Catholic Nationals Chamber C 2016

It's mostly a roast.

As always, use whatever's useful and ignore the rest.  


Regarding the Usual Obsession:

Guys, I can't call for evidence unless you challenge someone on it.

That would look like this:  "You claim that [Source X] on [Date Y] said that [totally convenient argument].  Can I see that card during break and can you make that available for the judges to see, too, if they'd like?"

And that requires listening.  Your pals in the other debate events wouldn't let this stuff fly.

It's time for the circuit to get its head out of the sand

Denial ain't just that the thing you made up (from "The New York Times in 2015") about there not being any rivers in Egypt.

Harvard Quarterfinals A 2016

I came away with two frustrations which account for my role as apparently an extreme outlier in ranking the round:

1. I wish y'all had debated the second bill as it was written rather than as if it were a big budget infrastructure bill.
2. I wish I could ask for evidence I suspect is being either willfully or accidentally misinterpreted.  Get on it NSDA.  

Anyway, here's the link.

Harvard 2016 Chamber P Prelims Notes

Here's the link to the googledoc.

Please make use of whatever part of this feedback makes sense to you and ignore the rest.

Why We Debate

(This is a draft.)

The founders put debate at the heart of our democratic process because they believed it was the best way to find the truth.

They didn't put debate there as merely an occasion for expressing eloquence, charm, cleverness, or dominance.

Eloquence serves debate's search for the truth.  We don't talk about America's challenges just to demonstrate our eloquence.

Searching for the truth requires engagement with the real world, and the proof that we're making that engagement is what we call evidence.

Without these smaller pieces of the truth, we can't assemble a larger truth on which we can act with confidence.

To me, respect for evidence is the single most important part of debate.  Without it, we might as well be doing Impromptu.  

Concretely, this means I'd prefer by a factor of one thousand that you look down at your legal pad and read a clean, fully-cited quotation than to try to dazzle me with confident eye-contact.  If you speak without a legal pad, you're expecting me to trust you more than I'm usually willing to.    

It's easy to guess how I feel about these loose "trust me they said this" paraphrases, citing daily newspapers by year only (if that).  Might as well not even bother.  And if it sounds illegit, welcome to the bottom half of the ballot.  

It's also easy to guess how I feel about the late "crystallization" speeches which nearly always substitute rapid-fire error-free delivery for actual insight or advancement of the debate.   Crystals are beautiful because their apparent complexity belies an elegant simplicity.  Those speeches are neither beautiful nor elegant.  Don't call it crystallization.  Call it a sugar buzz:  fun, quick, ultimately unsatisfying and at least a little bad for you.   

I confess I'm in the minority on this, but I'm not alone.  And every chance I get, I preach this to my colleagues, most of whom didn't sign on to watch our brightest kids dissemble prettily most weekends of the year.  

I do get a lot of chances.  

Sunvite RR Committee Notes

Here they are.  

I got progressively grumpier.

It is my way.

Glenbrooks Round Comments Posted

Here they are.  As always, take whatever's useful to you and ignore the rest.  

Congrats to everyone.