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topic talk

1) Using my experiences on a "small" squad (American) and a "large" squad
(Cornell) I think that moving the topic release back a bit (August 15)
wouldn't hurt.

**Although many teams do summer research, many teams also begin researching
the fall topic once the topic AREA is announced .  Those who fear August
research should already fear the present topic announcement system.  This
period of research indecision between the announcement of the topic area
and the actual topic release date creates a large number of USELESS cards
as people research things in anticipation of the upcomming topic  (ie--
90% of the evidence from the NDI).

My main argument in favor of a slightly earlier release is that it takes
some basic, threshold amount of work before any squad can compete at a
debate tournament.  You need an aff, some disads, T blocks, counterplans,
etc.  This is seperate from the Mahoney/Korcok exchange about 500, 1000,
etc. cards.  It takes a lot longer to research a good disad of 200 cards
than it does to cut 500 cards.  It's more THOUGHT time.  At American we
always had a rough time coming up with quality arguments in each CATEGORY
mentioned abovein time for the first tournament.  We could cut the 1000+
cards in the 3 weeks before South Carolina with the early September
release.  It was having satisfactory arguments in each category that was
the problem.  Larger squads have an easier time doing this in less time.
More time would have helped us out A LOT.

2) I think moving the topic release earlier should be combined with a
reform to move NATIONALS back the same amount of time.  (ie August 15
release= March 15 nationals, August 1 release= March 1 nationals)  I'd
rather see students do debate work in mid-August, just slightly before
classes begin or in the very beginning of the school year, than during the
middle of the school year in March.  Summer jobs are usually over by August
15.  If people want to debate longer and for more of the year, feel free to
hold tournaments after nationals.  Everyone else should be able to spend
some time without tournaments.

3) Dumas, could I have that cite for the "Mexico policy changes trade off
with space" card?  Please backchannel it to me.

Adam Chud
Cornell University
"Nanotechnology will put David Copperfield out of work"
Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
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