format

[Brian R McGee <bmcgee@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>]

Michael Bryant's suggestions for format experimentation seem well founded. 
When it existed, the Southern Illinois University tournament, which made
double-octofinals on multiple occasions, used an 8-3-6 format.  In judging
rounds at that tournament, I found that the longer rebuttals slowed rebuttal
speeches down a bit and seemed to help those who were unable or unwillingly
to exceed 300 words per minute.  Also, teams that had a tendency to make
"blip" responses were disadvantaged, since their opponents had the
opportunity to provide  a good deal more analysis than did the blip team,
while not dropping any major arguments.

As a judge, I always try to provide time at the beginning of each debate for
debaters to ask me questions.  I am rarely asked more than 1-2 questions,
mostly about my background or tolerance for rapid delivery practices. 
Perhaps a built-in time period for judge questions would encourage further
student-judge interaction.  Given the diversity of many CEDA judging pools,
I think CEDA's organizational culture should encourage students to gather
more information about their judges.  

Brian McGee
Ohio State

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