Wisconsin Forensics Daily

1. 21 Responses to “Monday Meditation: Laptop Use”

2. Should 1) Eliminating laptop use doesn't eliminate the financial gap. The financial gap is most evident in the camps that various teams attend, if they attend at all. If you want to close THAT gap, well… start a UDL-like program and start giving out scholarships. 2) Easier to flow for some people or write overviews if you have a laptop. That probably means better debate And, if a rule is to be enforced, it should be by judge preference or tournament director preference, and notification should go on judging paradigms and tournament invites. 

   By Noah on Sep 26, 2006

3. Noah, I agree that the financial gap won't go away no matter what, but, is sn't there a risk that the gap will increase if laptops are allowed? Also, I would say don't put this in the hands of judges.  There is  almost no oversight of that group of people.  There would be such a huge range of preferences that you would be unable to adapt in an educational way. I'm glad that the WDCA is taking time to really look at this issue.  At some point, the use of laptops will become  inevitable.  I don't know if we're there yet or not.   I do think that using a laptop to write an overview or rebuttal could provide a competitve inequality to the non-laptop team.  But so does having more quality evidence, doing more prep work during the week, etc.  There aren't easy answers to this issue.  I, personally, would draw the line at any external communication.  We already have that rule for confering with your coach/judge during the round and this seems like a natural extension of that rule. All this being said, I've switched to using my laptop to flow when I judge.  It is easier in some ways.  But if it would crash in the middle of the round I might very well be in big trouble comd ballot time. Nick, thanks for starting the discussion  here.  I hope it's a great one. 

   By John on Sep 27, 2006

4. I wonder if there was a similar discussion back in the day when paper and writing utensils were at a premium…or access to libraries…or filing systems…or stop watches…or internet access? Perhaps. My two cents is that there will always be innovations and there will always be first-adopters that will beat the masses to those innovations. I have no problem with using laptops to flow (I do myself). I am also cool with reading evidence off of them. My only concerns are of a practical nature: 1) If you are going to use a laptop for evidence, you better be willing to hand it over for inspection by teams and judges. 2) Tournaments need to do a better job of policing wireless connections to prevent cheating. A $15 device can detect the presence of even a computer to computer wireless network.  My greatest hope is that during the trial period no one does anything stupid to warrant a ban. Don't think for a minute that they won't look for an excuse to ban them, remember tag-team cx, judge card reading, and oral critiques? If you use a laptop, please go the extra mile and be courteous enough to show people how you flow and access evidence. Thanks! Cory

   By Cory Puuri on Sep 27, 2006

5. "I wonder if there was a similar discussion back in the day when paper and writing utensils were at a premium…or access to libraries…or filing systems…or stop watches…or internet access? Perhaps. My two cents is that there will always be innovations and there will always be first-adopters that will beat the masses to those innovations" This argument is absurd.  There have most certainly been writing utensils for the history of debate, as well as access to public libraries.  Well-organized file systems can be put together by any dedicated debater and offer no unfair advantages.  By the time any useful evidence was available on the internet access was widespread and easy to come by at a library or such. The difference in this scenario is that laptops offer a completely unfair advantage.  It's not a matter of being a "first-adapter", many teams don't have the financial means to buy a laptop computer, not to say they dont want one.  Teams shouldnt be forced to invest hundreds/thousands of dollars into a laptop computer to be able to compete.  Everything concerned with using a laptop in a policy debate round is abusive to the opposing team.  Flowing and writing rebuttals is obviously much easier, but just because its more efficient doesnt mean it should be allowed.  Say I had some futuristic machine that took in every word said in the round and typed it out for me on a screen.  It's available to everyone but costs $3000.  According to the all innovations good logic, its perfectly legitimate for a few select rich teams to have this completely abusive advantage. Evidence storage is also abusive.  Not only can the laptop-privelaged team store thousands of times more evidence than the other team could hope to have in their physical tubs, but it hinders the other team from actually reading that evidence too.  It should be legitimate for a team to throroughly read the other teams evidence between and during speeches, but this becomes a problem when they're trying to flow on the same computer and kick you off at the start of the next speech.  Basically laptops are an unnecessary tool that create unnecessary advantages for priveleged teams.  There's nothing wrong with flowing the old fashioned way, or printing out evidence like has been done for years.  Until laptops can be affordable to all debaters they're a pointless hindrance to competetive equity and shouldn't be allowed.

   By Anonymous on Sep 27, 2006

6. "This argument is absurd." Not only is that argument completely sound, it is probably true. I, myself, stopped to wonder whether or now when stop-watches came into play, was there controversy? And quite honestly, there has always been valuable data on the internet — it wasn't until it became so widespread in use that all the junk began to pop up. It started out as a very useful research tool (not that it still isn't, but e-books and e-journals are better in my opinion and usually they are more credible). Let's try not to make up stuff to win arguments, shall we?  "The difference in this scenario is that laptops offer a completely unfair advantage.  It's not a matter of being a "first-adapter", many teams don't have the financial means to buy a laptop computer, not to say they dont want one.  Teams shouldnt be forced to invest hundreds/thousands of dollars into a laptop computer to be able to compete. " Eh…now this argument, I would argue, is lacking. You see, evidence by itself is not cheap. The teams that can afford it spend hundreds ($500+) on evidence. Then there are debate camps which cost in the thousands (if you want to go to MUDI and live on campus, you're pushing $1000 right there). So is that unfair? Yes. Are we going to ban debaters from going to these camps? No! They are too good of a resource and too good of an educational tool. Laptops are in the same category. They are expensive, they are a great resource (you can store past-flows, its easier to flow, [insert previous arguments for usefulness]. It allows them to do everything they do by hand, but in a more organized fashion.  "Say I had some futuristic machine that took in every word said in the round and typed it out for me on a screen.  It's available to everyone but costs $3000." False Comparison I think. A laptop is not some futuristic machine that takes in every word. It takes in what you put into it; it is not a voice recorder + word processing converter. Not only that, you can buy a Dell laptop for as little as $500 (very cheap comparatively and affordable considering there are schools who spend the same on evidence from a single camp) and most high school students could afford one after saving up for a bit (in all honesty, it would be a nice alternative to spending $150+ a paycheck on clothes and shoes). Sure, it wouldn't be able to do everything they dreamed of for a laptop, but they certainly would be able to take notes and store debate evidence. "Evidence storage is also abusive.  Not only can the laptop-privelaged team store thousands of times more evidence than the other team could hope to have in their physical tubs, but it hinders the other team from actually reading that evidence too." I don't completely disagree on this issue. But I must say that quantity of evidence can actually pose a problem – too much to choose from. But that's a very weak argument, though I've seen it happen. At the same time, I think it should be up to the other team, laptop-users or not, to have prepared a block for whatever they might come against. The Negative's burden to carry lots of evidence has been something that concerned me (and many other debaters) for years. In my opinion, it cuts back on the Affirmative's ability to abuse their infinite prep-time. Well, now Negatives can have much more evidence and can find it much quicker. The same goes for those negatives who come up with the strangest of arguments — it allows an affirmative to quickly search for some sort of evidence to defend themselves (as opposed to using 3 minutes of prep-time to find a single argument that might help). And I don't think it's too much of an issue that they can't read the evidence. It's why we have flowing. The team just uses a few seconds of prep to copy down what you think is important, and then give the info back. When I was in a debate with laptop-users, I didn't feel at all at a disadvantage — I might have felt a bit poor, but certainly not at a disadvantage and reading evidence was not a problem. I was even allowed to take the laptop up to read during my speech (and the person who the laptop belonged to would either not flow me (because their partner is) or flowing on blank paper. Therefore, if this presents an issue, then I argue that we should require that debaters always have note-paper during the times when their opponent must use their laptop for reading evidence. But again, there are many judges who don't approve of sharing evidence for long periods of time. My personal philosophy is that you look and give it back — if you missed something, it's just showing that you aren't flowing properly and that's something, laptop or not, you should know how to do as a debater.  "There's nothing wrong with flowing the old fashioned way, or printing out evidence like has been done for years.” On a light note, and just for argument's sake, I would say we are saving lots and lots of trees if, one day, we can stick with laptops. I can only imagine how much paper debaters waste in one team.  Now as a judge just coming from debating last year, I have to say I didn't see any problems with a team having one and me not having one. If we make any rules about laptop usage, perhaps it is simply that no evidence can be read from it. You can use it as a flow during a round and that's it. But no, we should not ban it altogether simply because there are a few students that can't afford it. I re-emphasize that if you ban laptop-usage completely, you should ban all debaters from using all bought evidence. That would mean no Squirrel-Killers, no MUDI evidence (yes, participants pay for it — it's part of the tuition), etc. This has been a public service rant brought to you, in part, by the 2006 Cohort of debaters! Cheers! Jerrod L. Walker   

   By Jerrod L. Walker on Sep 27, 2006

7. Hello all,

    

   This is a good discussion, and we should attempt to maintain a civility with it.  (I.E. don’t attack the anonymous poster), as they do represent a silent opinion.  It’s just unfortunate that they don’t feel confident or comfortable enough to voice their opinion openly. 

   Thus I will try to take up their cause (as you all know I actually am a strong supporter of incorporating technology).  But for the sake of this discussion I will try to support the side of “no laptops desired”

    

   First, I believe that all concerns or complaints about inclusion of laptops in to the debate round can be identified in two key areas:

    

   #1 – (financial – haves vs have nots – stigma – fear of no threshold.)

    

   #2 – (Communication – in round coaching – cheating by having more than two students participate in the debate via network.)

    

   I believe these are the two main issues.

    

   Let’s talk about number one… I agree that the biggest financial disparity is not with in round tools or appearance, but with cost of attending camps and evidence.  However, these disparities are not visible to the naked eye, and we all have the success story of students that have not been able to go to a high quality camp and still be a tremendous success.  Let’s assume for a second that we don’t have VSS and V4 in Wisconsin, there would be much less chance for a state championship for a student that could never afford to go to any camp, and we would be talking much more about the financial disparity.  Once the disparity is exposed, a couple of things could occur… Students that are seriously effected by the stigma of not being able to “keep up with the Jones”, could just quit playing the game, or they could seek out different alternatives… like moving to PF. (whether good or not good, the disparity is not as large there), third; they may find a way to get themselves a laptop, getting a job and saving for a computer instead of putting everything towards a car or college fund. (which in turn reduced their debate work time, and could hinder their in-round performance)  (additionally, the students that undertake the third option, I would make the argument that the cost of a laptop to these individuals is larger than those who will receive one from their parents on their 16^th birthday, as it consumes a much greater percentage of their personal or family resources)  Again, this is no different that the debate camp cost, just a more visible difference.  Also understand, I think there are tremendous intangibles with undertaking a “greater suffering for my art”… (appreciation to begin with), but this is not unique to debate.  Finally on the issue of financial disparity, fifteen years ago – Lexis/Nexis and internet research capacity access created a percieved unfair advantage, five years ago laptops in rounds created a perceived unfair advantage, in the future we could possibly have effective voice recognition software that could provide an unfair advantage… so where is the threshold, can we ever envision a perfectly even financial playing field?  Regardless of financial differences, I don’t think any of us would like to see the already shrinking pool of policy debaters continue to shrink.

    

   The Second issue… (Communication/cheating)  Perception of impropriety is sometimes more powerful than the actual offense itself.  (I certainly wouldn’t want to be the last of General Custer’s cavalry facing Sitting Bull’s massive forces… well, maybe I would, but that besides the point)  No one wants to feel at a disadvantage in a competitive arena, and that is the perception… whether it is true or not. 

   Personally and quite frankly, I believe that the in round communication issue will become a disadvantage for those that try to do so.  And here is why; First, such a process if done at its best would turn the in-round debater into nothing more than a mouthpiece, and that strategy would become very evident very quickly and spell their doom, as sooner or later they will have to make the arguments themselves.  Second, the good debater will not want the distraction as it will only screw them up, and consume their precious prep time.  Third, I believe the coaching/communication disparity is much greater and evident between rounds and between tournaments.  (obviously, I have a harder time supporting this issue)

    

   Regardless, I believe there are emotionally charged opinions about perceptions of inclusion of technology, and it behooves all of us to set a high standard of ethics as we sail into these uncharted waters.

   By Mike Traas on Sep 28, 2006

8. I apologize to those of you who are having problems with paragraph breaks/spacing in comments… I'll try to fix it soon, but I can't promise I'll get to it until next week.  The WYSIWYG plugin that I installed a while ago (so you can click on the B to make text bold, etc.) doesn't seem to be working correctly in some browser/OS combinations. Anyway, carry on. :)  ~Bill 

   By Bill Batterman on Sep 28, 2006

9. I think the Cheating aspect has some validity, but again, I don't think debaters really would have the time to be communicating with a coach or anyone else. Searching for evidence online takes too long and relaying the happenings of the debate takes too long as well. At the same time, perhaps it can be made a rules that teams using laptops should sit in a way that makes their laptop easily visible to the judge. That way, the judge can easily look up to see if they are flowing or not. Again, I don't know, but from personal experience, teams with laptops never bothered me. I, myself, only got a laptop after I graduated from High School and went into college (Beginning of July, in fact, for my birthday). At the same time, a lot of teams are too scared to cheat — automatic loses is not something most teams are willing to risk for an extra piece of evidence or some quick advice from their coach.  But what about the monitor thing? If it's that cheap, perhaps they should make sure the monitors are available in those schools with wireless internet? 

   By Jerrod L. Walker on Sep 28, 2006

10. I think that laptops should be used if all of the debaters in the round agree that it is OK. Let the debaters make the decision. With that said, I think that it should only be used for flowing and nothing else. The research should be done before the round. I personally don't care if the debaters write on a computer, paper or a rock.

    By Steve Finch on Sep 28, 2006

11. Okay, is a laptop just a symbol of elitism, or does it honestly offer an advantage over paper and pen? Think about that question for about 2-3 solid, focused minutes before responding. I honestly can't think of an advantage a laptop has for flowing. If anything, it corrects a handicap. As a judge, I switched to a laptop because debaters are faster at writing than I am. My hand used to cramp up pretty bad after a long day (ahem, CFL nats). I also found that the faster I wrote, the less I could read. Obviously, many debaters are faster than I am at writing. I needed to correct for that deficiency. I really don't see an advantage, there. I have had some debaters that can afford laptops tell me they can't get used to scrolling up and down on a spreadsheet to see all the arguments, so to them, I would think a laptop is less efficient. Even if on average people can type faster than they can write, is that so much of an inequity that you should handicap those of us that *need* a laptop to flow? Now, on to the evidence reading. Has anyone tried to set up a speech with more than 10 cards on a laptop? I guarantee it takes longer than sorting paper with current technology. Adam Ernst was working on a program that was pretty effective at setting up cards in a speech through search, drag and drop, and PowerPoint-style page turning. It even had an integrated timer!!! Now, that program came the closest I've seen to making laptops *as* efficient as paper. The cool part is that it had the ability to export the card tag/analytic order to Excel (goodbye backflowing!!!). That program aside, no current, freely available tech is as efficient as paper for speech prep and delivery. Now on overviews. It is the same argument as above. Some people write faster on paper than typing. Additionally, the last time I voted on what was said in an overview written in-round was, um, hmm, never! An overview should not take the place of argument resolution on the flow. Heck, aside from the pre-written, multi-card overviews, when was the last time you heard a warrant in an overview!?! Absent a study, I'm just not convinced laptops offer anything more than a negligible advantage. I also guarantee that many teams will debate even less in this state if you take away their right to use a laptop. I'm not sure those that would ban the laptop can contribute enough debaters to displace the ones we'd lose to the national circuit. Thanks for reading!

    By Cory Puuri on Sep 28, 2006

12. I'm uniquely concerned about the control issues.  While the equity issues seem more prevalant, I think this is just an extention of a larger problem for debate.  Mike makes an excellent point about debate adapting to new environments like PF to compensate for that equity.  

    But the issue that concerns me is evidence reading.  Sure it would be great not to carry around those tubs.  And while programs exist to allow for evidence to be presented in non-tampered ways (pfs), the ability to edit on a computer greatly increase the probability that evidence isn't actually evidence.  Debate is a great activity, in so far as students actually do the research.  But card fabrication becomes increasingly more likely with computers.  In short, we need some method of verification.

    One of the ideas we've discussed about is making sure that evidence is presentable.  Usually that means if you read ev off the computer, the other team has to be able to see it.  I think, for reasons above, that we need to go further than that.  If evidence is read, it has to be in paper form. 

    Either we adopt this standard, or we end up granting a new distinction in argument evaluation.  I can for see the "prefer our evidence, its on paper and you know its true" as a response to "our computer read uniqueness post dates theirs."   Or worse, "perfer our evidence, it comes to you strait from google and is 45 seconds old."  How in the world can we ask a judge to evaluate those arguments? 

    I don't want to be misunderstood.  I am a huge proponent of technology.  But I want to see technology used in a good way.  Flowing and generating overviews is fine.  But so far as evidence goes, I think we need a different standard in order to ensure that arguments can be debated and evaluated by reasonable people.   

    I also too agree that the amout of time in a round does not lend it self well to the development and execution of these strategies, but that's not to say that these strategies and arguments can't be tried or made.

    By Nick Bubb on Sep 28, 2006

13. The larger issue, as Mike Traas indicated, is that policy debate remains a contest between teams of two.  With a few technological advances, nothing stops a graduated debater from sitting in the parking lot with a networked laptop.  From his car, he listens to his former teammates' debate and communicates instructions either verbally or in writing. Another former debater in the back seat searches for evidence. They craft and cause entire speeches to appear on the debater's screen and virtually collapse the team-of-two concept.   Because I firmly support in-round laptops (or whatever the long-term device) we need to adopt some strategies that keep the playing field level at all times.  These should be composed so any violation of the team-of-two concept is considered cheating, keeping it open for advances in technology.    That said, we need controls. Bill's proposal to require paper backup is an excellent start.  Coaches also need to communicate to their kids that the organizations continue to research the ways they can cheat, the ways they will be caught and the significant consequences of the cheating. And then we need to follow through with that research.  (At the meeting, I thought no further than the possibility of accessing the school's network or pulling evidence from computer files.  We have to be more sophisticated than that!)   Debate has never had a problem adapting.  If judges are uncomfortable with the “advantage” laptops give, require that 2nd rebuttals be done with a note card or give more weight to analysis.  I’m not advocating these particular adaptations, simply saying that if we stick to the basic two-on-a-team concept, everything else can and will flux.

    By Peg Erbes on Oct 5, 2006

14. I'm crafting a response on the laptop question right now, and I think Mrs. Erbes' argument is interesting. However, I've never actually heard of anything that extreme occuring in round (although the potential exists).  I'm looking for feedback here, especially from those more familiar with the National Circuit–to what extent, if any, have debaters been caught cheating with laptops?  Thanks, Jon 

    By Jon on Oct 5, 2006

15. I dont care, ive had judges with them

    By Lucas on Oct 9, 2006

16. Lucas,

    As a judge who does use one, it’s a lot different that a debater. I flow on mine, that’s it. It would never be used for reading evidence, overviews, arguments, or the like. It makes my job a lot easier, honestly. I’m not likely to return to paper and pens anytime soon.

    By John Knetzger on Oct 9, 2006

17. if you used it as a judge, didn’t you also use it as a debater?

    By Lucas on Oct 10, 2006

18. I debated long before laptops were on the market. We actually had to cut and past (tape) evidence when writing shells. We didn’t even have the internet since it wasn’t really around then. It was good to read books and journal articles instead of downloading everything. I’m not saying it was better or worse. It was what it was.

    By John on Oct 10, 2006

19. These posts are very helpful for us, any chance that you can make this a sticky topic so it is always on top?

    By Jason Chapman on Oct 13, 2006

20. If you’re looking to always link to it; the permanent link is: http://wiforensics.com/2006/09/26/monday-meditation-laptop-use

    I’ll bring the post back later for more comments.

    By Nick Bubb on Oct 13, 2006

21. I feel it’s actually easier to flow on my laptop than it is to flow on pen and paper- it’s a lot faster and more organized (at least in my opinion). It’s also nice to be able to read cards off of it, I know we do when we debate out of state and it’s really helpful because I can write a block on my laptop and include cards during the car ride or during bye rounds or something like that and if we don’t have a printer, I can just read them off of my laptop.

    I mean, some of the arguments about financial stuff concerning laptops is frankly ridiculous. Like if you can afford to go to a really expensive camp as opposed to not being able to afford to go to camp, you have a better chance of learning more intricacies and therefore being a better debater. Saying that one shouldn’t be able to use a laptop just because the other team may not be able to afford one is like saying that people who spend $5000 on camp shouldn’t be able to debate because it’s unfair to the people who can’t afford to go.

    And I can also guarantee you that in the rounds I have debate in using a laptop or having the other team use a laptop, no one has cheated trying to get args from a coach or former debater. I personally think these arguments are ridiculous. I mean, even if you could ask another debater for files, it doesn’t matter. The debater with the most evidence isn’t going to win the round- the debater who best uses what they have is going to win. It’s as simple as that. I mean, overall, that’s what all of this boils down to is who is fundamentally the better debater, not who can read the most cards.

    By Val McIntosh on Oct 17, 2006

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