So much stuff. So very useful. Thanks to all. Feel free to keep it up.
I want to stick to the non-tournament side of things for a while.
My thought last time was that the publication of cases would do two things. First, it would provide a source for evidence, and it would provide an idea of what folks might be running. When this subject first came up Sophie sent me the following: “Instead of doing your own topic research, many debaters now see the wiki as a free pass where they can go to take another debater's cards. Not that there is anything wrong with sharing ideas and research by any means, but what educational value does it have if the debater is literally copying and pasting cards off the wiki without reading the whole article or fully understanding the position?” Susanna amplifies this in the comments: “Debaters don't do their own research-- I've talked to a lot of kids at VBI who unapologetically announce that their block files consisted of cards from Catherine's cites. I think sharing articles is a good thing, but at the point debaters have to write the first few words and the last, debaters can literally just hit ‘control find’ to cut cards. More, this encourages everyone to use the same authors. Especially in the middle of the topic when debaters are getting somewhat lazy and complacent, the wiki offers an easy out to actually learning how to research.”
This is a reasonable response. While on the one hand, we are communally sharing the fruits of our labors, there may indeed be those who will grab a little of that fruit without doing any labor. Honestly, I don’t think this is preventable. On the other hand, I don’t think it’s that big a problem. No matter what system we have, no matter what aids are available, no matter how coaches deal with their students, there will always be debaters who don’t read the whole articles or fully understand the positions. They will grab ideas from other people willy nilly without much depth of study and without much understanding of what those ideas really mean.
Who are these people? Not the top debaters, who will do all the work, and derive all the benefits of so doing, including deep understanding of the complexities of a position. So it will be people other than the top debaters, and it will be people who as a result don’t really understand what they’re talking about. My response to Sophie and Susanna on this is, well, you may be right, but I wouldn’t worry about it competitively. If you do the work and they don’t, and that material is at issue in a round, you are unlikely to lose. Cruz concurs: “Good debaters, of any format, do their own research. Bad debaters do not. Regardless of whether debaters who do not do their own research are unapologetic does not mean that a case list is a bad thing. Google searches can promote laziness. Getting cases from older teammates can promote laziness.” And Shane also concurs: “Disclosure rewards hard work -- if everyone knows what all the arguments are, then the people that work the hardest will have success…I am willing to bet that most of the best 8 or 16 debaters at TOC do a good deal of their work regardless of the size of their program or the number of their coaches.” As to the bigger point about the purely educational value of this, well, the same could be said for a lot of things. Plenty of outfits sell research and case positions; plenty of individuals do likewise. Is that educationally valuable? If that bought material is a starting point, perhaps, and if it’s an ending point, of course not. If a coach provides cases to students who simply run them as is, is that educational? Not really. As I say, this particular argument against disclosure, that it is not educational, is not unique. It’s not incorrect, but it’s not an inherent flaw of disclosure but an inherent flaw of human nature. It is not a reason to negate.
Once upon a time, a debater doing research went to the library and tried to find books on the subject. (Good debaters actually read those books and studied arguments within them and cited them; bad debaters found marginally related quotes on subjects and used them. The competitive results were predictable.) Nowadays, a debater doing research starts on the internet. The way the internet works is that there are hives of information that have grown perhaps because we worker bees like to build hives. Witness Wikipedia. A hive of information on debate subjects is not an inherently negative thing, although the suggestion is that it can be used negatively (which we’ll address later). But starting at the hive for my research sounds to me very useful. Relying completely on the hive? Not so good. But look to the future. Five years from now, the hive contains not only the cases for Greenhill this September, but cases on everything for the last five years. This starts looking rather valuable to me educationally, not because this is some static warehouse of old news that I can read off as new news, but as an organic source. If you ask me, meaningful access over time is going to be the biggest problem, i.e., maintaining usefulness, but we’ll probably sort that out.
So on balance, the hive of cases is not an inherently bad thing, insofar as while bad debaters won’t get much out of it and therefore it won’t educate them, they weren’t going to get educated anyhow as they were always going to find a way to trick the system. And insofar as everyone else gets a starting point on case content, and the activity gets a library hive of cases providing a history of analysis, we improve the general state of knowledge overall, which is a good thing.
None of this answers the response to Maddie that “the caselist perpetuates the over-reliance on evidence.” That’s an interesting subject worth its own discussion.
Much of the other commentary from the trenches was about what appear to be abuses of the system. We need to look at them too. We are by no means finished with this discussion, nor am I in any way sure how I feel about it, aside from continuing to believe that Cruz’s controlled experiment at Big Bronx is a good way to learn more.
7 comments:
Personally I don't have an opinion yet on disclosure, one way or another.
But I have a pair of loaded questions anyway, intended mostly to remind the crowd that the world of debate doesn't exist in a vacuum.
The first is, what are the privacy implications of requiring students to put their work — which in some cases is graded schoolwork — into the public view under their own names? Is it really a good idea for the caselist wiki to be built upon and maintained over the years? The educational value as a reference source would be considerable, but on the other hand, a permanent caselist compels students to be forever identified on the Internet with work they did as high schoolers, in a specialized context as debaters. Do we really want that Marxism aff to show up when these kids are running for office or facing a Senate confirmation hearing?
The second question is, isn't there a danger inherent in this experiment being conducted exclusively at octafinals bid tournaments? Those tournaments cast a long shadow, and set a standard for other tournaments aspiring to the same level. The folks who know what's up behind the scenes understand that it's an experiment, but it's rather simple for a very small group of people who run the nine octos tournament to effectively force this question, simply by being the standard bearers of what a "good tournament" is in the eyes of the community — well, other than Harvard — and other tournament directors.
I think that points more to the fact that our community lacks meaningful national governance, and is run more or less like an aristocracy, which isn't anyone here's fault.
In the vein of Palmer's post, I'd like to pose a slightly less loaded question. As a coach at a small southern school that only does traditional (plan-less, theory-less, DA-less) LD, I am confident that my debaters will never hit any student who has to disclose for this tournament. We simply don't get out that much. I am, however, curious about the results and about how the disclosure "hive" may impact my students. So...
What impact, if any, will this experiment have on debaters who aren't connected to the tournament?
In general, I am agnostic on the question but...
I wonder about the privacy implications myself. And I would imagine that there may be legal ones as well, at least for people enrolled in classes- and for contests hosted by public schools, and with public money involved. Unless I have just displayed breathtaking ignorance- wouldn't be the first time. TOC contests are already in their own distinct universe compared to non-ones, I don't think a disclosure list will make that much of a difference as far as reputation goes, for good and bad.
As for LA coaches question, I suspect that it may lead to people at local and regional tournaments modeling arguments after ones they read on the wiki. Which isn't a bad thing probably
My major concern is as follows:
While ethical abuses (in this case, I specifically have in mind running cases or positions written by others for which the debater had minimal or no part) would happen anyway, I do think a case list would make make those practices easier and more common.
While at one time I thought 'the best' students were not the ones who engaged in these practices,(running cases or positions written by someone else) I am not certain that will continue to be the case in another five years, combined with other trends in the community. My particular (perhaps paranoid) boogeyman in this case is a person who spends a tournament writing positions against the top potential competitors at a contest. When Joey Junior debates Sam Senior, it is rip and read write off the ah, well not ticker. The computer screen. Or iPad.
And yes, this could happen anyway.
The difference now, is that there is a growing emphasis on policy type evidence (single nation DAs and the like- in full disclosure, I wholeheartedly agree with Dave M's comments on 'bad JV policy' becoming more common in LD)which actively rewards certain types of arguments. And when/if LDers do figure out how to structure a quality policy argument, that will also be the case.
Especially given the round time limitations discussed in the original case disclosure list, that adds to these incentives.
Combined with a narrowing judging pool, I'm no longer confident that the smartest or hardest workers will automatically rise to the top.
Or more likely, they will, the number of people in early outrounds as opposed to losing in bubble rounds, will in greater numbers than at present be people who stoop to less.
But I don't know that will happen.
Sorry about the delay in getting back to everyone. The conversation stopped on my end (and on the end of many of the folks posting) because things got very busy here at VBI.
So, to start with Chris...
Regarding the "privacy implications" of a student posting her work:
1. Case lists have been around for some time in Policy Debate, a community in which, like Lincoln-Douglas Debate, there are many attorneys who are active coaches. There have been no legal challenges regarding case lists.
2. While I hope an attorney will weigh in later, I believe the reason there hasn't been a legal challenge is because students aren't compelled to compete at tournaments with case lists, so there is no reasonable expectation of privacy when they volunteer to attend a tournament or provide information via case list.
Regarding tournament policy at octas bid tournaments:
I guess "danger" is a loaded term; I admitted in the letter that I think case lists are a good thing, though I do want to get feedback because I know I can be wrong about things.
But that aside, I think it makes the most sense to run a case list at a tournament where you have a large national draw and a true range of types of programs competing. The networks of power that I worry about are probably less in force at more regional tournaments because of the size of the pool and number of entries from each school in the pool. (I could be wrong about that, though.) I also think it's important to get a representative cross-section of coaching styles and approaches to debate, and I know I have that at my tournament.
Regarding national governance: that's probably correct, but, as you suggested, isn't the necessarily fault of anyone on either side of the case list debate. It's a good discussion to have, but perhaps one to have elsewhere. (LDDebate.org thread? :o))
"What impact, if any, will this experiment have on debaters who aren't connected to the tournament?"
LA Coach, thank you for your question. Two replies come to mind:
1. Assuming "LA" means Louisiana, I am not sure that it's true that you won't be debating folks who compete at the New York City Invitational. We have several schools from Louisiana and Alabama registered to compete. (On the other hand, we are one of the last tournaments on the topic, so perhaps you won't face them at any tournaments after mine.)
2. Case lists give teams a general idea of what arguments are out there on a topic, which helps in preparation both for casing (many great cases are inspired by arguments heard in rounds, and so case lists publicize arguments beyond the rounds in which folks were able to compete or judge) and for blocking. I think this is helpful both for preparation on the topic itself, particularly when teams don't have the resources to compete very often, but also for preparation on future topics that are similar.
To reply to PJ:
I think my reply to Chris's question about privacy implications covers your concerns, though I would love to hear some insight from some of the many trained lawyers or lawyers-in-training who coach debate in the community (Kevin Roberts, Wayne Tang, Victor Jih, Adam Torson, Josh Anderson, Anjan Choudhury, and so on and so forth).
Regarding the promotion of "bad JV Policy Debate" in LD -- something I agree would be bad, because bad debate is bad -- I think I'm a little unclear on what you're saying.
The narrowing judging pool has nothing to do with case lists; it has everything to do with folks, including many who publicly oppose case lists, debating in a manner that only appeals to certain kinds of judges while foregoing skills that would allow them to communicate to broader audiences. I think more tournaments would do well to hire a variety of types of hired judges (that is, judges with varied paradigms) and encourage more experienced head coaches to judge to combat this problem.
It does seem to me that if debaters are preparing well-researched answers to case positions, they are working hard, so I'm not sure how that means that the hardest workers would not rise to the top. (Would the smartest debaters rise to the top? I'd like to think so, but since the beginning of debate, I suspect, the smartest debaters are not always the winningest.)
What specifically about case lists do you think would promote this type of bad debate that both of us, I suspect, want to avoid?
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