1/24-1/31: LD & PF Tournament Results and the Need for Uniformity with PF Norms
Lincoln Douglas Debate
Tournament Results
This weekend, LD debaters competed at two bid tournaments: the Barkley Forum at Emory and the Columbia University Invitational.
Congratulations to Lake Highland Prep’s Harris Layson for championing the Barkley Forum at Emory. In finals, Harris defeated Westlake’s Miller Roberts on a 4-1 decision (Smiley, Timmons, Shurtz, Sanchez, Heidt*). Additional congratulations to Marlborough’s Wyeth Renwick for being the top speaker.
Full pairings and results can be found here.
Congratulations to William Li (Independent) for championing the Columbia University Invitational. In finals, William defeated Village’s Selina Zhang on a 2-1 decision (Nguyen, Park, Georges*). Additional congratulations to Selina for being the top speaker.
Full pairings and results can be found here.
Public Forum Debate
Tournament Results
This weekend, PF debaters competed at two bid tournaments: the Barkley Forum at Emory and the Columbia University Invitational.
Congratulations to Zellie Olson & Eva Redmond from Blake for championing the 2024 Barkley Forum at Emory. In finals, they defeated Michael Hansen & Alex Huang from Durham on a 3-2 decision (Averill*, Huston*, Jordan, Lingel, McFarland). Additional congratulations to Strake Jesuit’s Jason Zhao for being the top speaker.
Full pairings and results can be found here.
Congratulations to He Song & Kierra Wang from Davidson Academy Online for championing the 2024 Columbia University Invitational. In finals, they defeated Pranav Pradeep & Joseph Nahas from Mira Loma on a 7-0 decision (Bansbach, Chatterjee, Flynn, Madzivire, Mandgi, Pillai, Sundaram). Additional congratulations to JR Masterman’s Henry Anastasi 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.
VBI 2024 Staff Announcement
We are so excited to start announcing our instructors for VBI 2024! Every week, you’ll get a chance to learn more about the talented staff working at VBI this summer. This week’s staff feature is World Schools instructor SunHee Simon.
SunHee Simon graduated from Stanford University in 2019 (BA in African American History; MA in Sociology). Her debate accolades are many, ranging from being one of the first students to qualify to the Tournament of Champions in LD and Policy debate to being on Team USA (World Schools Debate) to semifinaling her freshman year of college at the CEDA Tournament in 2016. She has dedicated the past 8 years of her young career to coaching fantastic debaters who have reached accolades even more impressive than her own. This includes, but is not limited to, placing 17th in WSD at nationals, having several of her students on Team Texas as well as championing the Cal Invitational and TFA State in World Schools. She also runs the World of Words Institute, a program dedicated to creating equitable access to World Schools resources for students of all backgrounds. She is based at Coppell High School where she continues to coach, drill, laugh, and grow with her students every day.
The Need for Uniformity with PF Norms
by Leon Huang
There’s no doubt that PF is one of the more “unpredictable” events. Judges vary from all backgrounds, from parents volunteering their weekend to former debaters looking to stay involved with the community.
Don’t get me wrong: I believe that adaptation is a key component of PF. Forcing debaters to adapt to adjudicators encourages them to make debate accessible, preserving the debate space as a “public forum” to everyone involved.
Within the diverse ranges of judges, I want to focus more on judges that would consider themselves more technical. Think: coaches, former debaters, etc.
There’s no doubt that there are a lot of unwritten rules in PF. For instance, “extensions” technically are not mandatory per the rules of the National Speech and Debate Association. Yet, almost every judge in PF will have a section in their paradigm demanding these. Especially considering PF’s recent trajectory in a more progressive direction, the event is still working on creating consistent norms. The recent rise in “theory” arguments concerning evidence quality and disclosure practices show how PF is starting to enforce what competitors believe to be good norms.
While most experienced PF judges agree on the “unwritten rules” of PF, there’s a lot of variation on how they enforce these rules. Take, for example, extensions again: while almost all judges require some form of extensions, the line for what is considered an extension is blurry. I personally believe that a ten second repetition of why the resolution is good/bad is enough. Others ask for a thorough repetition of uniqueness, links, internal links, and impact scenarios. Basically, what I consider an acceptable extension might be inadequate for others.
This inconsistency, especially in front of experienced judges, is problematic for debate. For one, it makes it impossible for debaters to adapt: ambiguous norms means debaters won’t know stylistic quirks or strategies until after the round, when it would be too late. Additionally, norms being up in the air means that, from a coaching perspective, things become a lot harder.
Here are a few norms that I believe need to be standardized in PF:
Extensions
As hinted at earlier, extensions (while very simple in practice) become incredibly complicated in the minds of judges. Some judges have a higher threshold for extensions than others, and this ambiguity often leads teams to either a) extend too little of their argument and lose the round in front of a judge that demands extensions or b) extend too much of their argument, losing out on opportunities to make more arguments. I personally believe that extensions should be, at the very most, ten seconds in the interest of technical clashes between teams. PF is already a short enough time as is, and to demand extensions that eat up thirty seconds of a two minute final focus is, in my opinion, unproductive.
Theory Arguments
As PF is still trying to figure out many norms (in regards to paraphrasing and disclosure in particular), “theory” debates become more and more popular. One popular part of these debates are “paradigm issues,” more specifically questions about “RVIs” and “competing interpretations.” These words, in the current state of PF, are incredibly ambiguous. Especially in the context of RVIs, some judges interpret “no RVIs” as “teams cannot win off of counter interpretations” whereas others interpret “no RVIs” as “winning a violation argument does not guarantee a victory.” Theory debate can only be productive if everyone is on the same page regarding these norms, and to have ambiguity over these terms is reductive to norm setting.
These are just two of many unwritten (or unclear) norms in PF that I believe need to be standardized for the betterment of the activity. While every judge is different in preferences, we need to have clear definitions for words that could make or break a team’s performance.
Leon Huang debated for Leland High School in San Jose, California. During his career, he placed 12th at the NSDA National Tournament and reached late elimination rounds at tournaments such as Stanford, UC Berkeley, and Stephen Stewart. He taught at both sessions of VBI this past summer.