The DAWG Blawg

debate and "Open for Questions"?

2009-03-25T11:40:00.000-07:00

Greetings from Lil Rhody!

While thinking about curriculum for my fall 09 debate class (in which I am trying to critically integrate new media) I started thinking about the new "Open for Questions" virtual townhall the Obama administration has set up. You can check out the resulting blog post over at my new venture The Doxophiliac, but I thought this was a uniquely interesting question for the DAWG--that is, how can we take insight from competitive debate and apply it to the design of public forums like "Open for Questions." In the post, I suggests that these attempts to directly communicate with the public should be designed to help the questioner frame their concern in a way that encourages constructive deliberation, and that engaging in the process of question-formation is intrinsically valuable as well as instrumentally valuable (the process, in other words, is as important as the product). My thoughts at the moment are just preliminary sketches, but they seem to be pointing towards an interesting collective endeavor. What do you think?

Rae-Dupree on Teamwork

2008-12-11T10:35:00.000-08:00

Fascinating article here on teamwork and invention. What do you think?

DAWG Open House

2008-12-05T18:34:00.000-08:00

DAWG revelers and friends assembled in San Diego at the National Communication Association convention this past November, to celebrate nearly three years of DAWG work and welcome new friends.

The occasion marked an opportunity to unveil the newly-minted, official DAWG logo, and to give away a related line of DAWG swag as part of a "Debate Balderdash" competition. Here, contestants were given a hypothetical term and asked to generate ingenious definitions of that term, with subsequent votes determining the most popular entries (and winning contestants). Some highlights include:

for the term "hyper-non-uniqueness",:
- "A word used to refer to groups that believe they are unique but are in fact both conformist and lame. Goths are an example of hyper-non-uniqueness" (Joe).
- "An awkwardly over-enthusiastic attempt at overwhelming the link" (Taylor).
- "The phenomenon when you realize that you are absolutely unique, just like everyone else" (Damien).
- "An extreme aversion to non-normative social constructs characterized by debilitating inability to think outside the box" (Andrew).
- "The state of ultimate, brutal, heart-aching conformity that kills a disad" (Carly).
- "An extreme sameness" (Brita).
- "The act of non-uniquing a disad so quickly your opponents don't even notice it - Boo-yah!" (John).

for the term "D.M.T. argument":
- "Destructive Maintenance of Temerity" (Autumn).
- "Double Mulitplicity Turniness Argument" (Marcy).
- "Damn its Mitchell time Argument, where quality of arguments are sacrificed for speed aka Gordon Mitchell" (unidentified).
- "Demilitarized Ticks - Ugly bloodsuckers which thankfully don't carry Lyme disease, bickering" (Cate).
- "Damien Mother Trucker" (unidentified).
- "Damning Mitigation of Timeframe" (Taylor).
- "Assertion based on the diagram of mutual truculence" (Andrew).
- "Dazzling Monstrous Thunder argument that truly brings the noise" (Carly).

for the term "Refutocracy":
- "A system of government based on a decentralized system of refugees integrated by common water and sewer transport" (unidentified).
- "Form of government characterized by staunch opposition to published scientific findings."

for the term "Vice-presidential burden of proof":
- "The requirement to prove an assertion beyond a glimmer of halfhearted belief" (unidentified).
- "The requirement that one must prove you didn't shoot someone in the face" (Damien).
- "Shooting in the face to ensure agreement" (Joe).
- "No proof needed - shotgun involved" (Marcy).

for the term "counter-maximalist fiat":
- "A car driven by Emperor Maxilullus that is overall ghetto, and thus counter-emperorial" (Tom).
- "When an administrative decree is reversed because it is so damn awesome" (Damien).
- "An order given by the shortest person in the room" (Andrew).

When all the dust settled and the points were counted, TOM ended up on the top of the Balderdash heap, and this position afforded him first pick of DAWG swag, which he used to select a DAWG tie (see image to right).

DAWGS, Moose & Mountains

2007-08-05T05:39:00.000-07:00

"DAWG Power: The Synergy of Writing in Packs" has been presented at the 15th NCA/AFA Alta Argumentation Conference, with the manuscript submitted for possible publication in the conference proceedings. You may note a DAWG first in the acknowledgment section, where the animals below are thanked:

During the panel Q&A, there were two questions that came our way. Tom Goodnight asked a two-parter: 1) What topics are best?; 2) How about institutional support for co-authorship? In my answer to this, I went big picture, arguing that complexification of society creates an exigence for interdisciplinary research. I forgot about the obvious answer, that our DAWG picks topics by looking for issues that originate in the intercollegiate debate community and have relevance for wider society, or in the other direction, are big society questions that come home to roost in intercollegiate debates (remember this for job interviews!). Goodnight followed up by saying that he is currently involved in a big interdisciplinary, international research project covering China and economics.

Rae Lynn Schwarz-DuPre asked whether the NEH grant concept (briefly floated in the conclusion) might invite a backlash in the debate community. She signaled that maybe it would be better to organize competitive DAWGS in summertime, outside of the competitive tournament grid. I responded with: 1) Yes, more meetings would be great; 2) Schenley Park DAWG pushes back against sportification, so it is understandable that there would be resistance. Then I asked her what she thought the elements of resistance might be, and she explained that she foresees opposition from undergraduate debaters and debaters who resent top shelf judges being pulled out of the judging pool to participate in scholarly research endeavors. My response was that I am eager to hear conversations between those advocates of sportification and the grad students who won funding to have time for scholarly research at debate tourneys.

Others in an audience of about 20 included Robert Rowland, Chair at Kansas; John Katsulas, Director of Debate at Boston College; Cate Palczewski, Director of Debate at the University of Northern Iowa, and James Klumpp, Chair at Maryland. Congrats to each of the co-authors for their excellent work on this fun paper, which I think will provide good long-term momentum for our project.

Before signing off, here's another Moose video, shot two days later, right in front of the Rustler lodge, where argumentation scholars almost committed a dangerous fallacy: Argumentum Ad Trampulum!

DAWG pack pandemonium!

2007-05-16T14:08:00.000-07:00

Our first coauthored piece, "Debate as a Weapon of Mass Destruction," appears in the June 2007 forum section of the NCA journal Communication & Critical/Cultural Studies. Kudos to lead author Eric English, whose inspired front mushing enabled us to crank this piece out in between forum editor Barb Biesecker's request to write (November 17, 2006) and her final acceptance of the manuscript (January 10, 2007) - under two months.

Violins and Bassett Hounds

2007-05-07T13:04:00.000-07:00

BrentS, Cate, Eric, Gordo and John gathered at the Schenley Park Visitors Plaza on May 4, 2007 for a DAWG meeting. The first order of business was to sample an iced tea Americano, a uniquely vile concoction whipped up by the smiling waitperson who somehow jumbled drink orders all together. But delightful dapples of sunshine splashing through the windows kept spirits high, and even inspired Cate's artistic hand (you've already seen the resulting masterpiece; read on for the backstory).

Announcements

• "Deliberating Debate's Digital Futures" has been formally accepted for publication in Contemporary Argumentation and Debate. Lead author Carly Woods has negotiated successfully to see the proofs before the article goes to print (a good example for future lead authors to follow).

• The writing team for "DAWG Power" is now in place: Gordo, Matt, Eric, Cate, John, and Carly. Gordo indicated that an organizational email on this project will be romping through cyberspace soon.

• DAWG SLEDDing is heading toward critical mass, with a brave pioneer group composed of BrentS, Cate, Carly, Eric and Gordo. Tentative timeline for event is second week of June. If you're already a pioneer, pick a book and target journal and start reading up! Others: Still time to join!

• Revisions of Co-authorship Guidelines 2.0 approved on a 6-0 email vote.

• We now have a handy DAWG co-authorship worksheet for use in breaking down each co-author's precise contributions to each project. Gordo served as trial guinea pig for testing the effectiveness of the worksheet during his annual review, and preliminary responses by the Department Chair were very encouraging. Key topic here: keep detailed records of the meetings and exact nature of your involvement on each project; this will bolster credibility of the worksheet down the line when the time comes for evaluation of your role in collaborative work production.

• Logo and manifesto committee report update - Gordo announced that Damien is working some clever family connections to get help in designing a DAWG logo, and that early design concepts included a dog wearing glasses. Within minutes, Cate sketched the above!! Preferences about glasses high or low on nose? Comment section!

Ehninger's Argument Violin

The group spent the remaining balance of time chewing over Gordo's draft of "Ehninger's Argument Violin," a paper presented at the 6th International Conference on Argumentation, June 27-30, 2006, University of Amsterdam. Conference organizer Frans van Eemeren has invited Gordo to revise his essay and submit it to the journal Argumentation. The roundtable discussion was lively and insightful, producing multiple, promising avenues for revision. Especially tantalizing - the idea that pragma-dialectical argumentation theory's distinction between "strategic maneuvering" and "fallacious derailment" of a critical discussion can be sharpened by developing the essential role of rhetorical contingency assumed in key elements of pragma-dialectics' "ten commandments."

DAWG SLEDDing!

2007-04-22T19:36:00.000-07:00

A key premise motivating DAWG work is that the unique skill set honed during participation in intercollegiate policy debate has great potential to drive scholarly knowledge production outside the contest round setting. Surely one of the most unusual (and perhaps valuable) elements of this skill set is the ability to work for long periods of time in groups, often through the night, on common research projects. Through DAWG SLEDDing (Sleepover Leading to Edited Document Dump), we can mobilize this odd element of our skill set to produce awesome research products! To pilot this maneuver, I propose that we try a book review DAWG SLEDDing experiment:

* Participants convene at 8 p.m., bringing a book to be reviewed, copy of a target journal for publication, and a sleeping bag;
* No one leaves until all participants have had their completed book review edited by at least two other DAWG SLEDDers, and all book reviews have been submitted online to respective book review editors in a collective document dump.

Let's use the comment section to organize inaugural DAWG SLEDDing sometime in May! Keep your eyes on books you may want to review and scout out some promising journals to submit to - book review editors are some of the most starved-for-text creatures in all of academia, and many of them relish high-caliber, unsolicited reviews.

Nebraska State party pooping telegram

2006-12-27T09:47:00.000-08:00

Here is a photograph copy of the original telegram from Nebraska State Teachers College president Herbert Cushing informing Speech Association of America President Karl Wallace that Nebraska State's debate team planned to sit out the 1954 season if Wallace and the SAA held firm to the China topic. This telegram, along with a bevy of other letters and telegrams, are archived at the W.E.B. DuBois Library at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

1954 original ballot

2006-12-27T09:37:00.000-08:00

Here is a copy of the voting results for 1954 topic selection, archived at the W.E.B. Dubois Library at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Back then, votes were tallied individually by the forensic fraternities (TKA, DSR, PRP PKD) then totaled with a point scheme. Click on the thumbnail to inspect the vote totals and you can see that the China topic bested the ag price supports topic for the top slot. Karl Wallace, then president of the Speech Association of America, defended the Speech Association of America's choice of the 1954 China topic by pointing to the democratic nature of this selection process. West Point pushed hard for Wallace and the other SAA officers to switch to the alternate #2 ag support topic.

COMMIES TAKE OVER DEBATE!!

2006-12-16T13:52:00.000-08:00

I have spent the day in a historical newspaper archive following the bruhaha in 1954. Here are some choice selections:

DEBATE TOPIC DISPUTED
New York Times (1857-Current file); Oct 23, 1954; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2003)
pg. 10

The refusal of four Nebraska state-supported teachers colleges to allow students to debate recognition of the Communist China Government touched off widespread discussion among educators today.

The colleges at Kearney, Wayne, Peru and Chardon, agreed not to allow students to take part in an intercollegiate discussion of the question, E. Albin Larson, secretary of the State Normal Board said. The subjest was selected by the Speech Association of America, to shich the colleges belong.

Herbert L. Cushing, Kearney president, said that he was opposed to having debaters ‘spend half their time to argue the Communist side.’ Someone ‘is trying to indoctrinate a few thousand American college youths with dangerous philosophy,’ he added.

West Point and Annapolis Forbid Debates on Recognition of Peiping
By ELIE ABELSpecial to The New York Times.
New York Times (1857-Current file); Nov 16, 1954; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2003)
pg. 1

The United States Military Academy at West Point and the Naval Academy at Annapolis have forbidden participation by cadets or midshipmen in college debates on whether the United States should recognize Communist China.

[…]
Confirming the existence of an Academy ban on debates of the China question the Army said:

‘It is Department of the Army policy not to have U.S.M.A. cadets involved in a debate on such a controversial subject, on which in any event national policy has already been established.’

West Point’s most prominent living graduate, President Eisenhower, enunciated a different philosophy at his news conference last Wednesday, when he was asked to comment on the ‘anti-intellectual trend in our country which expresses itself in hostility to new ideas or different ideas or even traditional ideas.’

The President’s reply was that the United States system could stand on its own feet and would be upheld by the people in the face of an open and exhaustive discussion.

Although he would not tolerate anyone’s preaching the destruction of the United States form of government by violence, the President said, everyone should eb free to talk a philosophy of life, an economic, social or governmental doctrine.

When a people became so frightened of new ideas that it could not tolerate discussion of them, that people was confessing to a fear of itself, he asserted.

Television in Review
By JACK GOULD
New York Times (1857-Current file); Nov 26, 1954; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2003)
pg. 39

Once again, 'See It Now' has performed a notable service in the cause of free speech and civil liberties. On Tuesday evening over the C.B.S. television network Edward R. Murrow reported on the controversy over whether colleges shoudl debate the question of recognizing Communist China. The program was illuminating and responsible reporting and an effective protest against the creeping plague of intellectual conformity and timidity. It said what needed to be said.

“An assistant Professor of Speech at Duke University made public a letter written by representative Edward J. Robeson Jr., a democrat of Virginia, who cautioned a Duke student against taking the affirmative side in the debate. The Representative wanted to know the student’s home address and the name of the faculty member who had responsibility for the Duke debating team.”

“Perhaps the most useful segment of “See It Now” was its pick-up of a debate between the teams of Princeton and Temple Universities. Two Princeton boys, assifned to argue the affirmative of whether to recognize China, were the winners. Then, the debate over, they explained they were personally against recognition. The Temple team explained it had argued both sides.

In their simple, direct definition of the meaning of debate, the college students delivered their own trenchant editorial in support of the democratic precept that to know one’s argument is right one must know an opponent’s viewpoint.”

“See It Now” closed with brief remarks by Tom Waddell, president of the Dartmouth Forensic Union, who reported that Dartmouth had declined Navy’s invitation to debate an alternate topic. Dartmouth did not believe, said Mr. Waddell, that cadets and midshipmen were second-class citizens without the same freedom of speech as civilian students. He suggested that the Navy debate, on either side, the right to debate.

By coincidence, President Eisenhower had said at his Tuesday press conference that he would have allowed Annapolis and West Point to participate in the debate on recognizing Red China. “See It Now” reported this development but not so emphatically as it should have.

Even so, the larger lesson taught by “See It Now” remained. To try to avoid controversy is only to invite more of it and the right of free debate must be kept inviolate. Mr. Murrow suggested with a smile it might be fun to see on a television a debate between the ultimate winners in a national collegiate debating contest and a couple of Congressmen. It would indeed”

Debate Open Source Archive thread

2006-12-05T15:00:00.000-08:00

Hi, everyone.

While the Open Source piece is further off than the Homeland Security piece, I wanted to get a thread started so that we can continue to brainstorm. I will let you all know once I hear more details about the piece. Here are the notes that I have from our last DAWG meeting (feel free to add to this list):

Background research on the open source movement
Academic fair use/copyright issues (legality/workability)-- possibly contact Ted Fritz, General Counsel at Pitt
Debate history-- can we trace the evolution to the card?
DOSA as a precursor to genuine debate collaboration/trial run for the DAWG model of co-authorship
Effect of the DRG on international debate (changed types of arguments run in Japan)
Structural considerations-- what questions do we need to answer before the debate community signs off on this project? Is it really going to benefit smaller programs like it purports to do? Or will it simply benefit those teams that have the people-power to keep up with it?
Which contributions will be valued?
What will be the effects on debate pedagogy? Will it deprive the activity of its research benefits for students? Are there advantages to making the activity less research-driven?
What are the advantages and disadvantages to "opening our tubs to the rest of the world"?
Gordon's Amish example

The tentative consensus seemed to be that it would be best for this piece to be a panoramic view of the open source debate, in which we push lines of questions that both proponents and skeptics will need to be able to answer.

DAWG publishing rampage!

2006-12-03T10:17:00.000-08:00

John Rief's paper, "Talking at Cross Purposes: Violating Higher-Order Conditions with Oppositional Arguments," became the first Schenley Park DAWG research product to be presented in public. The auspicious occasion for the roll-out was the June 2006 International Society for the Study of Argumentation (ISSA) conference in Amsterdam. John's paper was subsequently reviewed and selected to be published in the ISSA conference proceedings, scheduled to go to print in 2007. Gordon Mitchell's paper, "Team B Intelligence Coups," appeared in Vol. 92 No. 2 of the Quarterly Journal of Speech. The Schenley Park DAWG got its first print shout-out here (see above image - note that the smart dog could not sneak past the censors and make it into the official print version). Two more DAWG papers were rolled out at the 2006 National Communication Association national convention in San Antonio, TX this past November 2006: Matt Brigham's "Switch-Sides Debate as a Cultural Technology of American Empire: On the Possibilities of Subversion" and John Rief's "Interrogating Switch-Side Debate as a Cultural Technology: The Implications of the Reflexive Turn." Who let the DAWG out? We did!

Homeland Security thread

2006-12-01T12:04:00.000-08:00

For those working on the Homeland Security piece, let's use this post as an open thread as we put together the article. I'd like to begin by working out two tentative thesis statements for the piece: first, an esoteric thesis that states what we'd like the readers to "read between the lines," and second, an exoteric thesis that states what the article, when read literally and unironically, should say. This terminology is itself ironic, as it was developed by Leo Strauss, the godfather of neoconservatism.

My own belief is that we should:

1) make it abundantly obvious the piece is meant to be read ironically (rather than trying to pull a Sokal-esque "hoax"), and
2) direct the bulk of the venom toward the "terrorist" debate coaches who enable and encourage the "extremism" of discourse in policy debate.

Here's a first stab at an "esoteric" thesis: As academics continually confront the right wing "liberalism enables terrorism" meme, the events surrounding the 1954 debate topic might be instructive in demonstrating the importance of free and vigorous inquiry in both debate and academia. Whatcha think?

eric

Technological determinism

2006-05-13T08:35:00.000-07:00

The recent Edebate exchange between Jackie Massey and Gary Larson regarding the Greene & Hicks article got me thinking about the way the article is deployed in coversations like this (and will likely be deployed in many future contest rounds). I went back and tracked Greene & Hicks's use of the word "technology" - a key term in their analysis, since they (following Day) describe debate as a "cultural technology." The term "technology" appears 11 times in the main body of the article. At first, Greene & Hicks dip their toes in gingerly, couching the term in qualifiers and suggesting that debate is a technology "capable of generating a commitment to free speech" (102). Here, the adjective "capable" leaves causal wiggle room - as a technology, debate need not necessarily do this; it could do other things. Then they move to the claim that debate is a "technology of citizen formation" that is "invested with an ethical substance" (110) - note the more restrictive and deterministic rendering created by "invested." Finally, the adjective "intrinsic" appears later to ratchet up the level of determinism: "Debating both sides, then, is necessitated by the ethical obligations intrinsic to the technology of democratic debate" (111).

As an aside, their deterministic claim regarding the intrinsic quality of the cultural technology of debate rests on assumptions about the psychology of debaters - something very difficult to prove with only textual analysis of a few commentators from the 1950s (i.e. Day, Murphy, et al.).

More centrally, it may be possible to fashion a critique of Greene & Hicks on the grounds that their analysis enacts a form of technological determinism, i.e. the notion that technologically speaking, there are intrinsic ethical commitments invested in the activity of switch-side debate (namely, belief in American exceptionalism). As a counter-example, one might point out that in the 1954 "debate over debate," this strong principle of technological determinism was not found in the psychology or practices of debaters who viewed a commitment to switch-side debate less as a foundation for American exceptionalism and more as a bulwark against McCarthyism. Another, perhaps even more powerful example is Malcolm X, who embraced switch-side debate as a tool to counter American exceptionalism.

A charitable read of Greene & Hicks emphasizes the narrow scope of their study (ONLY focusing on 1954, not extrapolating beyond), thus taking some wind out of the sails of the technological determinism critique. But notice how this retrenchment move is not available to the Masseys of the debate world who cite Greene & Hicks as proving that IN ALL CASES (even in today's milieu) debate as a cultural technology reinforces American exceptionalism. This is technological determinism in full flower, and we could fashion a compelling kritik argument suitable for use in contest rounds that would isolate this move made by opponents, and make rejection of the claim a voting issue.

RPN on tourney-audience balance

2006-05-03T12:33:00.000-07:00

Digging out from under unreturned spring term library books, I came across a hidden gem - Robert P. Newman, "The Tournament in a Balanced Debate Program," in James H. McBath, ed., Essays in Forensics (Hannibal, MO: Standard Printing Company, 1970): 101-104.

Updated May/June schedule

2006-04-15T14:55:00.000-07:00

* Friday, May 5 - Gordon's paper on Team B intelligence
* Friday, May 19 - John's paper on higher-order conditions
* Friday, June 2 - Paper TBA (Steve or Damien/Carly) and Co-authorship committee report
* Friday, June 9 - Paper TBA (Steve or Damien/Carly) and DAWG Blawg committee report

Co-authorship committee

2006-03-18T06:57:00.000-08:00

Academic debate is a collaborative mode of knowledge production, while prevailing academic norms steer scholars to labor in solitary isolation. The DAWG believes this disconnect may be one factor accounting for the difficulties spelled out at Sedalia and Quail Roost. A systematic, synergistic and rigorous approach to co-authorship may help bridge this disconnect. This committee's charge is to draft guidelines for co-authorship that will make explicit expectations and responsibilities for DAWG co-authors.

Here is a good first stop for extant guidelines, including citations on the 1991 JAMA article (state of the art in medicine) and the "Vancouver Group." The authorship form at the JAMA website has a good checklist that should spark some creativity.

DAWG unleashed!

2006-03-18T06:24:00.000-08:00

The Schenley Park Debate Authors Working Group convened its first meeting yesterday, Friday, March 17, 2006. It was a crisp late fall day with resplendent sunshine when charter DAWG members Matt, Kelly, Steve, Gordon, Cate, Damien, John, and Carly trekked up the hill past the Schenley Park Visitors Plaza, CMU and Phipps Conservatory, to settle in at the Schenley Park Visitors Center for a noon meeting. Iced tea was the beverage of choice - evidence of the Pittsburgh group's wishful thinking that spring is just around the corner.

Gordon opened with some reflections on how the DAWG mission relates to the 1975 Sedalia Conference, and how the future might unfold:

* 2008: Eight DAWG papers in print (one for each of the charter members)
* 2010: Second-generation DAWGs up and running outside Pittsburgh
* 2015: DAWG mode of knowledge production recognized as a partial answer to issues raised at Quail Roost

After an illuminating discussion of Matt's paper, "Looking Back, Looking Forward" (perhaps we could elaborate on these in a new post), we decided on a schedule for upcoming meetings:

* First Friday in May - John Rief's paper to be discussed
* Third Friday in May - Paper TBA (Steve or Damien/Carly)
* First Friday in June - Paper TBA (Steve or Damien/Carly)

Also, several committees were formed:

* Taxonomy committee (Matt, Kelly, Cate)
* Co-author guidelines committee (Carly, John)
* Logo, Motto & Manifesto committee (Gordon, Damien, Kelly)
* Blawg committee (Matt, Steve)