If you answered yes to any of these questions, we have the answer for you! Consider flowing on plain white paper. (Even if you already use white paper, read on, we have tips for everyone.) For starters, white paper is always available. Forget about those last minute trips to Staples; with white paper you only need to carry a ream or two in your box. It will last you all year. White paper is also cheaper than legal pads, and takes up less space.

But logistics aside, flowing on white paper makes good strategic sense. The purpose of flowing is to keep track of a fast-moving debate round. To do so, a debater should be able to keep each argument string on a different sheet of paper, and then move those sheets of paper around. You can't do that with legal paper; the pages are stuck in one place. This makes it difficult enough to flow other speeches, but what about when you are speaking? Face it: you look like an idiot. Clumsily flipping back and forth through your awkwardly sized pages, dropping sheets. You don't always respond to arguments in the same order, so why force yourself to always have your flow in the same order? It just doesn't make sense.

But the real beauty of white paper flowing is not apparent to many who use the system (and even fewer that don't). Ever had to scramble to get a 1AC flowed before starting a round? Ever had to flow your partner's 1AC while s/he reads it? With white paper this can all be avoided, painlessly. Just create a Word document, eliminate the left-hand margin, and set up a column about 1.5 inches wide. Now, type an eloquent flow of your 1AC (this will take about 20 minutes) into the column, inserting page breaks after each subpoint, observation, etc. Insert page numbers and print. You have a flow, much nicer than one that you could create at 8am on the morning of a tournament; much easier to read; and carefully separated by arguments so that you can quickly reorganize yourself during a round. (You can do the same thing for off-case arguments that you consistently run.) Everything is perfectly spaced, aligned, and worded for your convenience. Most beautiful of all, if you have saved your document, you can print out as many copies as you want, whenever you want, without effort. That 20 minutes will pay itself back before the first tournament even arrives.

There is one more advantage to this computerized white paper flowing system that is rarely, if ever, utilized. At the end of each and every page of your computerized 1AC, you can insert a footnote. In each of these footnotes, you can write notes that pertain to the argument cluster (be it your plan or your solvency subpoint C) on that page. Remind yourself about extending a certain card. Make references to the best cards on file that you want to pull out in response to certain arguments that you are anticipating. Let your coach write the notes, and then, in the heat of the round, it will feel like s/he is right there, helping you along. You just can't do that on legal paper (unless you want to be sitting at the opening meeting of a tournament, on a Saturday morning, frantically copying notes concerning which cards to read).

Legal pad flowing is a thing of the past, dating back to the pre-computer era. The only advantage to legal pad flowing is the added length. But think back to your flows over the last couple of years. You probably don't flow the 2NR. You certainly don't flow the 2AR, and only rarely is there a point that is contested in each speech of the round, so that a long flow would be necessary. If three, or at a maximum four speeches (prior to final rebuttals) deal with a given point, then legal pads are actually overkill. And don't forget: yellow paper is ugly.