To each his own area of expertise

Scott Francis <*scottmfran_at_gloomstick.yahoo.invalid*> · Sun, 13 Apr 2003 02:21:17 -0000

I'd like to propose what I see as a remedy to the problem of poor 
question writing that has figured prominently in recent posts.  This 
remedy is geared more toward packet-submission tournaments than 
toward NAQT, but I hope that it will still prove helpful.

Now, I know jack squat about math and john squat about science.  I 
couldn't tell you the first thing about set theory, let alone 
differentiate between hard clues and giveaways on it.  So, as I see 
it, if there's no way that I could get a tossup on something 
(without using fraud), there's no way that I should ever write a 
question on it, because I'll probably end up putting easy clues at 
the beginning, or, even worse, including misinformation.  Simply 
put, I'm of the opinion that in many cases, bad questions are 
written by people who have little or no knowledge of the topic at 
hand.

To remedy this problem, I would propose that, ideally, players 
should write questions within their area of expertise.  For example, 
a math major, especially an experienced one, will be that much more 
likely to write a good tossup on a math-related concept.  Of course, 
I'm not saying that everyone who writes tossups on their area of 
expertise will write good tossups on that area all the time.  I'm 
just saying that a math major is much more likely to write a good 
tossup on math than is a non-math major.  Also, I wouldn't 
necessarily equate major disciplines with expertise; one can 
certainly know something outside of his courses of study.  
Basically, people should write on things of which they have real 
knowledge.

Also, as an inexperienced player, I'm not nearly as aware of which 
lead-ins would be picked up by good teams (as many of the questions 
in Cornell's Penn Bowl packet can attest to), even if I write on 
things I know about.  I think that experienced players will likely 
write better questions than will inexperienced players.  However, 
there is no better way to improve one's question writing than 
experience, so young players should definitely write as much as they 
can, ideally with the encouragement and assistance of older players.

Nevertheless, I'm well aware that having enough players to implement 
my proposed solution is a luxury that few programs, if any, truly 
have.  Jason Keller and I, for example, write nearly all of 
Cornell's packets.  So, I can definitely understand a player being 
obligated to write on unfamiliar topics.  It's unpleasant for the 
question writer, and even more unpleasant for those playing on the 
packet.  

So, I'll conclude by imploring all players to actively contribute to 
their teams' packets so as to ease the burden of the team 
workhorses.  As for addressing this problem in NAQT, I'm not quite 
as sure, but I would guess that the more employees, the better.  As 
such, I applaud Zeke for deciding to contribute to NAQT.

Hoping to have helped,
Scott Francis    