the 1NC and 2AC, while others only circle the 1AC point but don't draw a line, while still others don't bother circling anything earlier than the 1NC.

Some bubble flowers use straight lines that may cross text, while others use curved lines that bend to go around it. Proponents of curved lines argue that lines crossing text can make the text difficult to read. Proponents of straight lines argue that they are easier to track visually, and that the readability of text is rarely a problem in practice.

Example
http://www.homeschooldebate.com/wiki/images/flow-bubble-small.jpg

Burton/Saulsberry vs. Maisano/Morgan, quarterfinals at the Frisco Qualifier, Frisco, TX, February 2011. Flowed by Daniel Gaskell. For a larger annotated version, see Gaskell's blog post here.