A plea to the topic committee ...

[Doyle Srader <DSRADER@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU>]

... and I expect this to be controversial.

_Please_, when you put the wording options on the ballot, have diversity
in any other part of the topic, but pick one referent for the countries
involved and _stick_ with it through all the ballot options.

A couple of arguments.

1. It best facilitates background reading. There aren't that many actual
arguments that people can commence work upon just from knowing the
country list, apart from those that they've already _begun_ working on
just from knowing the problem area: the China disad, and a few others.
On the other hand, if we know which countries are in-bounds, then those
who don't want to cut cards but are interested in doing some background
reading can realistically do so.

I'm sympathetic to people who say the season's too long as it is, and
that work on the next topic already starts too early. I quite agree. One
of the toughest recurring problems I've dealt with over my five years of
coaching is debater burnout. Even the most well-adjusted, most
passionate debaters get sick of being debatrons all the time. But
background reading isn't, in my experience, a major contributor to
burnout. Quite the contrary, the rush to figure out what the topic
subject matter _means_ so that the card cutting can begin is one of the
most stressful phases of the yearly summer prep. If people have had
about a month just to pick up a couple of books or watch the paper for
articles on a group of countries, then they have a knowledge base that
makes setting research priorities that much easier and less stressful
when the topic comes out.

And, realistically, if the topic contains five completely different
options, ranging from development to human rights to security to
military to drink mixing, then sure, some debaters will make guesses and
set about cutting cards, but there will be sufficient disincentive to do
the sort of large-scale card cutting that commits people to one variant
of the topic that at least some folks will still get a vacation.

2. The country list isn't the controversial part. I've seen strong
opinions expressed about the varying subject matter possibilities. I've
seen virtually no hard core support for any particular listing of the
countries -- just a floated suggestion from Roston, and an evil scheme
from Ryan 'high school juggernaut' Sparacino. If people have a diversity
of choices of what _kind_ of policy they'll be debating, I think a lack
of options in which _countries_ to debate them with won't be a
particularly traumatic loss.

Spent my last $.02 on coffee. Consider this a confederate dollar.

Doyle Srader
University of Georgia
<706> 548-9938

---

Follow-Ups:

• No Subject
• From: lucius K <lkahng@osf1.gmu.edu>

---

• Prev by Date: Jamey Dumas only
• Next by Date: Change of Email while on the Road
• Prev by thread: Jamey Dumas only
• Next by thread: No Subject
• Index(es):
  • Date
  • Thread
  • Author

---

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