With the first deadline approaching, I'd like to just point to some recurring problems I've seen in questions - problems that I hope to have teams address before they submit their packets. - extended and vague stylistic references to a writer, painter, musician, philosopher, or other figures in the humanities are unecessary and often frustrating to those listening to the question, particularly when they come early in the question. Example: "His intermittent surrealist depictions and use of vivid color belied the realism and monochromatic pigments that the public associated with him." Why this is bad: Unless you have incredible art knowledge (and even then you can't be sure), you have no way of knowing that this is uniquely identifying. These sentences simply serve to cause many players to drone the question out, slow down the flow of the packet, and are usually a clear indication that the information was plagiarized from a reference source (paraphrase to your heart's content). Even if you can determine with confidence that it is a unique description, you should never begin the question with it, as you've most likely created an immediate buzzer race. What you can do about it: Keep stylistic descriptions succinct and use them only with the foreknowledge that they bring important and unique information to the question. - Beginning a tossup on a person with a quote about that person is often a bad idea. Example: When Emerson asked this man, "How many men possessed of your views, who will remain after you, are going to put them in practice?" he candidly replied, "Not one." Why this is bad: These quotes usually exemplify the frequent problems of vague clues and unecessary filler alluded to above. If it's a good quote, then it's probably a well known quote and makes a bad leadin. If it's a quote that you know is not well known, then what's the point - use something more concrete. A rare exception is a humorous quote that does not exceed 1-2 lines (every packet needs humor but not to the exception of brevity), but keep in mind that more than one of these in a packet is not a good idea. Note that your use of a clue with a quote that also dicusses stylistic details is anathema and will result in the wrath of both Earl Boykins and myself. What you can do about it: Don't use quotes as leadins. - Beginning a tossup on a major individual with that individual's first or last work should be done with caution and should be avoided in the majority of biography questions (keep in mind that questions about creations are almost always preferred to questions about their creator) Example: "His first novel Cup of Gold . . . " Why this is bad: Players with no knowledge of John Steinbeck's body of work will be able to buzz in right away with simple list knowledge. Clearly my use of the word "major" above is highly subjective, but for ACF Regionals I trust A teams to be able to understand why Dostoyevsky would be major and Lermontov wouldn't or why Monet would major and Camille Pissarro wouldn't. (strictly in a QB sense) What you can do about it: Simply reorder the occurrence of your titles - "His early novels like To a God Unkown and The Pastures of Heaven were less successful than his first, a life of Henry Morgan entitled Cup of Gold. - Reorder your clues when describing characters in a work and their occupation or significance, i.e. when you're using appositives. Example: "Its protagonist Clym Yeobright, a former diamond merchant in Paris, loses his eyesight." Why this is bad: The use of appositives, however grammatically correct and appropriate to the smooth flow of a tossup, often damages the pyramidality of a tossup. Someone who only has quizbowl knowledge about Return of the Native is just as likely to buzz after the first four words of that clue as someone who has read the novel (the clue itself is not ideal, but at the point at the question in which one would refer to the protagonist it should be appropriate). What you can do about it: Reorder your clues - Begin with your noun phrase or noun instead of the noun it renames. For example: "The former diamond merchant in Paris who is now losing his eyesight is this novel's protagonist, Clym Yeobright." - Beginning science tossups with the inventors or formulators of the apparatus or concept being asked about is almost always not a good idea. On a related note, a tossup on a concept that primarily discusses its formulator is not really a substantive tossup. Examples: "Cornell, Ketterle, and Wieman won a Nobel for achieving it . . ." or "Its formulator, younger brother of physicist Karl, became head of the physics department at Washington University in St. Louis in 1920." Why these are bad: Someone who knows nothing about the Bose-Einstein condensate (and I mean nothing) would be able to buzz on that first leadin. The second leadin, purportedly a tossup on the Compton effect, tells us nothing about the effect and only gives us some data on Arthur Compton. The latter, though poorly written and far from preferred, is still within the bounds of usability, whereas the former is not. What you can do about it: Get facts on the Bose-Einstein condensate and Compton effect and try to organize them to the best of your ability from most obscure to most well-known. These are just a few of the things that come to mind. I'll post another list as well. If you have any questions about these points, please e-mail me. Thanks, Subash
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