Submit a Topic for Consideration
NEW YORK, N.Y. — Topic submissions are due on May 15th to the National Forensic League.
Joe Vaughan of Scarsdale High School has made a suggestion to the Lincoln-Douglas Debate community at large that is worth the time and effort of every program across the country. Vaughan’s message is available here on VBD.
Joe Vaughan’s message follows.
During NFL nationals, a group called the Wording Committee is convened. The members of the committee are appointed by the NFL Executive Director, Scott Wunn. This group works through any and all suggestions that are submitted and ONLY on those suggestions. We cull through to find the most debatable topics that have a depth and a breadth of research to support two months of debate. We have 4 days to comb through the suggestions, do research, reword and refine. It’s a lot to do in four days. In a lot of ways then, the committee is confined by the quality of the suggestions received.
The basic premise of this request is to bolster the quality of the suggestions received.
Presently, people email in a suggested wording topic or sometimes a suggestion of an idea for a topic. I would propose that people should be emailing in a brief that outlines the parameters of a topic as well as several wording suggestions. The [form below] will explain the form of the brief that I am hoping you will submit.
Topic submissions are due on May 15th to nfl@nflonline.org.
Thank you for your thoughtful consideration.
Joe Vaughan
Scarsdale HS
Joe Vaughan’s form follows.
Proposal to increase the quality of submissions to the NFL LD Wording Committee
Being that the committee has only five working days to sift through the suggestions it receives, research the topics that seem to have relevance might lead to interesting debate, and then reword or tweak each topic, it would be helpful for topic submissions to take care of some of this effort for the committee. Therefore, I would propose that each program ought to submit at least one topic to the wording committee accompanied by a short topic brief.
The form below is the suggested way to construct your brief. When you have completed a brief, email it to nfl@nflonline.org with the subject message LINCOLN DOUGLAS DEBATE TOPIC IDEA. The topic submission deadline is MAY 15th.
I think it would be good if the committee could receive 30 to 40 such briefs.
Thanks
Joe Vaughan
Lincoln Douglas Debate Topic Idea
Submitted by ___________________________________________
General Topic Idea/What you envision to be the core question(s) the topic would address
Division of ground – Clearly articulate what you would like to see as the differences between the affirmative and the negative ground.
Possible wordings – Please suggest a primary wording and several variants on the wording
Research – Provide a list of search terms that verify that this topic has a deep research base. If you use terms of art in your wordings, verify that these terms of art are the most appropriate. Please cite research to substantiate. Additionally, provide 5 articles on both aff and neg to demonstrate the scope of the topic (i.e five articles on each side each about a different facet of that side of the resolution.
Popularity: 1% [?]
test