Author: Matt Liu, University of Wyoming Director of Debate I believe that in nearly all aspects of debate, more transparency translates to stronger competitors and more educational benefits from debate. The clearest instance of this is argument disclosure. Once an argument is read, competitors should not seek to hide it from each other. In-depth interrogation of arguments is the very best that debate has to offer, and arguments that cannot stand up to the scrutiny of a rigorous challenge are not arguments that deserve to win. I embrace the mentality that debaters should “tack their cases to the wall.” In LD and policy there are wikis where debaters can disclose the arguments that they have read, and look up the arguments their opponents have read (there is also a wiki for PF debaters to disclose their arguments, however, I am not as convicted that disclosure is necessary in PF). I do, however, strongly support that LD and policy debaters should post their arguments to the wiki. The more complete your wiki is, the better. I believe this is good pedagogy, but it’s also a competitive advantage, not a disadvantage.
From a pedagogical perspective, argument disclosure leads to better debates. One of the benefits of debate (one that makes it particularly attractive to colleges and universities) is that it is a research-driven activity. Debate is not merely sophistry: the ability to prepare in advance subjects arguments to scrutiny that is often missing in the public sphere. That quality of debate is enhanced by disclosure. Oftentimes, if an argument is so poorly constructed it can be defeated solely because it’s not a surprise, that argument deserves to lose. An argument that cannot survive against a determined and nimble researcher should be punished. We live in an age where it is easy to pretend to appear to be an expert (think Plandemic) and research is necessary to debunk absurdities. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Disclosure also mirrors real world practices. In one of debate’s closest analogues, the courtroom, discovery procedures require evidence to be disclosed. In this way, practicing disclosure is also good preparation for arguing in a courtroom. Finally, disclosure of past arguments is balanced by the ability to “break new” arguments to catch your opponents off guard. This balance rewards the innovation of new arguments and requires students to learn the skills of thinking on your feet yet also enables rigorous preparation . However, disclosure is not just good pedagogy. The empirical record strongly supports the idea that disclosure is tied to success. While a norm of disclosing the citations of evidence you have read in debate is older than me, open source disclosure (full disclosure of all the evidence you’ve read, including underlining and highlighting) is a relatively new phenomena, appearing in just this last decade. The team that led the charge was Georgetown University. Georgetown Arsht and Markoff were one of the first teams to commit to a 100% open source disclosure model. They were voted Team of the Decade (2010-2019) for their competitive success and won the National Debate Tournament, the most prestigious college policy debate competition, not once but twice. Their coach, Johnathan Paul (voted Coach of the Decade for 2010-2019), credited their success to open source disclosure, arguing it led them to constantly innovate their arguments and avoid dwelling on poor arguments that would be easy to attack. There is a reason nearly every competitive team in both high school and college that competes on the national circuit discloses their arguments. Some form of disclosure is also inevitable. Larger teams with more resources will have more intel about arguments being read at a tournament. Weak disclosure norms don’t prevent disclosure, they merely cause information asymmetry, disadvantaging smaller schools. I don’t believe there should be a rule mandating disclosure. I do, however, encourage students to make the decision to disclose their arguments. It makes the game better and it makes you a stronger competitor.
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