ACF REGIONALS 2002 DISTRIBUTION INFO

barhubbard · Sat, 01 Sep 2001 13:07:36 -0700

Hello, the following post will discuss the
distribution for ACF Regionals, 2002 to be held at various
sites around the country on February 23rd. With the
exception of a few changes, which will be detailed in a
moment, I encourage question writers to continue relying
on the general guidelines covered in both the
original ACF question writers guide- available at
www.inform.umd.edu/Student/Campus_Activities/StudentOrg/maqt/acf/acfguide.html - and its supplement, available at
www.inform.umd.edu/Student/Campus_Activities/StudentOrg/maqt/acf/writers.html. Both of these documents should answer most of the
concerns that writers encounter as they are working on
packets.

I will post packet deadlines by the end of
September and will probably repost this information then as
well.

Now for some adjustments:
*This year I am asking
for 25 and 24 questions, I realize that Regionals
generally asks for 30/30 but as a question writer myself I
know that by the time you get to writing that 30th
tossup youre like whatever... (of course Im assuming
you do care by the time you hit the 24th tossup which
is debatable, but indulge me and write good
questions). Bottom line is, by eliminating the total number
of questions I hope to boost the overall quality of
each set. 
*I am also adding a 1 tossup Trash
requirement (pop music, t.v., food, current film etc.) to be
added to the first 20 questions of play (so all rounds
will have 21 TU but 20 boni) Try to make these as fun
and original as possible, there really is nothing
more hilarious than hearing a tossup on _Mr. Belvedere
_ or _Busta Rhymes _ written in the pyramidal ACF
style.

Here is the distribution:

First 21/20-
4-4
History
4-4 Science
4-4 Literature
3-2
Religion/Philosophy/Myth
1-2 Visual Arts (including architecture and classic
film)
1-1 Music
1-1Social Science
1-1
Geography
1-0 Trash
1-1 more of the big 3 (ie. Hist/Sci/Lit)
at the discretion of the author

Last 4/4-
(These will be used to replace repeats and questions
that I feel are not up to snuff)
1-1 Hist
1-1
Sci
1-1 Lit
1-1 Art and/or Music

Needless to
say I expect you to vary question content between and
within categories, and specific suggestions for this may
be found once again at:
www.inform.umd.edu/Student/Campus_Activities/StudentOrg/maqt/acf/writers.html

------
Finally, there has been an unspoken move towards
demonizing questions about specific persons and I do
understand the irritation with questions on the same people
over and over again, which are written in the Born in
(blah, blah) he moved here (blah blah) and then this
(blah, blah). But, I would counter that this is more of
a problem with style than the subject of the
question. If these people questions focused more on what
the individual did to make them famous- describing
philosophical doctrines or scientific theories or plots from
books- then by all means write some biography into the
packets, particularly if you dont really know what the
Concord Sonata sounds like and youre just copying the
description out of a reference book.

Now dont get me
wrong, I encourage and would like all of the answers to
questions to be works, historical events, or contributions
to a given field, but if they are not substantive it
defeats the purpose. In other words I dont believe
biographical information is necessarily anathema to
determining who has the most knowledge about a given
subject.

As always if you have any questions feel free to
contact me at
eberdich_at_....

Thanks,

Ezequiel Berdichevsky
Head Editor, ACF Regionals 2002