[eDebate] The Harrison '06 Court = Politics Link Card

[Sherry Hall]

Please post this email to edebate on my behalf.

Dear Debate Community:

It has come to my attention that teams are reading "evidence" from a debate 
blog that I ran last year when the high school topic was a legal one.  I 
started the blog because, in judging debates on the topic, I was frustrated 
by what I saw as misunderstandings of the legal system by many in the debate 
community.  I also was frustrated by a lack of creativity in devising 
arguments as a result of a lack of broad legal knowledge.  I intended the 
blog both to educate and to generate new ideas for argumentation.  I did NOT 
intend the blog to be used as evidence, especially not in college debates 
where I figured the community would recognize that none of my posts were 
peer-reviewed (or reviewed by anyone at all), none of my posts were backed 
up by specific research, and none of my posts would ever qualify as "legal 
scholarship."  In fact, I am merely giving people ideas for arguments and I 
do not necessarily advocate any of the ideas as my own - I consider evidence 
to be taken out of context if it says, "debaters should argue that bush 
would get credit" and folks read only the part suggesting "bush would get 
credit," thereby attributing that idea to me.

When I found out that people were reading "Harrison 06" evidence from the 
blog as link cards on the court politics argument, I made an effort to end 
this.  Whenever anyone read this evidence in front of me, I asked that they 
not do so in the future.  I also posted something on the blog that I 
intended as a disclaimer for people not to read "evidence" from the blog.

I have been traveling internationally for several months and, upon my 
return, I found out that people have continued to read this evidence in 
debate rounds.  Accordingly, I am now sending this to edebate in the hope 
that the community will recognize definitively that I do not want blog posts 
from my debate education blog to be read as "evidence" in rounds.

Please do not read evidence from my debate education blog in rounds.  I 
consider it to be taken out of context.  I hope that if people do read this 
evidence in rounds that judges will penalize those teams for reading 
evidence that the author considers out of context.

Thanks,
Lindsay

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