Here is a good thread of comments about the State counterplan from some pretty well-qualified policy coaches. It is worth reading to learn more about the pros and cons:

http://www.ndtceda.com/pipermail/edebate/2009-April/078259.html

And yes people may forget, or may never have learned about CP theory to begin with. I appreciate your comments and would be glad to plan a CP theory lecture for our camp. See also:

http://debate.uvm.edu/NFL/rostrumlib/CheshierApr'00.pdf

and

http://debate.uvm.edu/NFL/rostrumlib/cxCheshier1201.pdf

As far as CP’s go, the resolution of transportation might make it really easy for people to run CP’s by changing the agent, time frame, etc. However, many people forget mutual exclusivity, permutation and ensuring that CP’s solve for Aff harms. These concepts would be fundamental for the new NFA-LDer’s to retain next year.

“On the inherency point I was more referring to right now how things with Cuba keep changing and someone who had researched and got ready for nationals with the travel ban case had to switch at the last minute.”

Bah, I ran travel ban at NFA. Totally inherent

Mike,

You acquire credibility as a coach in two ways: competitive success and sound criticism. The former is hard to develop in a short amount of time. The latter, on the other hand…

2. That’s why I said, “just off the top of my head…”

3. Aside (but I hope not construed as snide) to Sydne: Just how does one go about becoming “one of the top coaches in the area” – at least as far as NFA-LD is concerned?

At the tender age of 60 (61 a week after the new topic is announced… sigh…[!]) I obviously don’t have a lot of time left to acquire more debate “cred.”

MHM

1. We should not do a workshop that interferes with the one at APU.
2. We won’t get a lot of beginners, the ones who need it the most, because they have to be actually recruited when school starts.
3. A full week may be a bit too much.

Most definitely, this is not an avenue to make money. More likely, a coach with a budget and maybe a kind Dean who can provide a little grant money, or a teacher who can get a special projects funded, would be in a good position to run a camp. We really just need a few rooms, some people interested in LD, and some coaches and some students. The host can also provide the materials, but so much being electronic these days we wouldn’t have that much we’d have to pay for in terms of paper and copying, etc.

I’m interested in not wasting time, so I would really only be interested in doing a workshop AFTER the topic is announced. We can all do our own general work on the DOT from now until then, but the topic really will guide what we do from then on (of course). We can incorporate theory into the topic (meaning we can do lectures on T but have them related to the chosen topic instead of T in general).

I am not really connected to the students from other schools, so all I can say is that I can build it if someone will come. So it is really up to the debaters, not to lay it all on this nerdy guy , but yeah, you have to find us some debaters and then we can run it. It doesn’t have to be many people, as I have to do the work for my own program anyway. I am not even sure if I will have an LDer at that point, but I am hoping to. I am not sure when school starts for everyone, but mine starts the first week of September. I have to do it before then, of course.

My suggestion is to do a little workshop with as many people as we can either mid- or end of August. Maybe this will end up involving more coaches than students, but like I said, I think we need to do a better job informing our NFA-LD judges about things like the stock issues. Delivery is important, but that’s where you find your speaker points. I do not think an LDer should lose on a delivery issue (except for extreme speed issues when warnings are not adhered to), over a stock issue. But that happens all the time with judges who do not know how to weight stock issues.

Then we can have a follow-up clinic once all of us coaches have a chance to recruit out of our new Fall classes. Marse and Rybold are thinking end of October. Maybe we could consider something a bit earlier, but the idea is still a good one.

Mainly, we have to get people on board with the idea of conducting their own research. It is find to use a card here or there from a big stack of briefs from the East Coast, but reading them over and over and never growing as a research or an arguer is just really pointless. We really do not preserve the meaningfulness of an evidence-based policy activity.

Snapping myself back to reality; again, cost is the biggest issue for a lot of us students… we don’t always get any more backing then a pat on the head for going to something like this. Like every uniqueness part of an econ disad at NPDA this year, the economy sucks so a lot of us cannot afford it even with help from institutions if the price is anywhere near high.
Which is what the project from RCC is able to do for us. I know we are going to get some killer help from them to increase the expectations for this year!

I have never set up a camp but I would think you could cover a lot of the stuff from the “1st week” across the first couple days. I remember at wyoming we had theory lecture every night after dinner for a couple hours. Then, whatever you were planing to do however you would. However, for us West Coasters (I spelled it right this time /yay!), we can see about putting out a better evidence set then LDC, competition is healthy right?

That’s just my 2 cents. which compared to others wouldn’t be worth pocket lint but it will influence my decision making as well as others I know.

I would like to teach a class/clinic in NFA-LD this Summer. Two questions:

(A) To other coaches/teachers: Would anyone join me in setting this up and/or teaching/coaching/judging at it?
(B) To students: Would Anybody attend?

BTW: Just off the top of my balding (and sometimes oxygen-deprived)head, I would suggest a two-week session starting on/about July 24. In the first week, I would concentrate on general NFA-LD theory, current NFA-LD customs, and – especially – (1) Cross-Ex skills (both questioner and respondent) and (2) Research techniques. I would then use the second week for topic-specific work (starting with a “topic announcement party”on August 1), practice debates, and a one-day, 5-6 round (no elims – everyone competes equally) tournament.

Anyone interested? Let’s discuss. Please contact:

Michael H. Miller, J.D. (Jurassic Debater)
sonofshasta1970@yahoo.com

I am excited about all five of these topics; but I regret to say that each of them has unnecessary wording problems. (For example, no real-world litigator and/or legislator would be happy with a bill that mandated use of the term “reform” as a verb. I can think of very few English verbs which are more vague, ambiguous, and overbroad.)

One final point: I hope that next year – unlike this year – NFA contestants spend far more time debating “the specific T” (Transportation) instead of the “generic T” (Topicality). As a debater, coach, and/or judge I was/am second to none in my enjoyment of a well-reasoned, well-applied, well-proved (and especially an innovative) Topicality (and/or Extratopicality) argument. But by the end of this season, I was literally sick to death of hearing T argued – extensively – against patently-topical Affirmative plans.

At least IMHO (in other words, as a “preference”) T should not be argued against “stock” Affirmative cases/plans, and – again speaking ONLY for myself – I would not argue T unless I truly believed the Affirmative Plan did not fall within a reasonable interpretation of “the parameters of the topic” (or, conversely, that a CP did).