ICYMI: Peter Zhang on Disclosure Norms
at
Peter Zhang has completed a significant empirical project on disclosure norms:
I scraped the wikis (during off-hours) of every season starting 2014. … I collected the round info, cite names, and round reports of each team’s page.
I also collected Tabroom data on every LD bid tournament, with historical records reaching back as far as available. … For the 295 remaining tournaments, I scraped the Novice, JV, and Varsity entries of LD, PF, and Policy.
Among his findings:
- Two-thirds of debaters disclose—up from under 40% five years ago.
- Over half of debaters open source their evidence—up from 5% five years ago.
- Novice disclosure has increased six-fold over the past five years.
- Over 30% of Varsity LD debaters have read disclosure theory this season.
All of this is a far cry from what we used to see on the circuit and what led us to publish probably a dozen times on disclosure over the years.
Read the whole thing here.
premierdebate
Premier Debate's mission is to inspire excellence by empowering debaters to think critically and push the boundaries of their education. Premier Debate runs summer camps for high school debaters, provides coaching during the season, and hosts online resources for debaters during the season, including our topic briefs, which reach thousands of debaters around the country.
