Tournament Packet 32nd Annual Harvard Debating Championships October 11 th -12 th

Transcription

1 Tournament Packet 32nd Annual Harvard Debating Championships October 11 th -12 th

2 Welcome to the 32 nd Annual Harvard Debating Championships! In this packet you should find the tournament schedule, tab and equity policies, a map and detailed directions to buildings around campus, as well as contact information for important tournament staff. You should have confirmed your housing information at the registration table. If there are any changes to your housing arrangements or if you have any questions, contact Julia Geiger (Housing Director) at (786) If you are a judge, please make sure to check in with Josh Zoffer (Judging Director) at the registration table; you must check in in person to confirm your presence and availability. We are providing you dinner on Friday night and breakfast Saturday morning which will be available in GA. Unfortunately we cannot provide you with lunch Saturday but there are many food options available only minutes away in Harvard Square. This year we will once again be sponsored in part by Jane Street Capital who will be conducting a short information session Saturday morning between Rounds 4 and 5. The location of that information session will be posted in GA. We are also participating with Weiss Asset Management to collect resumes of individuals interested in internships or interviews with them. See more details below. Best of luck to all competitors, and enjoy your weekend, Nathaniel Donahue (Tournament Director) Schedule Friday October 11th 2:00PM Registration Opens 3:30PM Registration Closes 3:30PM Tournament Briefing 4:00PM Round 1 5:45PM Dinner and APDA Meeting 6:30PM Round 2 8:45PM Round 3 Saturday October 12th 8:00AM Breakfast 9:00AM Round 4 10:30AM Presentation by Jane Street Capital 11:00AM-2:00PM tabling by Blueprint LSAT Company 11:15AM Round 5 12:45PM Lunch 1:45PM Octofinals /Novice Semi-finals 3:30PM Quarterfinals /Novice Finals 5:00PM Semifinals

3 6:15PM Finals 7:15PM Awards Weiss Asset Management, an asset management firm located in Boston, is soliciting resumes from the APDA community! If you are interested in having them review your resume and potentially contact you about internships, please speak to Josh Zoffer about how to submit your resume, or them in.pdf format to This year, we will be giving away Chipotle gift cards on a first come, first served basis in exchange for resumes. Tab We are pleased to announce that we will be using MIT tab. Special thanks to Joey Lynch for all his help in setting this up. Tab will this year be run by Madeline Zhu, assisted by Julia Geiger, Julia Clark and Vegas Longlois. Our tab observer will be Rich Boltizar. Before calling anyone, you should check our website ( It has Pairings Maps The Schedule Judge Feedback Forms The Judge List Contact Information If you need to contact tab, please use one of the following numbers (in descending priority): Julia Clark: (857) (after round 1) Madeline Zhu: (909) Julia Geiger: (786) If you have a problem with a room, contact in order: Dylan Hardenbergh (rooms coordinator) at (907) Jake Miller at (914) Nathaniel Donahue at (919) For general inquiries, call Nathaniel Donahue at (919) Tab Policy 1. Round 1 will be paired randomly. No seeded team will debate another seeded team if possible. Seeds will be respected with the following priority: Full Seed, Half Seed, and Free Seed. 2. Round 2-5 will be power matched within each bracket. 3. If a bracket contains an odd number of teams, a team will be pulled up from the middle of the bracket immediately below and paired into the higher bracket on the basis of speaker

4 points. No team will be pulled up more than once and no team will hit the pull-up more than once. 4. No team will hit the same team twice. 5. Teams will be protected against other teams from the same school unless that team s school constitutes more than half the bracket. Hybrids have protection against only one of the two schools that constitute the hybrid, and they are protected against the school they take free seed status from if applicable. 6. Ironpeople are permitted to win rounds but are not eligible to break or receive speaker awards. If any debater does not compete for one round, excluding situations involving a bye or forfeit win, both they and their partner are ineligible for awards. Judges will score and rank a single debater separately for each speech in the round. 7. We will break to Varsity Octofinals and Novice Semifinals. 8. Outrounds will be determined based on the following policy: a. Win/Loss record b. Total ranks - total opponent wins c. Total speaker points d. Single-adjusted ranks - single-adjusted opponent wins. e. Single-adjusted speaker points f. Double-adjusted ranks - double-adjusted opponent wins. g. Double-adjusted speaker points h. Coin flip 9. Sides for outrounds will be determined by whichever team has had the fewest outround choices. In the event that both teams have chosen sides the same number of times, they will flip a coin, and the winner will choose sides. If two teams have hit before, they will be locked to the opposite sides as when they first hit. 10. Scratches will be respected through Semis. 11. This year, we will be implementing a policy of open adjudication. Judges should fill out a speed ballot, with only essential information feedback will be given orally after the round. After handing in the ballot either to a runner or to tab directly, judges are required to disclose the outcome of the round along with the reasons for their decision directly to the competitors. 12. Competitors are not permitted to reuse cases that they have used in any previous round at this tournament. Any team caught violating this rule, after an independent verification of the offense by the Tab Observer, will automatically forfeit their round. Debaters and judges are encouraged to report offending teams to tab. 13. Any score of 27 or above, or 23 or below must be justified to tab. Speaker Scale Above 27 This is an incredible speech, unparalleled by any other speech ever to occur. 27 Excellent speech. Flawless. One of the best speeches of the tournament A very good speech. No noticeable faults. Presentation was quite compelling and demonstrated significant nuance and depth of argument. 26 A good speech, with at most only some minor faults. Argumentation and presentation were strong.

5 25.5 Above average speech. Argumentation and presentation were more than adequate but could be improved. 25 An average speech. Nothing memorable. Some faults but nothing which adversely impacted the round Below average speech. Argumentation did not sufficiently engage with the round and presentation mildly detracted from the speech. 24 Poor speech. Speech had major faults. Presentation was confusing and speech lacked substantive argumentation A very poor speech. Several major faults that significantly detracted from the speech, and negatively impacted the debater s side in the round. 23 Terrible speech. Incoherent. Painful to listen to. Below 23 Offensive. Further exposure liable to induce vomiting. Equity Joanna Zheng will be the equity officer for our tournament. Hi everyone! My name is Joanna Zheng. I'm your APDA EOF Secretary for , and I'm also excited to announce that I will be your Equity Officer at Harvard this year. We will be making an announcement to introduce the APDA EOFs present and the location of the Equity Box before Round 1 in GA. Our collective goal this weekend is to promote an environment of fairness, respect, and (surprise) equity and to make sure that everyone is comfortable discussing issues or complaints that might arise. The official equity policy is below, but feel free to contact me at joanna.zheng@yale.edu with any specific questions! 1. Complaints may be made either by speaking with me personally or by talking to any of the other EOFs in attendance. For those who require anonymity, an equity box will be set up in a public but low-trafficked area of the tournament (the location will be announced before first round pairing are read), into which anonymous complaints can be be placed. I will check the box at least once between every round. 2. I reserve the right not to respond to a complaint if it is, in my opinion, trivial and/or irrelevant to Section 2 of the Code of Conduct, or frivolous and/or clearly not made in good faith. 3. I will investigate all complaints, along with other EOFs and members of the tournament staff, if necessary. 4. If the claim is found to have merit, the person implicated in the complaint will be informed and have time to prepare a written statement to explain his or her actions. 5. If, after speaking with the relevant parties, the EOFs feel that a violation of the Code of Conduct has occurred, one or more of the following repercussions may apply: a. a verbal warning b. requiring the object of the complaint to issue an apology to the complainant c. banning the object of a complaint from tournament socials d. banning the object of a complaint from GA

6 e. disqualifying the object of a complaint from the break The punishment will reflect the gravity of the offense. I reserve the right to apply punishments not listed here if I, along with the tournament staff, deem necessary. 6. At the resolution of each complaint, I will inform all persons involved in the complaint of the decision reached. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns regarding this policy; again, my is joanna.zheng@yale.edu. Looking forward to seeing everyone and meeting new faces! A few words on Equity Equity on APDA is all about mutual respect, fairness, and ensuring that everyone has a great time at each tournament without feeling as though they are being slighted or discriminated against in any way. If you have any concerns regarding equity, please feel free to talk to an equity officer or use the equity box, which is reserved for complaints, at any time throughout the tournament. We are always here to help you regardless of which school you attend, your level of participation, or your amount of experience in the debate community. One thing we as EOFs especially want to address is the importance of writing and running appropriate cases. When writing a case, please keep in mind the ways in which it might play out in the round and affect your fellowdebaters and judge. When in doubt, please err on the side of caution. No matter how funny, creative, or unique you think your case is, if it could be offensive to others around you, please do not hesitate to reach out to an EOF or other varsities to ask about the appropriateness of the case. Below please find a list of all current APDA EOFs (and a short sentence about ourselves!) We are proud to represent a diversity of schools across APDA as well as a diversity of interests, majors, and hobbies. We wish you all the best this year and can't wait to meet each and every one of you at future tournaments! Joanna Zheng (joanna.zheng@yale.edu) is a senior at Yale University, where (barring senior theses explosions) she is double majoring in Economics and Political Science. In her spare time she enjoys distance running, bad karaoke, and sushi! Bernardo Sarmiento (bds2121@columbia.edu) is a senior at Columbia majoring in English and Medieval Studies. He enjoys good movies, good books, and bad television, and secretly wishes to become a knight and/or monk. Beth Sheil (bsheil@terpmail.umd.edu) is a junior chemical engineering major at Maryland. She is also a chocaholic who loves cute animals! Becca Steinberg (becca.steinberg@yale.edu) is a junior history major at Yale. Originally from St. Louis, MO, her passion for her midwestern origins is only exceeded by her passion for tea, cupcakes, excessively bright colors, and equity. Samuel Soltoff (samuel.soltoff@gmail.com) is a senior physics and mathematics major at the University of Maryland. He loves avocado and playing cello. Paige Lurie is a junior at Brandeis University. She is majoring in History and Politics and minoring in Legal Studies. She feels its imperative everyone knows she loves all mangos and penguins.

7 Lisa Vickers is a junior at the University of Connecticut. In addition to her love for debate, Lisa is also heavily involved in Model United Nations, she is a political science research assistant, and loves shopping, reading, and coffee. Priyanha Nadansabesan (priyanha@gwmail.gwu.edu)is a junior at George Washington University. She started debating in college and has been on the team since her freshman year. She is majoring in psychology. Her celebrity crushes are Macklemore, Jay Baruchel, and Ellen Degeneres. Contact Information Tournament Director Nathaniel Donahue: (919) Judging Director Josh Zoffer: (919) Housing Director Julia Geiger: (786) Tab Madeline Zhu: (909) , Julia Clark: (857) , Julia Geiger: (786) , Vegas Longlois: (361)