NPTE 2010 Topic Areas Process

[JPS]

I'd like to get a start on topic areas development for NPTE 2010 earlier than in previous years.

To propose a topic area for NPTE 2010, please post here or send me an email to tutakai on that mail system that starts with the letter G and also ends with the word mail.

Topic area submissions must be more than just a one-line statement of the topic area. Submissions should provide a brief description of the most likely parameters of the topic area as well as a list of 4-5 sub-topics that would serve as examples of the topic area as well as the basis for crafting resolutions. A brief discussion of why the topic area would be particularly timely, educational, unusual, or otherwise generally good for debate would also be very helpful.

Unlike in previous years, we'd also like to use the topic areas submissions process to help begin and guide the substantive research process. In pursuit of this goal, it would be very helpful if topic area submissions also included 3-5 bibliographic references to works that would give a general overview of the topic area, including a range of perspectives. Please try to avoid using advocacy pieces for these bibliographic references.

Please use professors or other experts in the subject matter of the topic area to help you frame possible topic areas and their bibliography as well as to research topics in preparation for the tournament. Do not assume that the contents of backfiles or the accumulated memories drawn from debate is a complete or accurate representation of substantive fields for future debates.

[DarthYoshi]

Jason,

We have butted heads in the past on stuff like NPTE topic selection, and I just wanted to say that I appreciate the approach the board is taking this year in terms of starting the process early and making the process even more comprehensive. Thanks.

[zachf]

I agree with Eric, thanks for starting this process early. I was wondering that when topics areas are released, will the overview and bibliography be available to debaters?

[SoCalian]

Healthcare and Afghanistan are the two I would most like to see. I will try to get a more detailed suggestion up over break.

[JPS]

Thanks Eric and Zach. Though it may be hard to tell from the somewhat harsh "voice" I tend to use in online forums, I actually do try to learn lessons from missteps and make improvements in each year of topic selection. I am not particular about where substantive criticisms or suggestions come from -- I just want the process to be improved, both for the sake of the NPTE and for the sake of producing an improved pedagogical effect for debate more generally.

One of the changes enacted for this year's bylaws was to make the NPTE VP specifically responsible for managing the topic development process. I have long wanted to increase the role for subject-matter experts in the topic process and use topic areas as a vehicle for transmitting substantive education in addition to the functional imperative of simply creating good debate topics. Towards that end, I wanted to start the process much earlier, encourage consultation with subject-matter experts that are readily available (and usually ignored in the status quo) on all of our campuses, and try to lend greater substance and guidance to research efforts by providing bibliographies and even some analysis along with the simple announcement of topic areas.

What that means is, yes, we will be announcing the bibliographies and any potentially useful analysis (with care taken to be neutral on the aff/neg aggregate, of course) along with topic announcement. I also think that the inclusion of subject-matter experts will tend to make the use of "terms of art" more accurate, though, if a couple of previous incidents are any guide, sometimes the ingrained errors of some debaters will cause some of them to believe that the correct use is actually a "wrong" one.

Nonetheless, I think this process could dramatically change and improve how parliamentary debate topics for a national championship tournament are prepared and researched.

[DEADMONEY]

Originally Posted by JPS

What that means is, yes, we will be announcing the bibliographies and any potentially useful analysis (with care taken to be neutral on the aff/neg aggregate, of course) along with topic announcement. I also think that the inclusion of subject-matter experts will tend to make the use of "terms of art" more accurate, though, if a couple of previous incidents are any guide, sometimes the ingrained errors of some debaters will cause some of them to believe that the correct use is actually a "wrong" one.

Nonetheless, I think this process could dramatically change and improve how parliamentary debate topics for a national championship tournament are prepared and researched.

We have our end of the semester debate gathering tonight, so I won't really be replying to any answers until tomorrow, but I want to share a few thoughts before I head out:

1. Thanks for getting started earlier on the process this year, much credit for that. I do mean this in a very sincere way, despite what I'm about to say.


2. I absolutely hate the idea of giving out a bibliography with the topics/subtopics. I also think that the idea of offering "any any potentially useful analysis" is absolutely ridiculous. I can flush this argument out more as the argument will ensue, but I think it's still that you give anything other than a topic/topic area. The addition of MORE information means that debaters get to make arguments like, "X wasn't mentioned in the bibliography that the NPTE board gave us" and "the term X is referred to by a particular author as meaning X" and "the bibliography hints at 3 possible proposals" and "you're responsible for knowing all the material in the articles attached to the topic area" AND "the NPTE board clarified X should be debated instead of X" AND "this is what the framers intent was because X was posed on a message board."


I've said this YEAR after YEAR. The NPTE should post the topics/subtopic and SAY NOTHING ELSE! It seems like not much has changed from last year, other than the clarifications of the resolutions by Jason and potentially the rest of the NPTE board are going to begin earlier and be more in-depth. While I generally am in favor of more clarity, I'm not sure why the NPTE still thinks that the answer topic areas is a bibliography. Seriously? A bibliography? This has to be a joke, right? The answer is simple: (1) give a full resolution, (2)give topic areas/sub-topic areas and don't say anything or (3) don't have topic areas.

I'm not sure where this notion of giving bibliographies game from. I'll offer this the same criticism that I offered to the proposed pod system change last year— do ya'll think that you've invented something new and innovative that NO OTHER FORM OF DEBATE HAS EVER DONE? Of course other forms of debate have proposal papers for the topic, but there is ONE TOPIC that is chosen through careful wording that is NEVER clarified by the powers that be once it's announced. I'm not sure why anyone ever thinks that the NPTE board guiding research after a topic area/sub-topic area is announced is a good idea.

More later, I'm sure.


-Kyle