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Re: No Time limits

Glen Strickland

At 02:44 AM 4/10/96 -0400, you wrote:
>The p/p discussion reminded me of an idea I had posted a while back to the
>CEDA-L and I couldn't remember if I had posted it to either of these
>listservs so I thought I would send it out again.
>
>How would people feel about debates where each team would be assigned a set
>amount of time to be used in any way they pleased with the only exception
>being that only each teams first speech would be considered a constructive?
>
>For example right now NDT has a fairly standard 9-3-6 with 10 minutes prep.
>Each team has 46 minutes of time. Under "no time limits debate" each team
>would still get 46 minutes of time they just wouldn't have to abide by the
>9-3-6 format. The 1AC might be 1 minute or it might be 45 minutes. The neg
>team might just start speaking as soon as the 1AC ends or they might ask
>questions for twenty minutes.
>
>Here are some reasons why this is a good idea.
>
>1) The negative has an incentive to only argue the most relevant positions.
>
>Against some cases a team may only have one or two good positions. It is
>quite possible that if they read just those positions and sat down they
>wouldn't even come close to using all of their time. So they read a bunch of
>other stuff so the 2AC doesn't have a big time advantage. With "no time
>limits" the 1NC can make the best arguments they have and sit down knowing
>that they 'save time' with a short 1NC. Time to use later in the debate.
>
>2) Improves CX.
> Right now 1NC's who are ready as soon as the 1AC is done aren't rewarded for
>their preparedness. If they don't use the cx time they lose it.
>
>Occassionally someone will actually be really asking penetrating questions of
>their opponent. Ok, I know that this is a practice that is fading fast but it
>seems silly that if a team is using cx well that their opponents should be
>"saved by the timer". If a team needs to ask questions for 10 minutes to
>figure out what is going on then let them have it.
>
>3) Rewards prep time efficiency.
>
>If you don't need 10 minutes then you get extra speech time. If you need 20
>minutes of prep you will have less speech time but you might give a better
>speech. Want to read all your opponents cards? There is time for that but
>you'll have less speech time; if you read them all their cards last night and
>know what they say you'll get more speech time.
>
>Ok, that is enough for now.
>
>Tim Mahoney, Pace U.
>
>
Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
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