Holiday Disclosure Post #4 – A Challenge (Bob Overing)
I hereby challenge Tom Evnen, Terrence Lonam, Dave McGinnis, and/or Martin Sigalow to a public debate on disclosure via any reasonable format (written or oral). By my estimation, these are the four most prominent coaches who consistently and egregiously violate standard disclosure norms. While each coach swims against the tide in his own way, I propose that we center the debate on one or more of the following resolutions (I’m aff):
- #1 Resolved: Debaters should flip for sides when the pairing is released.
- #2 Resolved: Debaters should disclose citations, tags, and first three/last three on the NDCA wiki.
- #3 Resolved: Debaters should disclose which aff they plan on reading when the pairing is released.
- #4 Resolved: Judges should vote on disclosure theory arguments when won.
I’ll also debate #1-3 with the phrase “Coaches should encourage their debaters to” substituted for “Debaters should.”
I await your response!
End Notes
[1] Okay, so it’s not exactly ‘the holidays’ anymore, but I don’t go back to school until tomorrow, so it’s still the holidays for me!
[2] Hyperlinks to the last three disclosure posts: #1, #2, and #3.
Bob Overing | Co-Director
Bob is a co-director of Premier, coach for Walt Whitman HS, and current Yale Law School student. As a senior in high school, he was ranked #1, earned 11 bids and took 2nd at TOC. In college, he cleared at CEDA and qualified to the NDT. His students have earned 80 career bids, reached TOC finals, and won many championships.
8 Comments
NOTICE OF ROYAL CHALLENGE
Due to egregious offenses on my honour in the realm of Lincoln-Douglas Debate, I hereby challenge Tom Evnen, Terrence Lonam, Dave McGinnis, and/or Martin Sigalow to a public duel on disclosure via sword.
Weapons must be disclosed and examined beforehand by an impartial panel of judges. Then, it shall be combat to the death. If, by the grace of the Seven, I survive, disclosure shall be mandatory for every noble entry in these royal tourneys of argumentation.
By my estimation, these are the four most prominent coaches who consistently and egregiously violate standard disclosure norms. Should the Seven, in their unerring wisdom, see fit to save these unchivalrous scoundrels from their fate, no noble entrant shall be forced by swordpoint to disclose their methods of parley.
So stands the challenge.
ironic that you want them to disclose their anti-disclosure arguments
I wish I was a prominent coach (like your esteemed colleagues) and could join in the debate. I read all of your discussions and respect your position as it relates to large schools; however, lone wolfs and debaters who have no exposure to what disclosure is should not be subjected to rules that they have no way of knowing.
I look forward to further discussion of this matter.
Debate Mom: Thanks for the post! It’s tough for lone wolves, non-circuit debaters and novices when they come to the big tournaments. They might not know about debate theory, plan-inclusive counterplans, or even spreading. And it’s certainly not nice for regular circuit debaters to read these types of arguments against them. But when you start getting into the higher echelons of a very technical activity, you have to expect some differences in the way debate is practiced. We can decrease the costs of finding out this information by providing better online resources and writing notices about disclosure in tournament invitations, but ultimately, it’s the debater’s job to figure this stuff out.
Salim: Lol, true. I noted as much in my reply to Martin on facebook. Maybe if anyone chooses to debate me, they should disclose while I keep my arguments secret and we can see how much they like being on the other side of things!
Petyr Baelish: Amazing.
I appreciate your comments and understanding of small school debate. I also agree that debaters attending circuit tournaments need to be prepared for theory, Ks, T and other arguments that can be readily researched online. My concern is the “prep out” that occurs when an aff is disclosed and a coach from a big school program hovers over a debater to assist them in formulating arguments against a small school lone wolf who shows up with a debate mom at a tournament. How is that fair? Debate should be about what occurs in the round. Debaters at the circuit level anticipate arguments on ableism, structural violence, oppression, identity, deontology, etc. Why would we prep them specifically for a round in which the other debater lacks that advantage? It is like serving the ball in tennis before the opponent steps forth on the court. Additionally, what value is served in a round when disclosure theory is argued and now the debate devolves to who followed or did not follow the “supposed” rules of debate? I understand that most everyone on this chain has lived in the shelter world of big school debate. The debate classroom at our school does not even have computers or a coach who actually attends tournaments. It is a different perspective for you to consider when you say that disclosure is good. Honestly, think about how scary it is for a debater to do all of this on their own.
Hi Debate Mom,
I understand where you’re coming from which is why I wrote an article addressing this concern which Bob linked to in his holiday post about disclosure number 3. I came from a small school in Oklahoma where I only attended two bid tournaments in high school with no school support for those tournaments and I was lucky enough to find other schools who would take me with them. The school had a debate class and wonderful debate coach but they did not travel and were not familiar with circuit strategies like the ones you’ve mentioned. Some might say Bartlesville was not really a small school because of its historical success at NFL Nationals but Bartlesville fits the description of every other school in virtually every regard. Even in college, I was the only member of my college policy team to full text disclose or read a plan which meant institutional support for evidence was basically just one coach and myself. Even now, I coach a few debaters who lack heavy coach support and still encourage them to disclose despite the prep asymmetry that exists between those debaters and other large schools. As someone with a lot of connections to small schools, I still truly believe that disclosure is good even from the perspective of small school debaters.
Now I think Bob responded to some of your concerns above and you concede that debaters have a responsibility to learn about circuit style arguments which would probably include arguments about disclosure which are readily available online on most people’s wikis and through online articles and forums like this one which have intensely debated the subject of disclosure. It seems the primary concern you have is that of the prep out against small school debaters. This is a reasonable concern and in fact a concern I myself shared when attending the Grapevine tournament my senior year (although this was before disclosure theory was widespread). However, as I note in my article, I don’t find this concern nearly as serious as some and don’t see this as sufficient reason to discount disclosure. I don’t want to rehash the many arguments that I made in the article so please see the article linked here and I take serious consideration about the prep-ours concern.
You say debate is about what happens in round. I’m honestly not sure what the implication or warrant of this is. You say that gives an unfair advantage to one debater. One, I answer this objection in my article. Two, I’m not entirely sure what the unfairness is. You say “Why would we prep them specifically for a round in which the other debater lacks that advantage?” I think this assumes that 1. Small school debaters can’t also prep out other people, and 2. That it is bad to have in-depth debates. Small school debaters can prep without the assistance of coaches and in-fact have seen great success doing so, and debates are better if there is more clash and engagement. Shielding the affirmative case from debate seems to devolve into a claim about debating the intricacies of the affirmative is bad. If a small school debater has done the correct preparation for a tournament, then generic prep-outs are unlikely to be successful, especially on a topic like this one where the negative strategies remain fairly predictable. The tennis example seems misapplied in my opinion. I think it’s more akin to scouting the playing style of your opponent than serving before they can step onto the court which seems closer to reading an aff while the other debater isn’t in the room. I don’t really think that prep-outs really constitute the level of unfairness that you imply.
Now you say there is no value to when disclosure theory is argued in round. To an extent I agree with this argument which is why I don’t necessarily encourage the reading of disclosure theory all the time especially against less experienced opponents. However there is still some value in reading disclosure theory in round. If you’re on the side of pro disclosure, you’ll ultimately convince people to disclose more even if it’s merely to avoid losing to disclosure theory. If you’re anti disclosure it provides an opportunity to defend your practices in a competitive setting. This is ultimately beside the point because the question here isn’t really whether we should read more disclosure theory but rather a discussion of if small school debaters should disclose.
Finally you close with a comment about caring about different perspectives which I whole heartedly agree with. The circuit has its moments where it forgets that it is a privileged community and there is value in recognizing that and becoming more open. However, I still believe that disclosure is good even from the perspective of a small school debater.
I hope to have a productive conversation on the benefits and drawbacks of disclosure,
Lawrence
Hi Lawrence-
I appreciate your response. Actually, I read your article on why small schools benefit from disclosure (when you first published it) and I remember watching you debate in the final round at NSDA nationals In Kansas. Congratulations by the way!
I apologize for my untimely response, but I am appreciative that you would like to engage in this discussion. Perhaps the more perspectives that we learn about on this topic will pave the way for positive changes in the community. I did like the rule at Emory that you had to flip for sides no later than 15 minutes prior to the round. In the future, maybe tournaments will implement policies about disclosure and all of this will be moot.
In the meantime though… I was perplexed by your argument that small school debaters benefit from disclosure because the playing field is “leveled” for the prep out. I think that you misinterpreted my position when I asserted my concerns over the “prep out.” One of the main reasons that I believe disclosure is bad for small schools (and for debate in general) is that I have watched my debater sit in the downstairs cafeteria at Harvard and be subjected to the “prep out” by a large program (I counted 8 people) when she was there only with me. She was preparing for outrounds and had made it as far as she had based on her ability to strategize for herself. She entered into each round and debated the arguments that were advanced in the round. How is disclosure beneficial to someone in my debater’s shoes who is watching the prep out occur to her aff case? While I have obtained private coaching for my debater, it is not the same as having a whole entourage of coaches lurking around to send arguments to debaters to read. Also, these coaches skulk around while judges give their RFDs or they sit in on rounds to possibly intimidate the judge. (I am not saying that all coaches do this- there are many on the circuit who do it to help their debaters improve, but I believe that there are times when lines are significantly crossed.)
Small school debaters and lone wolves are essentially put in a double-bind at these large tournaments. If the debater discloses, then the debater is subjected to the eight person prep out OR the debater does not disclose (after the opponent harasses them to disclose) and they lose to disclosure theory because coaches like you and Bob believe that it is beneficial to engage in the theory debate in the round.
Disclosure does not allow the student to think for himself/herself, be creative or even substantively engage in arguments in the round. So many debaters just read me a bunch of arguments and the rebuttals do not even match what the opponent said! I think that if students listen in the round, have the speech doc at the start of the round, prep for the topic and utilize the resources that are available (briefs, articles, philosophy books, critical literature, etc.) that critical thinking skills and in depth engagement will occur more often in rounds. A prime example wherein disclosure of arguments is not used in the real world is in litigation. When I prepare for trial, opposing counsel is not entitled to my strategy, cross examination questions, direct examination questions, rebuttal witness strategy, the order in which I plan to call my witnesses, the order that I will introduce evidence, my proposed orders (until the end of the trial after the arguments are made), etc. Why should we discourage the in round “thinking on your feet” part of the LD game?
You provided examples and justifications wherein you stated that small schools are benefited by the information that they will receive when students disclose and that they will be prepped out anyway if there is not disclosure. However, you are presuming that because something unjust is already happening, that we should keep allowing it to occur and allow for more unjust practices to “possibly make it fairer.”
Remember, my perspective as a Debate Mom is as a result of taking a lone wolf debater (my daughter) independently to tournaments that our school does not even know that we attend. In fact, when the coach for our small program at our school even tries to register for a local tournament, she is met with pushback from the administration and told that she is annoying. I paid all of the registration fees for our last local tournament for all of the competitors because the school would not provide the coach a check for the fees even though all the kids paid the tournament fees in advance. The ivory tower arguments that schools encourage debate and fund debate are fallacious. It has been more of a struggle than you can possibly imagine and that is why my views on disclosure are so staunch. It is difficult enough to be a part of the upper echelon of the debate community as Bob calls it; but, when lone wolves and small schools are punished even more by the “in your face prep out,” then it makes the game utterly unfair.
While I respect you as a coach and debater, I hope that you will re-consider your perspective in light of the information that I have provided to you.
Sincerely- Debate Mom
I appreciate the response, it’s nice to have a productive discussion about the benefits and drawbacks of disclosure. Thanks for the congratulations though that was quite a long time ago. I personally also appreciated the mandated flip time.
You say I miss the point and that the primary concern is the pre-round prep-out which is unfair. To start, I still think my concerns of leveling the playing field are valid and constitute reasons in favor of disclosure. To convince me that disclosure is net bad, I would have to be convinced that the pre-round prep out would be so devastating that it outweighs every other fairness and education argument in favor of disclosure which I don’t believe is true. I also think a lot of my responses from my original article still stand, namely arguments about how lack of disclosure most likely wouldn’t shield a small school debater from these pre-round prep-outs since those large schools have the resources to acquire that information if they want to. But even if none of those arguments are convincing, I still am not sure that the prep-out objection is so devastating that it constitutes a reason small school debaters shouldn’t disclosure. Prep-outs are rarely unbeatable especially if there are thrown together right before the round. Eight people prepping out an aff is a terrifying thought and I’ve been on the receiving end of it myself as a coach and debater, but I have very rarely found that the product of that prep-out is so devastating and if it is, then it probably indicates that the aff is not as strong as it could be.
You say she made to outrounds (congrats!) based on her ability to strategize. There’s no reason why this can’t continue to win. Many top debaters read the same aff most of the topic and face many comprehensive prep-outs from other large schools and still win based on their ability to strategize and understand their arguments. I’ve seen some of debaters face a dozen pages of serious, specific prep from larger programs. If those debaters really understand their affs and have done their work, they will beat their opponents anyways.
You say that disclosure isn’t beneficial to debaters watching the prep-out occur to them. While there is some truth from this limited perspective, I think there are some benefits in this particular instance. Disclosure increases clash by streamlining research and so improves the quality of the round. Additionally, it makes the aff better. By facing a serious prep-out, it will force the aff to improve their game. The best affs are not those that have never faced a serious prep-out, but ones that have faced them and emerged stronger. Beyond the more limited perspective of a single debate round, I still think that disclosure is still beneficial since it allows smaller school debaters to streamline their preparation. I can’t speak for you, but as the coach of a few independent debaters, we rely heavily on disclosure and the wiki to prepare for rounds.
You say private coaching isn’t the same as having a lot of coaches. While coaching disparity is something worth being concerned over, I’m not sure it provides a reason against disclosure just a concern with larger patterns of inequity in debate. For one thing, some of the most successful lone wolf debaters had only one coach and there are a lot of debaters on the circuit now who have only one coach. For another, quantity of coaches isn’t a strong an influencer on the quality of debaters as you might expect. Having direct experience with large and small schools through camp and coaching, I can say that from my experience that large coaching staffs doesn’t immediately result in more prep, more successful debaters, or better pre-round prep-outs. And as Bob and I have both argued, the distinction between small and large schools is real but largely illusory since there are large schools with lots of coaches but few successful debaters and some “large schools” are merely a few kids with a strong work ethic.
You say coaches are intimidating and grill judges. I personally am also against this practice which is why I personally refuse to “grill” judges after rounds and do my best to avoid being an “intimidating” presence in the room during rounds. I find it very annoying as a judge and coach.
You say there is a double-bind for small schools. In fairness, I have voted against disclosure theory multiple times this year at tournaments (I believe more often than I have voted for it) so it’s probably still possible to escape the double-bind of losing to disclosure theory. However, I believe my article and points above directly engage this double-bind and explain why the first part of the double-bind isn’t really that bad and why the benefits of disclosure still outweigh this concern. Prep-outs are a thing, but certainly not that widespread or devastating.
You say disclosure decreases creativity and prevents engagement. I think Bob’s article concerning disclosure and creativity is a fairly good response to this point so I won’t repeat it, but yes, debaters read a bunch of arguments and the rebuttals are bad. I think this is relatively non-unique since those debaters will just read the same prep against affs regardless of disclosure. Even before the age of disclosure, low to mid level debaters still read a bunch of blocks without fully understanding what they said. Granted, this is bad practice and I am also not a fan of the “mindlessly read without understanding anything you’re saying” approach to debate, but I’m not convinced that eliminating disclosure eliminates this practice. If anything, lack of disclosure exacerbates this problem because when faced with new arguments or positions that debaters lack prep on, those debaters who just read blocks and nothing else are not the debaters who will develop creative arguments on the spot. They will just read a bunch of generic arguments that probably interact with the aff even worse beforehand. If those with access to disclosed positions don’t come up with good arguments before the round, what evidence is there that they will suddenly come up with creative and engaging arguments in the middle of a stressful debate round? Additionally, thinking on your feet occurs before the round as well. Why encourage on your feet thinking at the expense of researched strategies against affirmatives? Against interesting affs, debaters have to think quickly before the round to find arguments that respond well to the aff, but they have the added benefit of researching the arguments they’re about to make. Thinking on your feet still occurs in a world with disclosure since the best debaters still have to make strategic decisions in later speeches and have to adapt to opponent’s rebuttal choices. I think that all of the other things that you mention like listening in round, prepping for the topic, and utilizing resources are important and do in fact increase engagement and critical thinking, but I am still convinced that disclosure is more likely to increase engagement as well for all the reasons mentioned in previous articles.
You say that it doesn’t match the real world and provide the example of litigation. Disclosure actually seems relatively consistent with the example you have provided. Disclosure doesn’t require the disclosure of rebuttal strategies, CX questions, speech orders, etc., nor does it require the disclosure of positions not previously broken before in debates. It merely requires that arguments/evidence read in previous debates be readily accessible. Perhaps where it slightly deviates is the requirement for oral disclosure before the round about which affirmative case will be read, though I’m unsure if this difference is enough to reject disclosure as a practice.
You say that I presume I should continue to allow unjust practices to continue. I’m not sure why current “old school scouting” practices are unjust. There seems nothing initially unjust about a friend providing you a flow on its own and while you and a few others have pointed out this assumption, I don’t know what the case for these practices being actually unjust is. Additionally, there has never been a case established by anti-disclosure advocates for what the solution to these supposed unjust practices is. Do we ban spectatorship, threaten students who share flows, establish punishments for judges for share information? None of these seem feasible or desirable. Since we live in an imperfect world, we have to ask how to improve fairness and education from our current position, not an ideal one. Since flowing sharing and intel-gathering occurs in the status quo and does disproportionately hurt small school debaters, we should ask what practices should we adopt to make debate more fair or educational given our current position, and I believe that disclosure is one practice that more wide-spread adoption would benefit debate as a whole.
You say that your perspective on disclosure is informed by taking your daughter as a lone wolf to tournaments. First, that is amazing, and I’m always impressed when parents support debate in such an involved manner. Your daughter is very lucky to have such a supportive parent. But I too have had experience as a competitor and coach dealing with small schools. In fact, prior to this year, I had no affiliation with any established debate program apart from camp, even though my views on disclosure were changed from anti-disclosure to pro-disclosure during my first year out of high school. I definitely understand the general problems that small schools face even though I cannot fully imagine the specific instance you and your child faces. As a high school debater, I only attended two bid tournaments ever and both were without school assistance, funding, a team, or coach. I managed to get rides by reaching out to local policy programs and sharing rooms with them and paid for fees myself. My coach did not assist me in any circuit prep and all of the prep was prep I had to do myself. I faced prep-outs as well. Thankfully my coach did not prevent me from attending bid tournaments but I have been on the receiving end of being prohibited from attending a tournament due to lacking school support or being unable to attend a tournament since I couldn’t find travel arrangements. I agree that the argument that “schools fund and encourage debate” is fairly silly, especially since I attended high school in Oklahoma, a state notorious for under-funding education and encouraging educational practice that leave Oklahoma consistently among the worst performers in the nation.
I coach a debater who recently finaled at a bid tournament. She attends a school that has no debate team, coach, teammates, support, funding, etc. She does have the benefit of two coaches, but still lacks anything remotely coming close to a massive prep infrastructure. When we are at bid tournaments together, I was frequently the only person on-site that could work with her as she had no teammates or other coaches to help her at the tournament. At these tournaments, I could definitively say that disclosure was necessary to her success. Without disclosure, she was unable to effectively prepare against many of her opponents since we lacked a ton of generics so we had to spend our limited time crafting more specific preparation against specific arguments and teams. At the most recent tournament we attended, disclosure was specifically key in a few rounds against other small school and large school debaters when they had multiple affirmatives on the wiki or very specific affirmatives or even very specific negative positions. We would ask for disclosure prior to rounds so we could spend our limited time before the round strategizing and finding additional evidence as needed. Without disclosure, I’m not sure she would have been as successful at the tournament.
Even when I debated more frequently in college policy debate, I still made a habit of full-text disclosing our documents despite having only one coach who also cut policy cards and being the only debater on the team who read policy arguments. We would be debating larger schools like Kansas who had a much larger prep squad in terms of teammates and coaches and who could out-card us in every single debate where we were aff and defending a policy affirmative. Yes, we lost a few debates to top Kansas teams who were simply better than us (one of those teams is currently in contention for a first-round bid to the NDT), but we beat a few other Kansas teams with the same cards as the other Kansas teams simply on strategy and knowledge of the cards alone. Before rounds, those Kansas teams would sit with their multiple coaches and teammates putting together comprehensive prep-outs to our aff and I would sit with my partner and update a few cards. The better teams read the same cards but executed strategy better and demonstrated more knowledge of the topic while the lower teams read the same cards but would lose due to an inability to execute. As someone with experience in high school and college with disclosure, being on the receiving end of disclosure prep-outs, and dealing with disclosure as a whole, I’m still much more personally convinced by the pro-disclosure case than the anti-disclosure case.
You say when lone wolves and small schools are punished even more by the “in your face prep out,” then it makes the game utterly unfair. I think, again, most of my points above are fairly responsive to this. It also makes the assumption that preparation against an affirmative constitutes punishment, but I’m not sure why it is punishment? I’ve always been relatively confused by what the impact to disclosure bad is when the impact is couched in terms of fairness. I understand the more education based arguments against disclosure, such as the creativity objection, but I’m less sure why losing a round because your opponent has more preparation is really an impact. If it’s because it propagates the inequality in resources between large and small schools, then I’m not sure why failing to disclosure is the solution. Why not also limit the amount of prep that large schools are allowed to have, or limit the amount of coaches that schools or debaters can hire? These inequalities are serious, but I’m less sure why anti-disclosure is the solution. If it’s because it rewards large teams with more research and preparation, then I’m convinced that is a reason why disclosure is good because it encourages more research and preparation. If it’s because it locks small schools out of outrounds, then I think that my replies above about how to overcome disclosure is a way around this objection and that anti-disclosure seems a suboptimal solution given that this implication would also probably justify voting for small school debaters merely because they were from a small school and had to overcome structural barriers to participate or learn progressive debate etc. If it’s none of these implications, then the conclusion seems to be simply that it’s unfair for someone to have more prep than me, which doesn’t strike me as a strong conclusion. Maybe it’s because I haven’t really thoroughly explored the arguments against disclosure, so that’s why I appreciate this debate.
The case you have presented is interesting and has forced me to reconsider a few of my thoughts which is one of the reasons I think debate is important to have. But having been on both sides of disclosure, I’m still remain convinced that disclosure is good even from the perspective of a small school.
Lawrence