2/21-2/28: LD & PF Tournament Results and Norms in Progressive PF Debates
Lincoln Douglas Debate
Tournament Results
This weekend, LD debaters competed at three bid tournaments: the TOC Digital Speech & Debate Series 2, the USC Trojan Invitational, and the Millard North Milo Cup.
Congratulations to Amador Valley’s Ella Min for championing the TOC Digital Speech & Debate Series 2. In finals, Ella defeated Harrison’s Reese Potash on a 2-1 decision (Kiihnl, McBlain, Di*). Additional congratulations to Athenian’s Everett Yau for being the top speaker.
Full pairings and results can be found here.
Congratulations to Marlborough’s Abby Merges for championing the 2024 USC Trojan Invitational. In finals, Abby defeated Stanford OHS’s Amanda Yu on a 2-1 decision (Meza, White, Barquin*). Additional congratulations to Harvard-Westlake’s Lilly Stobo for being the top speaker.
Full pairings and results can be found here.
Congratulations to Garland’s Lydia Aklilu for championing the 2024 Millard North Milo Cup. In finals, Lydia defeated Lincoln East’s Jeremy Moussoli on a 3-0 decision (Tate, Yadagiri, Lingala). Additional congratulations to Millard North’s Sunny Bodduluri 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 TOC Digital Speech & Debate Series 2 and the Millard North Milo Cup.
Congratulations to Arnav Nigam & Nathan Shi from Hamilton for championing the 2024 TOC Digital Speech & Debate Series 2. In finals, they defeated Aarthi Raghavan & Anushree Samsi from Eagle Independent on a 2-1 decision (Moyer*, Kasibhatla, Tommarazzo). Additional congratulations to Lincoln-Sudbury’s Farhan Khan for being the top speaker.
Full pairings and results can be found here.
Congratulations to Aadil Ali & Claire Bockholt from Harrisburg for championing the 2024 Millard North Milo Cup. In finals, they defeated Aidan Krishnaney & Hannah Xu from University on a 3-0 decision (Mao, Rabon, Tang). Additional congratulations to Theodore Roosevelt’s Calvin Goldsberry 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 LD instructor Anika Ganesh.
Anika Ganesh debated at Notre Dame San Jose for three years and was captain her junior and senior years. She qualified to the TOC 3 times, earning 8+ career bids. Anika championed the Meadows Invitational and reached late elims of Berkeley, College Prep, Loyola, Nano Nagle, Alta, etc. She also received 8 speaker awards and was the top speaker at Alta her junior year. Anika's primary interests are policy arguments, with a focus on impact turns and counterplans, and settler colonialism. She is very excited to teach at camp this year!
Norms in Progressive PF Debates
by Leon Huang
Let’s talk about norms.
A few weeks ago, I wrote an article about norms in PF, specifically in regards to judge’s standards (think: thresholds for weighing, extensions, etc). Today, I want to pivot and shift more responsibility onto debaters, namely in regards to progressive argumentation.
I want to preface this by saying that my understanding of progressive argumentation is (probably) not the most expansive. As a debater in high school I stayed away from theory arguments and kritiks, and I never really bothered trying to gain a full understanding of them. When I debated against these arguments, I admit that I was a little clueless. Only after my career, when coaching and helping out teams did I start to gain a better understanding of the material and the buzzwords surrounding these debates. My thoughts are grounded more on argumentative trends/practices I have observed as a competitor and a judge and less on a solid understanding of these concepts at the highest level.
I also want to make clear that I like progressive argumentation: I think that the direction PF has taken in regards to holding the community accountable and trying to set better practices is good, but I also feel that the way these arguments are handled in round may be a bit troubling.
In general, I’m not the biggest fan of teams introducing progressive argumentation and forcing their opponents to respond in the next constructive speech. Under the assumption that the current state of PF demands (during substance rounds) teams to read four minutes of case in the constructive, four minutes of rebuttal during the first rebuttal, and frontlines/responses during the second rebuttal, this creates an inconsistency with substance debate and progressive debate. Obviously the content in debate is different, but this begs the question of why a difference in style demands a different structure of debate.
In fact, I would argue that demanding debaters to respond immediately after, in the second constructive (so prior to any chances to cross examine), is reductive in these debates. Especially in Kritikal or Theory debates, where the ballot is framed to carry weight outside of the round, the chance to clarify and cross examine is important: it allows debaters to approach these subjects with clarity, generate a better understanding of the arguments, and attempt to create concessions (similar to a substance debate). To analogize to substance debate, it wouldn’t make much sense for a team to respond to their opponent’s case arguments without a chance to cross examine first. Of course, “flex prep” (where debaters ask questions using their own prep time) exists, but given that prep time is only three minutes, this also generates a skew in the sense that the second speaking team will always either be at a prep disadvantage or an argumentative disadvantage.
Specifically in regards to theory, I feel that there needs to be a more defined way as to how in-round class should look. Something I’ve observed as a competitor is that there is an unfair advantage given to the team that introduced the theory. When responding to theory, not only does a team have to introduce a counter interpretation, respond to paradigm issues, and (maybe) individually go line-by-line with the standards introduced, they also have to invest time into substance debates. And, more often than not, in the summary speech, the team that introduced the theory will have a clear path to winning, whereas their opposition may be left scrambling.
I’m personally a big fan of the “go for it or lose” philosophy. If the real intent of theory is to set the best norms, I believe that teams who introduce it should be willing to die on that hill and be willing to spend the rest of the round discussing theory. I don’t think it is fair for a team to introduce theory, force their opponents to invest time into responding to it (causing them to undercover substance), and then drop theory and go for substance (or the other way around). Perhaps teams need to get better at responding, but I do think there is a time skew in these debates. If theory uplayers substance, then debaters should live by that and forgo substance in favor of theory.
Progressive debate in PF is new and exciting, but as with everything that comes with debate, some general guidelines or norms concerning these debates would be necessary to maximize productivity and clash. While the ideas listed in this article aren’t exhaustive (and I’m sure that better solutions exist), I hope that this article will encourage the broader community to consider ways to make these debates more fair.
Leon Huang debated at Leland High School in California for four years. In his junior year, he was co-captain of the PF team, and as a senior was President of his debate team. Leon has qualified to the Tournament of Champions three times, receiving a total of 7 bids, as well as the NSDA National Tournament two times. Most notably, he placed 12th at the 2022 NSDA national tournament and championed the 2021 John Lewis SVUDL Invitational. Leon has had experience in every situation–whether as a first speaker in a lay round or a second speaker debating against theory.