Re: points

[Lisa Kincaid <lkincaid@CMC2.cmc.edu>]

On Sat, 14 Oct 1995, Nick Burnett wrote:

> Dear Lisa,
> 	Don't take it personally.  At my first (high school) tournament, I 
> had a total of 44 points after four rounds, and, well, GEE, Now I are a 
> Director of Forensics!!!  
> 	Seriously.  I think that those points were probably a bit low.  Some
> judges award points like they are going to get a bill at the end of the year
> charging them a dollar for every point they give out.  Yikes!  
> 	Things will get better, don't let any one round get you down!
> 
> Nick Burnett, DoF, CSU-Sacramento
> 
	Thanks for the words of encouragement.  I don't think we would 
have been nearly so angry if the judge had been more clear about WHY the 
points were so low.  Orals seemed to indicate we were better than the 
ballot we received. 
	My debate coach informed us early on that basically "there are no 
rules in debating", which I'm finding leads to "give an inch, take a 
yard" tatics on the part of both debaters and judges.
	Other forms of forensic competition (e.g., IEs) use written criteria 
for judging; couldn't we have some sort of guideline--not a leash--to give a 
more neutral playing ground?  I've found even in my two-tournament 
experience that "anything goes" is often abused at all levels of debate.  
Tag-team and gaming tactics often mean that the speaker in the room with 
the most savois-faire and least strict ethical code controls the round.  
Perhaps I'm naive--I just don't see that as TEAM debate.

Lisa Kincaid
Central Methodist College

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