2/7-2/14: LD & PF Tournament Results and Guiding Questions for Great Analytics
Lincoln Douglas Debate
Tournament Results
This weekend, LD debaters competed at three bid tournaments: the Stanford Invitational, the University of Pennsylvania Tournament, and the Three Rivers TOC NIETOC at Upper St. Clair.
Congratulations to Memorial’s David Xu for championing the 2024 Stanford Invitational. In finals, David defeated Lakeville South’s Ezana Haile on a 3-0 decision (Chen, Ribera, Elliott). Additional congratulations to Durham’s Sachin Aggarwal for being the top speaker.
Full pairings and results can be found here.
Congratulations to Stuyvesant’s Henry Ji and Daniel Zheng for co-championing the 2024 University of Pennsylvania Tournament. Additional congratulations to Horace Greeley’s Salma Gheith for being the top speaker.
Full pairings and results can be found here.
Congratulations to University’s Anshul Sharma for championing the 2024 Three Rivers TOC NIETOC at Upper St. Clair. In finals, Anshul defeated McDowell’s Judah Jones on a 3-2 decision (Groninger, Rojas Vasquez, Shouse, Bhattarai*, Valentini*).
Full pairings and results can be found here.
Public Forum Debate
Tournament Results
This weekend , PF debaters competed at three bid tournaments: the Stanford Invitational, the University of Pennsylvania Tournament, and the Three Rivers TOC NIETOC at Upper St. Clair.
Congratulations to Arnav Nigam & Nathan Shi from Hamilton for championing the 2024 Stanford Invitational. In finals, they defeated Nicholas Chung & Max Wolff-Merovick from College Prep on a 3-0 decision (Ahmed, Contreras, T. Louis). Additional congratulations to DebateDrills’ Joseph Nahas for being the top speaker.
Full pairings and results can be found here.
Congratulations to Vivian Zhu & Pranav Mahesh from Ridge for championing the 2024 University of Pennsylvania Tournament. In finals, they defeated Brian Liu & Claire Sim from Bergen County Academies on a 2-1 decision (Ronkin*, Athavale, Frank). Additional congratulations to Riverdale Country’s Sana Mehra for being the top speaker.
Full pairings and results can be found here.
Congratulations to Jeremy Rotberg & Jack Martinez from Hawken for championing the 2024 Three Rivers TOC NIETOC at Upper St. Clair. In finals, they defeated Michael Brienza & Michael Murphy from Pittsburgh Central Catholic on a 4-1 decision (Zoeckler*, Wilkinson, Rousu, McGugin, Godse).
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 Lizzie Su.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Su debated for Mountain House High School. During her senior year, she broke at the Tournament of Champions and reached late elimination rounds at tournaments such as Loyola, College Prep, Peninsula, and the Harvard Round Robin. Lizzie taught at VBI last year and is super excited to return as an instructor!
Guiding Questions for Great Analytics
by Satvik Mahendra
Analytics are an important skill for any debater to be successful. First, having the ability to think quickly on your feet without relying on loads of evidence can help you properly make responses in a round without having to spend countless hours cutting evidence beforehand. Second, better analytic skills are a great way to make your responses a lot stronger. Combining strong evidence with tailored analytical implications will result in more responsive arguments that are easier to win. Third, having analytical skills helps you think effectively when doing prep as well. Analytical responses can help guide you to prep more efficiently since you will have a starting point of where to begin your research. Rather than hoping to find a response in the evidence you are looking through, you can instead look for specific evidence that backs up an analytical response you already came up with.
In order to think of effective analytics, ask yourself the following questions:
What part of their argument is the easiest to disprove?
Let’s be real, no matter how good you are at analytics, well-carded and warranted case evidence will probably take priority when compared to your analytic response. With this in mind, it's advantageous to focus your efforts on the part of their argument that might be least believable and easiest to respond to. In some cases, this might be a poorly-warranted nuclear war scenario. Maybe it’s an internal link that seems a bit stretched out. Regardless, you should take a second to identify the weakest part of the argument and think about how to best respond to that specific part.
What barriers does their argument not fix?
Asking yourself this question can help prompt you to think about analytical delinks to their argument. For example, on this current topic about plastics, a very common argument on the AFF is that banning single-use plastics will help the environment. If you asked yourself “what barriers does their argument not fix?”, you might realize that their arguments are unable to fix barriers to solving climate change such as emissions from other countries or other sectors of the US.
Why might the opposite of their argument be true?
This question might initially seem obvious and unhelpful but I believe that taking a step back and asking yourself why their argument isn’t true helps prevent you from getting overwhelmed by their arguments. Many debaters often have a gut feeling that a certain argument isn’t true but they are unable to make good analytical responses because they can’t verbalize a justification for this feeling. Forcing yourself to think about the faulty logic behind an argument in a systematic manner can help avoid this downfall and put you in the right mindset to deal with unfamiliar arguments.
What else might cause their argument to happen?
Rarely are links of arguments ever the unique cause of the impact being discussed. As a result, thinking about alternate causes for an impact can help point you towards non-uniques for a certain argument. For example, on the last topic about Section 230, some teams read an AFF argument that repealing Section 230 would allow for greater cooperation with European allies. However, asking yourself what else might cause this cooperation to happen can help you realize that the US and the EU have many shared interests and likely would favor cooperation regardless of internet regulations.
What’s an example of the world not working in this way?
This question is another one that helps turn gut feelings that an argument is wrong into effective analytics. By forcing you to think about historical knowledge you have about the world, you can think of certain factors that led to an outcome that didn’t follow the logic of your opponents arguments. For example, a very common impact teams read is that recessions will result in a cascade of global conflicts as countries lash out against each other. What’s an example of the world not working in this way? Well, in the 2008 recession, there was no major global conflict. Now, you can use this empirical example to back up a warranted response about why recessions don’t actually cause conflict. However, keep in mind that an empiric is not a warrant. Having a warrant should be your primary goal. The empirical evidence to back that warrant up is just the cherry on top.
Satvik Mahendra debated at Jasper and Plano West for four years. Over the course of his career, he was ranked as high as #1 in the nation, earned 16 bids to the TOC, and qualified to the TOC and NSDA Nationals three times. Notably, he finished 4th at the 2022 NSDA Nationals, won the Bellaire, Arizona State, and Holy Cross tournaments, reached semifinals the Harvard Round Robin, Blue Key, and Peach State, reached quarterfinals at Harvard, Grapevine, and Bronx, and was 3rd speaker at Glenbrooks. He's also served as his team's PF Captain and has privately coached over a dozen students to competitive success.