Monthly Archives: September 2009 - Page 4

Glenbrook South Wins The Greenhill Round Robin

Posted by on September 11, 2009 Comments Off

Richard Day and Will Thibeau from Glenbrook South defeated Reid Ehrlich-Quinn and Pablo Gannon from Damien on a 3-0 decision.

Live From The Greenhill Round Robin – Results

Posted by on September 11, 2009 1 comment

Final Round: (1AC Began at 8:46PM)

Glenbrook South DT vs. Damien EG — David Heidt, Kuntal Cholera, Jonathan Paul

Social Division–Top Teams:

1. Glenbrook South DT — 11 ballots, broken on head-to-head
2. Westminster AT — 11 ballots
3. Kinkaid BK — 8 ballots

Social Division–Top Speakers:

1. Layne Kirshon — Kinkaid
2. Will Thibeau — Glenbrook South
3. Daniel Taylor — Westminster

Services Division–Top Teams:

1. Damien EG — 9 ballots, broken on head-to-head
2. Westlake BM — 9 ballots
3. Bronx Science EM — 8 ballots
4. Carrollton DG — 8 ballots
5. St. Mark’s BM — 7 ballots
6. Woodward PP — 7 ballots

Services Division–Top Speakers:

1. Reid Ehrlich-Quinn — Damien
2. Andrew Markoff — Bronx Science
3. Alex Miles — St. Mark’s

Live From The Greenhill Round Robin – Day Two

Posted by on September 11, 2009 Comments Off

Rounds five, six, and seven will take place today with the final round occurring tonight. We will provide coverage of the results as soon as they are made available.

Round 5:

Glenbrook North MS vs. Chattahoochee CR — Petit, Fiori
Glenbrook South DT vs. Grapevine QS — Paul, Atchison
Kinkaid BK vs. Westminster AT — Kall, Batterman
New Trier CS vs. Highland Park PY — Jon Rose, Cluff

Carrollton DG vs. Greenhill KP — Baker, Tate
St. Mark’s BM vs. Westlake BM — Manuel, Sabino
Whitney Young GH vs. Bronx Science EM — Crowe, Heidt
Woodward PP vs. Damien EG — Hantel, Munksgaard

Round 6:

Chattahoochee CR vs. Kinkaid BK — Atchison, Repko
Grapevine QS vs. New Trier CS — Petit, Kall
Highland Park PY vs. Glenbrook South DT — Nishioka, Levkovitz
Westminster AT vs. Glenbrook North MS — Sabino, Mahoney

Bronx Science EM vs. St. Mark’s BM — Sykes, Baker
Damien EG vs. Carrollton DG — Peretz, Cluff
Greenhill KP vs. Woodward PP — Crowe, Manuel
Westlake BM vs. Whitney Young GH — Matheson, Munksgaard

Round 7:

Glenbrook South DT vs. New Trier CS — Blank, Abelkop
Grapevine QS vs. Highland Park PY — Baker, Peretz
Kinkaid BK vs. Glenbrook North MS — Manuel, Sykes
Westminster AT vs. Chattahoochee CR — Cluff, Levkovitz

Bronx Science EM vs. Westlake BM — Bricker, Repko
Carrollton DG vs. Woodward PP — Sabino, Marks
Damien EG vs. Greenhill KP — Nishioka, Mahoney
St. Mark’s BM vs. Whitney Young GH — Hantel, Fiori

Live From The Greenhill Round Robin – Day One

Posted by on September 10, 2009 Comments Off

The 3NR will be providing live coverage of the Greenhill Round Robin. There is no disclosure, so we will just be providing pairings until tomorrow night when the results are announced. Information about the arguments that teams are reading at the Round Robin is being posted to the NDCA Wiki.

Round 1:

GBS TD vs. Kinkaid BK — Marks, Carver
Grapevine QS vs. Westminster AT — Crowe, Fiori
Highland Park PY vs. Hooch CR — Cholera, Querido
New Trier CS vs. GBN MS — Batterman, Levkovitz

Bronx EM vs. Greenhill KP — Abelkop, Munksgaard
St. Mark’s BM vs. Woodward PP — Kall, Greenstein
Westlake BM vs. Damien EG — Tate, Wisenhunt
Whitney Young GH vs. Carrollton DG — Manuel, Sykes

Round 2:

Hooch CR vs. GBS TD — Sabino, Cluff
GBN MS vs. Highland Park PY — Atchison, TBD
Kinkaid BK vs. Grapevine QS — Greenwalt, Levkovitz
Westminster AT vs. New Trier CS — Nishioka, Repko

Carrollton DG vs Bronx EM — Hantel, Matheson
Damien EG vs. Whitney Young GH — Abelkop, Baker
Greenhill KB vs. St. Mark’s BM — Batterman, Peretz
Woodward PP vs. Westlake BM — Heidt, Ryan Smith

Round 3:

Glenbrook South DT vs. Glenbrook North MS — Kall, Querido
Grapevine QS vs. Chattahoochee CR – Nishioka, Jon Rose
Highland Park PY vs. Westminster AT — Marks, Paul
New Trier CS vs. Kinkaid BK — Mahoney, Fiori

Bronx Science EM vs. Damien EG — Atchison, Manuel
St. Mark’s BM vs. Carrollton DG — Whisenhunt, Munksgaard
Westlake BM vs. Greenhill KP — Hantel, Sykes
Whitney Young GH vs. Woodward PP — Tate, Repko

Round 4:

Chattahoochee CR vs. New Trier CS — Eyzaguirre, Carver
Glenbrook North MS vs. Grapevine QS — Berthiaume, Marks
Kinkaid BK vs. Highland Park PY — Petit, Crowe
Westminster AT vs. Glenbrook South DT — Peterson, Jon Rose

Carrollton DG vs. Westlake BM — Abelkop, Greenstein
Damien EG vs. St. Mark’s BM — Heidt, Matheson
Greenhill KP vs. Whitney Young GH — Whisenhunt, Kall
Woodward PP vs. Bronx Science EM — Cluff, Peretz

Basic Search terms

Posted by on September 3, 2009 5 comments

I was looking at the blog stats tonight and there is a portion that tells you the search terms that people used to find the blog. I’ve noticed this a few times and generally been aghast at some of the things I have seen. People are running searches like

“Poverty good”

“Obama plan passage political capital”

etc. etc. So here is a quick guide for doing searches:

1. Use google- it has the cached function that lets you see websites that otherwise aren’t available, more customization in terms of search criteria than anything else etc- trust me just use google.

2. Using google you don’t need to use words like and, just type things in.

Now onto real search tips.

1. Start specific- think about what the ideal card for the argument you are looking for would say. Shoot for the moon first. To do this don’t use quotes because you won’t know for sure in what order the words will appear in etc. So if you are looking for a card that will argue that collapse of leadership causes nuclear war, don’t put “leadership collapse causes nuke war”. Most authors don’t right in 5 word causal sentences like that. (http://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1GGLS_enUS291US305&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=”leadership+collapse+causes+nuke+war” as you can see no results). Instead put a string of words that would appear in an ideal card. So something like: US leadership proliferation terrorism nuclear war- which while not perfect at least leads to this http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2009-05/2009-05-06-voa55.cfm?CFID=281289107&CFTOKEN=89821052&jsessionid=88301216fd6ffac72de233607a735a2c1750

(which incidentally lead me to discover this sweet heg bad article http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6W5V-4TWSWX5-3&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1000223730&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=498c6906e9a486b71f56809a068708b0)

3. Use selected quotes- so putting “nuclear war” in quotes will stop google from returning articles that say nuclear separate from war. This is a double edged sword though- this will also prevent you from finding articles that say “nuclear exchange” or another synonym. You can add a lot more detail using the advanced function on google which you can click on next to the search box. You can also use the or function in there to search for “nuclear war” or “nuclear exchange” etc.

4. Get broader- if your initial search didn’t turn up something useful then broaden your terms and see if you can churn something else up that way.

5. Use quotes and author names to refine searches- if you find a really good quote on a topic- search to see if someone else has quoted it to respond or use it as evidence to support their own argument. Searching “hegemony khalilzad” you can find articles that are going to be more geared to the types of leadership arguments in debate than just searching for hegemony.

6. Avoid debate terminology- authors don’t write “prolif good” or “healthcare uniqueness”. You need to think about synonyms they would write instead of these terms and use them in your searches.

5 Tips for Tournament Success.

Posted by on September 1, 2009 5 comments

While I am a true believer that 90 percent of debate tournament success comes in pre tournament preparation (good research, practice speeches, effective organization and block writing etc) the remaining 10 percent is obviously vital to your win/loss record and shiny speaker awards.

This post is designed to help you be at your best for those 3 or so days you are at the tournament.

1.)    Sleep- Sleep is the most valuable commodity at debate tournaments.  Most people don’t usually get enough of it and it shows.  Your goal should be to get 7ish hours of sleep a night.  Your most important debate rounds are usually at the end of the day so your energy and focus needs to be there 12 or so hours after waking up.  If you feel so inclined to pull an all nighter (not saying I recommend it) I would do it the night before you leave for a tournament so the night you get to the tournament you can get to sleep at a decent time.  In general there are two types of people who don’t get enough sleep at tournaments

A)    People who are up late card cutting/blocking/highlighting- While your intentions are noble you are hurting yourself immensely, the benefit of blocking X cards or highlighting misc updates versus another hour of sleep are huge.  At 7am when you are on your way to the prelims you’re not going to be ecstatic about what you did last night, but groggy and sleepy.

B)    The people who are fooling around in the hallways- you all are categorized by slamming doors after midnight into those locks that you leave out so you can get back into your rooms.  I won’t talk much about you all, I don’t expect to see you all debating on elim day and neither should you.

2.)    Bring decent snack food- Often lines are really long for getting food and even then you’re likely to get some fried greasiness of something.  While I fully enjoy the benefits of fried greasy sustenance they do not always go great when mixed with debating.   Powerbars, some type of granola, fruit etc are all easy to put in your bag, not too messy and quick.  I don’t think that red bulls or other energy drinks are particularly great for you while you’re debating but that is obviously more person dependent.  A safe bet is a big bottle of water, or Gatorade/powerade.  I really haven’t ever read anything scientific about carbonated beverages and speaking but let’s be honest the caffeine doses in diet coke are so negligible that if it could possibly hurt your speaking why risk it?

3.)    Bring 3-4 timers.  2 for you, one for the judge, and one for the other team.  Always have 2 timers while you are speaking as a team.  Timer snafus (btw spell check definitely fixed that) happen all the time, you don’t want to be another causality.   Keep your timers safe, there are always klepto timer people at tournaments.  Writing your name on a timer is not enough; having a name on it just means they know who they stole it from.

4.)    Have a copy of the judge philosophies on your computer or phone.  The philosophies are available at debatecoaches.org or if you have an iphone there is an app called idebate that has a timer and all of the judge philosophies + a timer.

5.)    Practice speaking in the morning before you go to the tournament- while this might make you wake up 10-15 mins earlier to do some speaking drills, the benefits of not sounding like a word that rhymes with mass definitely outweighs.

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