Pre-round disclosure

[Love Child <DSRADER@uga.cc.uga.edu>]

Craig and "Duct Tape Man" (who really needs to write me and tell me
where that name came from) have raised interesting points about
pre-round disclosure. My experience at those summer madhouses called
Institutes that have tried to encode disclosure into a set of rules has
convinced me that whatever happens has to be governed by an expectation
of good faith. It also convinces me that doing much beyond saying what
the case is doesn't work very well.

First, the theoretical justification: there's a huge gap between the
preparation needed to debate a case and the preparation needed to answer
a set of disads. (Or whatever they're called.) Regardless of what the
negative chooses to spray out in the 1NC, the affirmative is still
anchored to their ground. The negative, however, as the 1AC begins, is
anchored to nothing but the topic. That's a huge disparity. Even with
topicality as a weapon to weed out really extreme abuses of this
disparity, there's a huge tactical problem with slapping a debate
together with no advance notice of what's to be debated AND MAKING GOOD
ARGUMENTS along the way. With disads &c, it's different. A good 2AC
presumably will have thought through her position on all of the viable
arguments against the case.

The pragmatic argument is even better. Where, my God, my God, where does
it end? Should the affirmative disclose link-turns? The negative
disclose multiple links that will appear later in the debate? Or that
"awesome card" that will be referred to twenty or thirty times in the
2NR? There needs to be a bright line. The 1AC is a good bright line.

As for case details, that's a very situationally-dependent call. I think
the negative may be entitled to a few questions about what the plan does
for clarification's sake. I also think the negative is entitled to ask,
"Is this the same thing we heard before" (or "the same thing that's on
the CEDA-L case list") and get an honest answer. Beyond that, I think
negatives can wait for the 1AC to learn the ins and outs of the claims
of the case.

Lots of "I think"s and "To me"s involved. It's a personal thing, not
something that one can mandate. But when it happens, it does improve the
activity.

Love Child
H: (706) 548-6041
W: (706) 542-3238

---

• Prev by Date: Re: Case Lists
• Next by Date: Re: Re: Case Lists
• Prev by thread: Re: CEDA is Policy
• Next by thread: A case list!!
• Index(es):
  • Date
  • Thread
  • Author

---

Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
Return to main CEDA-L Archive Page