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Re: Boyle: many arguments, little sense

i think that adam makes a good argument the a full-year topic is a good 
idea in general, however it should be anounced at the BEGINNING of the year.

personally, i would favor a year-round topic, but i also have some 
sympathy for simply changing this in the middle of the year and other 
problems that arise from it:

(1) changing w/o warning at the beggining of the year hurts debaters and 
programs that didnt anticipate this happening.

(2) mexico is old to many HS debaters... this was the wrong time for this 
topic.

(3) the current topic is VERY, VERY, VERY poorly worded and conceived 
(sniff, sniff... is that crack i smell?).  CEDA framers need to learn how 
to introduce a topic area and word a resolution to fit it.  this is one 
area that i thing CEDA can gain immensely from NDT. (they seem to have 
awesome topics every year, well almost always... that crime topic one 
last year was a mistake). the work that goes into a resolution is amazing 
and worthy of being mimicked.


now lets see what chud said:

On Mon, 9 Oct 1995, Adam M. Chud wrote (the single indented part):

> >  5) At a minimum, I think the propensity for case changing diminishes as the
> >     year progresses.  There are only so many _really_ cool ideas, and if
> >     you change too much you risk treading on aff. ground that has already
> >     been anticipated by cagey negatives, then you're hosed because you lack
> >     depth of argument.  Year long topic=(for me anyway)Year long case and
> >     continually updated case evidence and DA answers.
> 
> wrong.  People change case to stay ahead of negative arguments.  More
> negative research time means more motivation for affs to switch cases.
> Also, as people get tired of their cases or they start to lose on the aff,
> the natural move is to switch.  I also think we could dbeate a topic
> forever and still not come up with all the cool little ideas.
> 

i dont know about this one... in HS and NDT there is a tendency to have 
one case which is run most of the year (usually one large topical solid, 
thight case) in prelims and to bust out a new case solely for out-rounds.
this is a run away from the neg into more unfamilliar waters, but also 
shows a consolidation during most of the year.

> Someone else may get on the bandwagon about why a year-long topic is bad.
> I think it may be a good thing to debate one topic for the whole year.  I
> just think telling people that we'll debate one topic for the whole year
> when the year is half over really messes up many teams' travel and budget
> plans which are vital to their active participation in this activity.
> Please consider this before you simply say "I like Mexico.  Let's keep it."
> 
> Adam Chud
> Cornell University
> 

much agreed adam, a year long topic is good, but first lets tell everyone 
about it when starting to season (actaully before even voting) and lets 
get a good topic... the mexico one sucks.

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  Jason Nordwick                           nordwick@uclink2.berkeley.edu
References:
Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
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