SPEAR Evidence Pool

Team Policy Debaters:

If you're going to compete this year you might want to look into the Super Productive Evidence Acquirement Ring. (SPEAR) It's at http://www.homeschooldebate.com/phorum/viewtopic.php?t=6921 (You do have to register at Homeschooldebate though first)

Observation 1: Advantages

Advantage 1: Save Time

This pool will increase your productivity by allowing you to benefit from everyone's research instead of just your own. Face it. It's hard to spend enough time researching to feel prepared to enter a tournament. By participating in Spear, you will be able to magnify your efforts and maximize productivity.

Advantage 2: Save Money

You won't feel compelled to buy all of the sourcebooks because you will be able to generate your own evidence. While sourcebooks are a useful tool, this ring will help you generate evidence without making you feel that you need to buy the sourcebooks.

Advantage 3: Attain Confidence

No one likes going into a round where they feel unprepared. Participation in Spear will give you the evidence you need to feel prepared to enter a debate round.

Advantage 4: Have a Deadline

Spear will help you "force" yourself to research throughout the debate season instead of waiting until the week of a tournament. Everyone has probably experienced what happens when a project needs to be done, but no deadline is given. Often, procrastination ensues. Your participation in Spear will help you research incrementally throughout the year instead of waiting until the last minute.

Advantage 5: Weekly Spears

Each week (except for certain holidays) will provide you with more Spears to fill your evidence box. Depending on the interest, three to four Spears will be constructed each week. Powerful Blocks: By setting a high standard for the evidence that will be distributed, you will be supplied with high-quality evidence briefs that you will feel confident to use in a round.

Advantage 6: Controlled Case Topics

Rather than sending evidence in on anything they want, people will be assigned a case to work on each week. This ensures coverage of a wide range of topics, rather than weekly evidence on the same case. You will be able to help choose the cases to research each week, and you will be able to choose which of the 3-5 cases you would like to research on a particular week if space provides.

Observation 2: Rules

1. First and foremost, follow The Ground Rules for evidence trade listed on this page: http://www.homeschooldebate.com/phorum/viewtopic.php?t=5935 This includes:

• No Sourcebook Evidence Trading Trading sourcebook evidence is not only against copyright law, but is also unfair to the author. Sometimes you might find evidence online that is also in a sourcebook and might even submit it, unknowingly. This is not an offense. You should not, however, abuse the priviledge of owning an evidence book and copy evidence directly from a sourcebook, especially the tag and citation.
• No Trading Other People's Evidence In general, no one likes it when someone trades or gives their evidence to someone else without permission. You may only trade others' evidence this in this pool if, and only if, that person gives you explicit permission to do so. You may not share the Spears with him or her unless that person is your partner.

2. Evidence Standards

• Concise, Accurate Tag. A good rule of thumb is to keep the tag to one to two lines.
• Do not draw conclusions from the evidenc on the tag. Simply summarize what the evidence actually says. Feel free to logically expound on the evidence before or after the quote, but not as part of the tag. Note: These "logical" arguments do not count as part of the 10-piece quota.
• Complete, Strong Citation No one likes an incomplete citation. What good is a piece of evidence without a source or a date? Please include as much of the following in your citations as possible in the below order: Author, Author's Credentials, Article/Title of Page, Website/Publication and/or Additional Information About Source, Date, URL (Web Address)
• In general, dates should be no earlier than 2003 to be considered acceptable evidence. The exception to this rule is in cases where the date does not affect the piece of evidence such as quoting the North Atlantic Treaty, for example. In some cases, the date does not affect the reliability of the evidence.
• Every piece of evidence must have an author and/or a website/publication listed in the citation. It is strongly encouraged to briefly list the sources qualifications, or else the evidence is hard to effectively use in a round.
• The URL is required for all evidence that is found online.
• Evidence must be submitted in a document format (not the body of an e-mail) and be in Times New Roman font, size 12. The tag should be bold, the citation italic, and the quote normal surrounded by quotation marks.
• 10 Pieces per Week on the assigned topic must be submitted.
• If you or anyone else would like to obtain "back-weeks" of the Spear, they must submit evidence to the current week and indicate which week they would like to receive on the e-mail. If they would like to obtain the current week and a previous week, they must send in 20 pieces of evidence instead of 10. The reason for these policies are to prevent people who are not involved in the pool from benefiting from everyone else's work in the pool. It is also designed to encourage more membership in the pool.
• Evidence will be due Fridays by noon.
• You only need to participate the weeks that work for you. There is no long-term commitment or obligation to make up for weeks missed as there is in the research club. Basically, you get the evidence for the weeks to which you contribute.
  

Josiah