11/15-11/22: LD & PF Tournament Results and Strategies for the Summary Speech in PF
Lincoln Douglas Debate
Tournament Results
This weekend, LD debaters competed at the Glenbrooks Tournament.
Congratulations to Harker’s Ansh Sheth for winning the 2023 Glenbrooks Tournament. In finals, Ansh defeated Strake Jesuit’s Justin Wen on a 3-0 decision (Quisenberry, McLoughlin, Bukowsky). Additional congratulations to Strake Jesuit’s Nathan Wei for being the top speaker.
Full pairings and results can be found here.
Public Forum Debate
Tournament Results
This weekend, PF debaters competed at three bid tournaments: the Glenbrooks tournament, the Villiger tournament, and the John Lewis Invitational.
Congratulations to Michael Hansen & Alex Huang from Durham for championing the 2023 Glenbrooks tournament. In finals, they defeated Arnav Mehta & David Lu from Seven Lakes on a 2-1 decision (Rastogi*, Andersen, Kirylau). Additional congratulations to Strake Jesuit’s Jason Zhao for being the top speaker.
Full pairings and results can be found here.
Congratulations to Griffin Weiss & Samantha Zaino from Bronx Science for championing the 2023 Villiger tournament. In finals, they defeated Tobin Wilson & Ryan Kang from McLean on a 2-1 decision (Haddad*, Grabois, Yim). Additional congratulations to Langley’s Connor Chun for being the top speaker.
Full pairings and results can be found here.
Congratulations to Justin Wang & Eleyn Xiong from Canyon Crest for championing the 2023 John Lewis Invitational. In finals, they defeated Ashish Goswami & Leonardo Jia from Saratoga on a 3-2 decision (Funk*, Ramos*, Garepis-Holland, Gray, Tu). Additional congratulations to Cary Academy’s Ayan Jung for being the top speaker.
Full pairings and results can be found here.
Best of luck to everyone competing next weekend! Stay tuned for future tournament results.
Strategies for the Summary Speech in PF
by Cherie Wang
Often considered the most important speech of the round, it is game-changing for novice debaters to master the summary speech. Though the speech’s name is just as on the nose as other speeches like constructive (where one constructs a case) or rebuttal (where one rebuts a case), summary is often confusing for beginners. How do you actually summarize the round?
To break down the speech in broader categories, a summary speech needs to cover all the things required to win a round. You have to have offense (reasons to vote for you – your case or turns) and weighing (reasons your offense is better than theirs). OR, you can win by having offense and defense (reasons why their offense is bad), but offense+weighing is a much faster and safer option. Even if you have the best defense in the world, it is not uncommon for judges to misunderstand it or let personal opinions interfere with their evaluation of it. Usually, questionable weighing is much easier to get away with and doesn’t require you (or the judge) to understand their case, only their impact. But to be safe, a summary should hit all 3 of these points. The best way to quickly and strategically deliver summaries is by using one of the following 4 orders:
Offense, weighing, defense
This is by far the most common summary order. It orders each part by importance to winning. As mentioned before, winning offense+weighing is usually the most straightforward path to the ballot. This structure also allows you to do more weighing, which is often more important than putting more time to defense because you weigh for the first time but extend previously read defense. This order also puts more time to extending and frontlining case, so it might be the best order for you if you are inefficient on offense.
Cons: running out of or spending less time on defense can look bad in front of lay judges, who may think you are neglecting to engage with the opponent’s case because it is so good.
Offense, defense, weighing
This order can also be beneficial because judges tend to pay the most attention at the start and end of speeches, so it puts the most important things in those places. It also is good in a round where you are less confident in your weighing and would rather bet on the offense+defense strategy to win, which is still viable even though it is generally not as effective.
Cons: not weighing enough can be detrimental in a round in front of any judge and is more likely to be a round-ending issue than losing time for defense. The structure also doesn’t flow as well because you jump from your offense to theirs then back to why yours is important.
Defense, offense, weighing
This order should only be used if you know you can extend defense extremely quickly (maybe they cleanly conceded terminal defense). This order gives you a lot of time for offense and weighing and guarantees that you went for the defense you wanted. You can also tell the judge that you are quickly covering their case because that’s all you need to do, and then put their focus on your case for the next 2 minutes. This order also keeps offense and weighing together, which is better for the flow of the speech.
Cons: if you tend to get bogged down in the details of defense, this structure can be risky. Spending too much time on defense and leaving yourself short of time to extend, frontline, and weigh can make the most important parts of your speech confusing.
No order
This can be good for lay rounds or rounds where the opponent’s speech wasn’t strongly structured. Sometimes, it can be hard to break the rounds down into all your offense, all your defense on their offense, and weighing and might be better to talk about the round in order of individual arguments or concepts. It can also be strategic to sort of generally talk about the ideas of the topic and barely go into specific arguments. This narrative based summary should be reserved for lay judges.
You can order your offense, defense, and weighing any way you like. These are just some of the more common orders and when they can be strategic. Not every summary has to be the same order; most of the time the ideal structure changes based on the round. They also can follow the same order if that’s what you like best. Ultimately, it comes down to knowing what you are good at, what the judge will like best, and what the round calls for.
Cherie Wang debated at Westlake High School in Texas for 4 years, where she was captain her junior and senior year. Throughout her career, she has earned 3 bids to the Tournament of Champions and reached quarterfinals of Plano West, Apple Valley, and TFA State and co-championed James Logan and Grapevine.