The 3NR

The National Debate Coaches Association has announced an upgrade to the 2010-2011 National Argument List, colloquially known as “the wiki”. The wiki is now hosted by wikispaces, the same software that is used for the college caselist. Please take a minute to register for the new wiki before the season gets underway. If you have questions about the transition to the new software, please check out the transition page; if that doesn’t answer your question(s), post ‘em here and someone will help you.

The National Federation of High Schools has released the official “Synopsis of the Problem Areas” for next season’s topic. The topic that will be debated is selected through balloting by state and national organizations. The problem area descriptions are below the fold.

Read more…

The final list of topic candidates for the 2011-2012 season is as follows:

1. Cyber Warfare: The United States federal government should establish rules of engagement governing its use of cyber warfare.

2. Southeast Asia: The United States federal government should substantially increase its development assistance to Southeast Asia.

3. Space: The United States federal government should substantially increase its exploration and/or development of space beyond the Earth’s mesosphere.

4. India: The United States federal government should substantially increase its cooperation with India in one or more of the following areas: civilian space programs, nuclear proliferation, trade.

5. China: The United States federal government should substantially increase its economic engagement with the People’s Republic of China on one or more of the following issues: trade, currency, environment.

This list will be voted on by schools throughout the country via the state and national debate organizations.

The NFHS topic committee is meeting this morning to narrow down the list of eight working resolutions to the final five that will appear on the national ballot.

Update:

1. The Russia topic was voted out in the first ballot. There were 28 total ballots; each ballot ranked the top five topics. Russia received 8 votes; Urban Renewal finished seventh with 9 votes and so remains on the ballot.

2. The Urban Renewal topic was voted out on the second ballot. One more balloting will occur to eliminate another topic; the final five topics will appear on the national ballot.

3. The IMF/World Bank topic was voted out on the third ballot. It received 13 votes; the second-lowest vote recipient was Cyber Security with 17. The top vote getters were India (25/28), Southeast Asia (24), Space Policy (24), and China (22).

Three of the following topics will NOT make the cut:

Cyber Warfare: The United States federal government should establish rules of engagement governing its use of cyber warfare.

Southeast Asia: The United States federal government should substantially increase its development assistance to Southeast Asia.

Russia: The United States federal government should substantially increase its constructive engagement with the Russian Federation.

Space: The United States federal government should substantially increase its exploration and/or development of space beyond the Earth’s mesosphere.

India: The United States federal government should substantially increase its cooperation with India in one or more of the following areas: civilian space programs, nuclear proliferation, trade.

Urban Renewal: The United States federal government should substantially increase its urban renewal assistance in the United States.

IMF/World Bank: The International Monetary Fund and/or the World Bank should eliminate one or more economic policy conditions placed upon Highly Indebted Poor Countries.

China: The United States federal government should substantially increase its economic engagement with the People’s Republic of China on one or more of the following issues: trade, currency, environment.

Discussion and advocacy of each topic is underway; voting will begin in the next hour or so. I will update this post as votes are taken and topics are eliminated.

It is day two of the NFHS Topic Committee meeting in Deerfield, Illinois. There are eight working topics that were discussed yesterday in committee and that are being discussed by the entire group today. The complete working resolutions (still subject to change, so comments are encouraged) that have been discussed so far include:

Cyber Warfare: The United States federal government should establish rules of engagement governing its use of cyber warfare. Previous version: The United States federal government should increase anti-cyber warfare operations.

Southeast Asia: The United States federal government should substantially increase its development assistance to Southeast Asia.

Russia: The United States federal government should substantially increase its constructive engagement with the Russian Federation. Previous version: The United States federal government should substantially increase its constructive engagement with the Russian Federation on military security issues.

Space: The United States federal government should substantially increase its exploration and/or development of space beyond the Earth’s mesosphere.

India: The United States federal government should substantially increase its cooperation with India in one or more of the following areas: civilian space programs, nuclear proliferation, trade.

Urban Renewal: The United States federal government should substantially increase its urban renewal assistance in the United States.

IMF/World Bank: The International Monetary Fund and/or the World Bank should eliminate one or more economic policy conditions placed upon Highly Indebted Poor Countries.

China: The United States federal government should substantially increase its economic engagement with the People’s Republic of China on one or more of the following issues: trade, currency, environment.

Do you have thoughts about any of these potential resolutions? Post a comment and I’ll bring it to the attention of the committee. In particular, it would be great if people who are familiar with doing “Word PIC research” would make sure that we do not repeat the “Sub-Saharan Africa” disaster (where the resolution included a term that did not have a defense against a critique of its usage).

The NDT/CEDA resolution for the 2010-2011 season was announced today:

Resolved: the United States Federal Government should substantially increase the number of and/or substantially expand beneficiary eligibility for its visas for one or more of the following: employment-based immigrant visas, nonimmigrant temporary worker visas, family-based visas, human trafficking-based visas.

The resolution was selected from a list of five topics. Seventy schools submitted a vote.

The National Forensic League National Tournament begins today in Kansas City, Missouri. Teams interested in participating in a code sharing project should check out the details at Cross-X.com and email in your code. The 3NR will be attempting to provide live coverage of the elimination rounds beginning on Tuesday night.

In February, we announced the creation of The 3NR Spirit of Disclosure Award to recognize the team that best represents the spirit of disclosure throughout the season. In announcing this Award, we established five criteria: completeness of information, organization of information, consistency of disclosure, responsiveness to requests, and post-season disclosure practices. Our goal was for this Award to become a coveted honor that would motivate students and teams to improve their disclosure practices for the benefit of the entire community. After just a few months, we are confident that this has indeed been the case and have plans to continue (and perhaps expand) this Award in the future.

After careful review of The National Debate Coaches’ Association National Argument List wiki that took into account the stated criteria, the writers of The 3NR have submitted their ballots and the votes have been tabulated. Each ballot included an ordinal ranking of five teams and the results were then compiled by assigning a point value to each placement (5 points for a #1 ranking, 4 points for a #2 ranking, 3 points for a #3 ranking, 2 points for a #4 ranking, and 1 point for a #5 ranking). The authors were free to name any team on their ballot; there was no list of finalists from which to choose and there was no set criteria that must be followed.

Despite the open-ended nature of the voting system, the results were very consistent across all three ballots. In total, seven teams appeared on at least one ballot and three teams appeared on all three. The top five teams (as well as two honorable mentions) are listed below the fold along with an explanation of their placement. In parentheses, each team’s rankings on the individual judges’ ballots is also provided (in the order of Bill, Scott, and Roy).

Congratulations to all of the teams that received votes.

Read more…

Most teams will be traveling to the Tournament of Champions tomorrow and the writers of The 3NR are no exception. While our primary responsibilities this weekend will involve coaching the team from Woodward Academy, we will be doing our best to provide live coverage of the TOC for those following along at home. Our coverage will start tomorrow night, so stay tuned throughout the weekend.

As a special gift to our readers, a few excellent cards that can be used to answer word PICs (and “bad word” critiques) are posted below the fold. You’ll have to tag and underline them yourselves, but I just cut them today from a hard-to-find book and thought that others would appreciate having this evidence in their arsenals at the TOC. Enjoy—and safe travels to Lexington!

Read more…

The 3NR is conducting the second half of its 2010 Policy Debater Survey at this weekend’s NDCA Championships in Washington, DC. The first half of the survey was conducted at the Woodward 1st and 2nd Year National Championships and targeted debaters who are still early in their high school careers. This time, the target demographic is much more mature: the vast majority of debaters at the NDCA Championships are in their junior or senior seasons.

If you will be competing at the TOC but not the NDCA Championships, you are also encouraged to fill out the survey. There will be a separate call for debaters at the TOC to fill out the survey but it will be identical and if you do it ahead of time, you don’t have to worry about it in Lexington.

The data that is compiled through this survey project will be analyzed and the results will be published here on The 3NR. Please take a few minutes to take part in this project so that our sample size is as large as possible. The results are sure to be fascinating—make sure your opinions are represented in the data!

The form is embedded below the fold; you can also fill it out directly via Google Docs.

Read more…