AZSpeechCoach
11-26-2006, 02:06 AM
For obvious reasons, the forensics tournament within the game (crtl+shift+F6) intrigues me. However, looking at the scores, I am curious as to what event is being conducted. I am going to assume that we are working with national speech and debate rules. This is very appropriate, as the largest national speech and debate organization is the National Forensic League, or NFL (www.nflonline.org) .
Looking at the scoring method, I see the top competitor receiving 301 points, and the 20th ranked competitor receiving 284 points. This can help us narrow down the possible events that Jim is modeling. He specifies that this is debate, which eliminates the public speaking and oral interpretation events. That leaves 4 possible events: Policy Debate, Lincoln-Douglas Debate, Public Forum Debate, and Congressional Debate (commonly called Student Congress).
Normally, if you are ranking Policy, LD, or PFD, you would not use a point method such as Jim has chosen. You would examine win/loss records. Even if you were looking at speaker points as the determining factor, 301 points is an odd number to have. Six rounds of perfect speaker points (50) would still leave you one point short, and seven rounds would mean that the best person at the tournament only received 301/350 points, which is not a very good average.
This leaves us with Congress as the possible event. A better description of Congress can be found in the national tournament manual http://www.nflonline.org/uploads/DistrictInformation/conman.pdf, but briefly, the competitors model a simplified legislative body, debating legislation that they themselves have written beforehand, and had time to research. The competitors debate pro and con on the particular pieces of legislation, and vote to pass or fail the proposed bills and resolutions. The size of the houses can vary from 24 (the preferred national size) to 45-50, which is what we normally wind up with in Arizona. Each speech is scored from 1 point (the person really was horrible) to 6 (elect them governor today). Because of this, successful competitors do need a combination of intellect and charisma to succeed, as Jim states in his results screen.
At the NFL National Tournament, students compete in roughly 15 hours of floor debate over 2 days. The top students usually get 50-60 points at the end of the preliminary rounds, and then the top students move on to the semifinals and finals. A top student in the finals can get anywhere from 120-140 points total from the national tournament. If we look at the scores being posted by the FOF players, we can assume that the players could have 5 days, or 40 hours of preliminary floor debate, and then move on to the elimination rounds, which would provide the necessary time to accumulate 280-300 points total, assuming that scores from the previous rounds carry through (which is a deviation from the NFL rules).
So, thank you Jim for providing us with the first ever computerized Congressional debate simulation. Or am I just over-analyzing all of this? :D
Looking at the scoring method, I see the top competitor receiving 301 points, and the 20th ranked competitor receiving 284 points. This can help us narrow down the possible events that Jim is modeling. He specifies that this is debate, which eliminates the public speaking and oral interpretation events. That leaves 4 possible events: Policy Debate, Lincoln-Douglas Debate, Public Forum Debate, and Congressional Debate (commonly called Student Congress).
Normally, if you are ranking Policy, LD, or PFD, you would not use a point method such as Jim has chosen. You would examine win/loss records. Even if you were looking at speaker points as the determining factor, 301 points is an odd number to have. Six rounds of perfect speaker points (50) would still leave you one point short, and seven rounds would mean that the best person at the tournament only received 301/350 points, which is not a very good average.
This leaves us with Congress as the possible event. A better description of Congress can be found in the national tournament manual http://www.nflonline.org/uploads/DistrictInformation/conman.pdf, but briefly, the competitors model a simplified legislative body, debating legislation that they themselves have written beforehand, and had time to research. The competitors debate pro and con on the particular pieces of legislation, and vote to pass or fail the proposed bills and resolutions. The size of the houses can vary from 24 (the preferred national size) to 45-50, which is what we normally wind up with in Arizona. Each speech is scored from 1 point (the person really was horrible) to 6 (elect them governor today). Because of this, successful competitors do need a combination of intellect and charisma to succeed, as Jim states in his results screen.
At the NFL National Tournament, students compete in roughly 15 hours of floor debate over 2 days. The top students usually get 50-60 points at the end of the preliminary rounds, and then the top students move on to the semifinals and finals. A top student in the finals can get anywhere from 120-140 points total from the national tournament. If we look at the scores being posted by the FOF players, we can assume that the players could have 5 days, or 40 hours of preliminary floor debate, and then move on to the elimination rounds, which would provide the necessary time to accumulate 280-300 points total, assuming that scores from the previous rounds carry through (which is a deviation from the NFL rules).
So, thank you Jim for providing us with the first ever computerized Congressional debate simulation. Or am I just over-analyzing all of this? :D