Certainly, but we don’t have enough tournaments to do that unfortunately. This makes sense, but we first have to build the schedule up again so that there *are* tournaments in the North and South on the same weekend. That’s only true for a few weekends this year.

> BTW, I was a little surprised JV got canned from the WSDT? That was probably a great move for PF, but it was a pretty bad move for retaining less-experienced debaters in Policy.

There was a surprisingly large (at least to me) consensus about this change. It was presented/defended as a way to ensure the sustainability/viability of V4. Invitational tournaments can still (and will still) offer JV divisions, but JV debaters that qualify for the WSDT will compete at the varsity level. This will hopefully result in larger varsity divisions and more incentives for students to “move up” once they’ve done well at JV tournaments.

There are certainly counter-arguments, some of which were raised at the Spring meeting, but people seemed pretty supportive of this change.

~Bill

BTW, I was a little surprised JV got canned from the WSDT? That was probably a great move for PF, but it was a pretty bad move for retaining less-experienced debaters in Policy.

~Bill

The only benefit of a packet is to speed up the process of getting to live debates so that students can work on their presentation and clash skills. You don’t need a packet to teach research, writing, argument structure, etc. On the other hand, there is no reason why you need to put novice debaters on creative lock down for 2/3rds of a season to get them to clash.

You played collectible card games in HS, right? The thing that makes game theory so effective is the mix of structure and creative freedom. It really does work to offer options to entry-level competitors. It works especially well if you have the options on the same weekend (even better if you could offer them at the same tournament).

BTW, because I find your opening somewhat condescending, I’ll answer each one of your analogies with one simple response. Each one of your examples is not based in the rules of the game but rather a coach’s preference for bringing a student/player along. That’s a pretty significant flaw.

I also felt the interpretation of the system was not clearly understood by all parties: judges as well as coaches. I originally understood that the novice packet had to be used through the first tournament in Nov. At that tournament, I found that everyone else was bringing in new evidence. Also, can arguments not listed in the evidence packets still be used? I think the novice topic should be the limitation, not the evidence.
I also agree with those who have said the judges were not in a position to judge if non-packet evidence was being used.

If the novice evidence packet is retained, I favor moving up the date for using “outside” evidence and argument to Oct. 1, or Oct. 8. This would allow debaters to get their feet wet with the novice packet, and those who felt more adventuresome could move ahead. I personally would encourage debaters who are having trouble understanding the topic to stay within the packet until they are more comfortable with the topic. I don’t think all debaters are in that position and should not be held back.

At the novice level, learning core debate skills outweighs education — there’s a reason that the even the best debate teams in the nation don’t let students start cutting their own arguments until their junior year. There are a couple of theories which explain the alarmingly high policy debate dropout rate in WI:
1) Only a small fraction of novice debaters master CLASH and ARGUMENT COMPREHENSION by the end of year one. Those who don’t are objectively MILES behind the 8-ball, which makes debate a rigged game that very few people want to play.
2) Big school advantage — at the novice level over the past number of years (in general), the teams with more debaters and coaches who were willing to cut cards destroyed the teams that weren’t packing anything except the Baylor Briefs. Granted, there have been exceptions. And granted, the big school debaters still have to understand argumentative execution. But in general, there’s an extremely positive relationship between the size and strength of a team’s research capabilities and their success at the novice level. Making the evidence packet optional would supercharge the small-school disadvantage — the teams that have students and coaches who have a talent for creating arguments would exploit *every* loophole in the novice packet. Once again, that makes debate less fun, doesn’t teach clash/argument interaction, and ensures that the WSDT’s VSS division will only contain teams from a handfull of schools. Mandating the evidence packet, at least for a portion of the season, forces every debater onto an even playing field (at least in terms of argument quality and quantity). We need to show EVERY debater that debate is an activity in which the shortest David can cripple the tallest Golliath. Vital to establishing such a perception is showing debaters in their first ten-or-so tournaments that debate is a UNIQUE activity in which brains trump brawn. Even if the small school/big school disparity is inevitable at some point along the road of policy debate, it’s just TRUE that debaters will be MORE WILLING to cope with inequality if they’re convinced:
a) debate is fun
b) inequality can be overcome
Maintaining a strict packet framework with a LIMITED NUMBER of CORE arguments is vital to teach debaters the core skills of debate and show them that debate is an arena where anyone can succeed.

The risk of teams using the packet as an intelligence tool to side-step teams that don’t have the means to cut their own arguments is almost 100%. Even at the highest levels of HS and collegiate debate, the community caps the level of disclosure at citations. Giving teams a packet and then allowing teams to research *around* the packet is the worst possible educational model — your suggestion is a direct incentive to avoid clash.

I would suggest a list of packet mandatory tournaments and packet optional tournaments for the beginning of the year and survey judges, coaches, and debaters at the tournaments to see which is preferred…or if the concept of having packet mandatory and packet optional tournaments on the same weekend is even a better alternative to picking one or the other.

As an educational model for debate, I continue to support the WDCA’s novice evidence packet. Last year was the packet’s first year of implementation, and speaking generally, I think debates increased in quality and new debaters were better-suited to learn the “core skills” necessary to move on to more advanced styles of debate.

The WDCA wasn’t able to do a “dry run” before implementing the packet — given that the orchestrators of the packet were “flying blind”, year one probably went as well as reasonably could’ve been expected. There are still kinks that need to be worked out; but the WDCA would be ill-advised to abandon an initiative with so much potential after only one year.