30/30 Vision Part II

[WHITNEMR@snymorva.cs.snymor.edu]

Hi, I'm back.  I was speaking about how the speaker points are not highly 
correlated to the win/loss (for me).  The speaker points are just that, points 
for "speaking."  If they were tightly tied to the win/loss, then you could 
simply give both winners thirties, and both losers zero.  Obviously this
doesn't happen.  For me, many things go into assigning speaker points.  There
are the arguments on the flow, of course.  But there is also things like 
confidence, poise, clarity, logic, teamwork, politeness, and many more 
intangibles.  The "better team" spoken of the first way (in part I) may
influence this.  A team can drop one voter and cost themselves the round,
but that doesn't mean that all of the other categories drop to zero also.
The inexperienced team may have had one argument which worked, but that doesn't automatically raise the other categories to thirty.  I am grading the comm-
unication here, and it is much more complex than a simple win/loss.

   This leads into the issue of point inflation.  When I read of people saying
they award between 26 and 29 points, I hope they are speaking generally.  If
it is some type of steadfast rule they follow, it really kind of renders
speaker points meaningless.  I must admit, that the logic of "rewarding" the
losing team with thirties simply escapes me.  After judging for a bit over ten 
years, I can think of two thirties that I've awarded.  Admittedly, I may be a
little stingy, but tossing them out for nothing reduces the validity of who
reaches the outrounds.  For people who may reply that they are considering
the "better team" in the first sense (experience etc) and trying to help
them get to the outrounds where they belong, I think this is one of the
ultimate forms of intervention (weren't we being tabula rasa?)

   This is not contradictory with what I have written above.  I was aying that 
being an experienced team will influence the judge's assignment of speaker
points (subconsciously, if nothing else).  This is through the speakers them-
selves, by demonstrating superior skills.  A judge assigning thirty to make
up for a low point win is not basing it on the speakers, they are basing it on 
their guilt feelings.  Believe it or not, I have to send this now before it's
erased.  There's one more section - stay tuned.

                                    Mark Whitney
                                    SUNY Morrisville
                                    "Remember what the doormouse said..."

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