Writing a packet

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tiwonge
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Writing a packet

Post by tiwonge »

There was a thread earlier about writing questions, and some of the responses there were helpful, but I'm trying to go one step further.

Twice, this semester (ACF Fall, and just now for ACF Winter), I've tried to get my team to write a packet for ACF. (Fortunately, we haven't been playing long enough to require us to submit a packet, because both times failed.)

For the first, I convened a question-writing seminar, but just 2 people showed up. In the 2 or 3 hours we were there, they each just got one question done. (We're all inexperienced in this, including me. And I find this is about how long it takes me to write something I don't know much about.) In the 2 weeks prior to the deadline I had assigned (I know now that 2 weeks isn't nearly long enough, but then I had thought that it might be, thinking that everybody could write a question a day), I think I got a total of about 6 questions from 4 different people. Most disappointing was that two of my best players didn't give me anything. They either were too busy or didn't think that question-writing was important.

So, for ACF Winter, I started a bit earlier. On our trip back from TUNDER (delayed mirror here; this was the weekend before Thanksgiving), Joe and I outlined the whole packet. We broke down the packet distribution into things either one of us could write about. We had Thanksgiving break, and I had hoped that we could get some done then. Neither one of us got as much done that week as we had expected, and the following two weeks were kind of busy with the end of the semester. I finally got a good bit of writing in this week, since my only exam was on Monday, and I was able to crank out about half a packet (10 tossups and 14 bonuses) that week, and I got a small amount of contribution from two other players (3 tossups and 5 bonuses) towards the end of that week, once their exams ended. Still, if we had had to contribute a packet for this, we wouldn't have made the no-penalty deadline.

So, how do you write a packet? When/how do you start? How much help do you get? (Is my experience of one person writing most of the packet common?) How long does it take you to write a packet? (With the exception of my area of expertise (religion, math, and a fun trash, and maybe one or two others), questions were taking me hours to write because I had to research them and find enough about them to write a pyramidal question. And this was even after doing a distribution where we knew something about the topics. (Lit questions I find longest to write.) The easy answer to this is to learn more so that I can write quicker, but until then (or even after then, when I want to write about something new to me), should I expect the questions to take this long?

Also, with one exception, I didn't look at the database until after writing the questions. I didn't want to prejudice myself with what had already been written. After doing this, I found that a couple of my questions were not very well attested to in the database. With one, I don't think it's because it was too hard, but the other may have been a bit too obscure. Is there a better way of telling whether or not something is appropriate other than searching the database? I think that this may lead to the same-old-same-old questions (something we tried to avoid in selecting our distribution of answers). On the one hand, hearing stuff that you've heard in practice or in past tournaments is good because you're familiar with some of the clues. On the other hand, hearing new questions is fresh and interesting. (This is one of the things I liked so much about Delta Burke--it seemed to avoid a lot of the most-repeated questions, and gave a lot of new topics I hadn't heard as much.)

Also logistically, I set up a shared google document for our packet and shared it with contributors. (I learned this from my small participation in the Science Non-strosity last semester.) Is this the best way to do it, or is there a better way (through e-mail, or something)?

Should I encourage people to write a couple questions a week so that when we do need a packet, they've got some questions handy?

That's what motivates this question. How do you write a packet? How long does it take? (How soon should we start?) How many people are usually involved? (How can I get increased participation from others?) How should the logistics be handled?

I'll finish this packet off over break so that we've got at least one packet to submit.
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Re: Writing a packet

Post by Mike Bentley »

Writing questions quickly is something that comes with practice. If a deadline is coming up, I can usually write a packet in about a week (where I have some time after work to write maybe 1/1-2/2 per night and then the weekend to write the rest). The most I've definitely written from scratch in a day was 22/0. I have potentially written more during the last few days of tournaments I've edited, but I don't have hard counts for these. In general, I think I'm around middle of the packet in terms of experienced writers when it comes to writing speed. Some people can absolutely blast through questions when needed (e.g. Matt Weiner), while others often have difficulty completing the standard 6/6 required for a packet submission tournament. Probably the most important skill in writing is time management--set goals for yourself and follow these goals. If you can write 1/1 per day for two weeks, you should be able to make most deadlines.

I think a good place to start when writing questions is writing on things you know decently well. You're still going to need to look things up and translate a subject into a pryamidal tossup or an easy/medium/hard bonus, but the question can be written relatively quickly.

Google Docs is one of the better ways to write a packet with other people.
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Re: Writing a packet

Post by evilmonkey »

Related questions, which may indeed be reiterating some of Colin's points:

(Note: Don't assume any level of writing or playing skill for the unnamed "you" in the following questions, beyond having written questions before)

1) Do you generally edit the questions you did not write beyond formatting? If so, is it mainly touch-ups, or a whole lot of revision?

1b) Would it be a good idea sit down with each person and try to run through each person's questions after packet submission and tell them how they could be made better? (Note: Never tried this before, may do so after upcoming tournaments, if time allows)

2) A player asks you where to find information on a subject. Should I attempt to compile all the varied sources that have been listed previously here into one list of references to use? Or should I?

3) A player asks you what to write about. For example, say there is a team of four writing a packet, and nobody has ever taken a chemistry course ever. Should I throw out a random term for them to look at (assuming I am not attending that tournament)? Tell them to find a random term on some chemistry website? Direct them to the Stanford Culture Website? Or should they just scan the packet archives looking for clues?

3b) I was reading in that other thread that there is this movement away from using the packet archives to write questions nearly as much. How should newer players, or teams lacking a player with a good grasp of the canon, difficulty-check their packets? Or should they feel an obligation to do so?
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Re: Writing a packet

Post by Papa's in the House »

I'm also new to the question writing requirement (in high school I never attended Saturday tournaments due to lack of funding and last year I didn't really need to write anything as a first-year), but I tend to shoot for the -$25 deadline (and get my teammates to do the same). Usually I only have to write 6/6, but I try and start it about 2 weeks before due because I know that things will come up in that time and that I will likely get sidetracked (and keep reading more than necessary) when researching for questions. Being new, it takes me between 30-60 minutes to construct a tossup and 15-30 minutes to write a bonus part. Outlining what you want to write and breaking a packet up based on what people are good at is a good way to start a packet, IMO. Knowing what you want to write about allows you to then do the research over time (even if you can't write the question right then) and then sit down and write a bunch in one day. Breaking the packet up by what people are good at allows them to become better at those things (by learning more about them) and tends to produce better questions, IMO. As for using the ACFDB, I tend to pull it up once half or more of my question is written so that I don't go and write a whole tossup and then have to change it. So long as you can get in the rhythm of writing 1/1 or 2/2 a day, you should be pretty good for writing for tournaments in the future (which I'm guessing will be necessary next year).
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Re: Writing a packet

Post by Cheynem »

What works for me:

1. Blocking off time to write. This seems obvious, but it's pretty easy to get into a trap where you'll go "Oh, I'll write a question after class/work or before practice or whatever," and then you trash around and never get anything done. Set aside time where all you're doing is writing for quizbowl. Some people prefer to bounce ideas around. I don't unless I'm like editing a tournament with people, so a lot of times I'll just find a quiet place in the library or something. Sometimes writing sessions might help, however. Whatever works for you and your team.

2. Adopt a sort of "grip it and rip it" strategy. With no offense to Matt Bollinger, I remember a time when he kept asking question after question about how to write a certain tossup and whether or not a lead-in was good, etc. This is an admirable attitude from a hard working young man, but it can be self-destructive because you become obsessed with creating a sort of perfect tossup that no one will ever make fun of on the boards. This leads to a sort of really tentative, nervous style of writing (which usually results in many, many lead-in clues, no middle clues, and an abrupt giveaway). Have some confidence in what you write. I'm not saying write slapdash, but put in a good faith effort, write something pyramidal on something difficulty appropriate, and the editors will do their job.

3. Get the giveaway down first. The art of a good giveaway is surprisingly difficult to master. In almost all levels of quizbowl, a giveaway should make almost any team buzz provided they have some basic knowledge of the subject. So if you're writing a tossup on, say, Taft-Hartley, get an idea of what a proper giveaway is for it. Block off how many words and lines it will take you write the giveaway. When I first started writing, I'd think about all these cool lead-in clues, start running out of room, and slap on a lazy giveaway. That doesn't work.

4. This works for me, but I probably won't recommend it for everyone: I try to think of a continuum of answers. Some questions I can write very easily, almost from the top of my head. Some I don't know a lot about and will need to do some extensive research. Some I'm somewhat hazy on, but if I look back at that novel/short story again briefly, I know what I want to say. Don't write all of your questions on things you know nothing about or on things you know a lot about. Get a good balance. That way, if a time crunch happens, hey, I can breeze through this tossup on Thomas Dewey because he is my historical BFF, and that gives me more time to study up on the Abbasids.
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Re: Writing a packet

Post by Susan »

Mike Cheyne wrote:3. Get the giveaway down first. The art of a good giveaway is surprisingly difficult to master. In almost all levels of quizbowl, a giveaway should make almost any team buzz provided they have some basic knowledge of the subject. So if you're writing a tossup on, say, Taft-Hartley, get an idea of what a proper giveaway is for it. Block off how many words and lines it will take you write the giveaway. When I first started writing, I'd think about all these cool lead-in clues, start running out of room, and slap on a lazy giveaway. That doesn't work.
Plenty of good ideas in this thread, but this is especially good. When I write questions, I typically pick all of my answers, then write the giveaways for all of them, and then go back and write the rest of the question. This also helps you discard answer choices for which there isn't a particularly good giveaway.
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Re: Writing a packet

Post by cvdwightw »

Since we're going ahead and necroing this, I thought I'd throw my two cents in:
tiwonge wrote:Also, with one exception, I didn't look at the database until after writing the questions. I didn't want to prejudice myself with what had already been written. After doing this, I found that a couple of my questions were not very well attested to in the database. With one, I don't think it's because it was too hard, but the other may have been a bit too obscure. Is there a better way of telling whether or not something is appropriate other than searching the database? I think that this may lead to the same-old-same-old questions (something we tried to avoid in selecting our distribution of answers). On the one hand, hearing stuff that you've heard in practice or in past tournaments is good because you're familiar with some of the clues. On the other hand, hearing new questions is fresh and interesting. (This is one of the things I liked so much about Delta Burke--it seemed to avoid a lot of the most-repeated questions, and gave a lot of new topics I hadn't heard as much.)
I think you'll find two schools of accessibility: "write on what people will know" and "write on what's come up before, because that's what people will know." If you're writing a question on something that shows up with regularity in lower-division courses, it's probably okay even if you don't see it a lot in the archives (obviously this is relatively easy to define for science, slightly less easy for history and RMP, and pretty difficult for other topics). On the other hand, don't be afraid to write on something that shows up all the time, unless you have decent real knowledge of the topic and know that its quizbowl importance far outweighs its real-world importance.
tiwonge wrote:Also logistically, I set up a shared google document for our packet and shared it with contributors. (I learned this from my small participation in the Science Non-strosity last semester.) Is this the best way to do it, or is there a better way (through e-mail, or something)?
Google Docs is notorious for having terrible formatting issues, but it's honestly the best way to split up packet writing among several people. The primary convenience of this is that you don't have people writing on the same topic, whereas when everyone works independently you can end up with, say, a mythology tossup on Minos, a geography tossup on Crete, and a social science bonus on Arthur Evans. The other thing is that you can give and receive direct feedback during the writing process.
evilmonkey wrote:Do you generally edit the questions you did not write beyond formatting? If so, is it mainly touch-ups, or a whole lot of revision?
It honestly depends on your expectations and the expectations of the editors. For instance, people typically expect good things out of the Irvine packet, but to tell the truth any packet that's not 50+% by me has at least a few questions written by people who are either new or rusty at the whole question-writing thing. If I have time to fix stuff up before the deadline, I'll do that; otherwise I'll try to make a note to the editors saying "Questions X, Y, and Z have problems; I'm noting them here and hoping you can do something about them by the date of the tournament." I haven't actually gotten any feedback from editors on whether or not that helps, since most competent editors can immediately tell that Questions X, Y, and Z have problems (and in multiple instances I've seen questions I've marked as "problem questions" get passed through unedited!).
evilmonkey wrote:A player asks you what to write about. For example, say there is a team of four writing a packet, and nobody has ever taken a chemistry course ever. Should I throw out a random term for them to look at (assuming I am not attending that tournament)? Tell them to find a random term on some chemistry website? Direct them to the Stanford Culture Website? Or should they just scan the packet archives looking for clues?
Science is easy: find something that shows up in lower-division course notes, and write like the last half of the question using those notes as a source. Odds are that you'll have written a tossup that, while not great, needs minor polishing (some clues will be out-of-order, sometimes the leadin clues need to be replaced). From an editor's standpoint, a needs-major-work tossup that has a solid giveaway and late-middle clues (even if they're out of order or slightly factually inaccurate) is always preferable to a load of dross that needs to be replaced. For other subjects, it's not a terrible idea to find something you've seen in practice recently, say, "This comes up all the time," and have someone go look up solid academic clues for it. Again, it'll be something that needs a lot of work from the editor, but it will probably feature a bunch of good clues (even if they need to be moved around a bit) on something that's probably difficulty-appropriate, and providing the basic skeleton for a decent tossup is about all an editor can ask out of a new writer or someone with no knowledge in that subject area.
evilmonkey wrote:I was reading in that other thread that there is this movement away from using the packet archives to write questions nearly as much. How should newer players, or teams lacking a player with a good grasp of the canon, difficulty-check their packets? Or should they feel an obligation to do so?
This is a trickier issue than you think. If I understand the gist of the argument, it's that newer or lazier players solely use the archives to do their question research. This leads to a number of undesirable effects; the most important ones are a complete lack of difficulty control (including the accelerated trickle-down effect) and perpetuation of inaccurate/vague/unsourced clues (especially including "stock" clues). Using packet archives to find out things like "is this tossup answer too hard for ACF Fall," "is this clue better as an early-middle or late-middle clue," or "is this bonus part more like a middle part or a hard part" is all right, but no one should ever mine the packet archives for clues or bonus parts.
Cheynem wrote:Get the giveaway down first. The art of a good giveaway is surprisingly difficult to master. In almost all levels of quizbowl, a giveaway should make almost any team buzz provided they have some basic knowledge of the subject. So if you're writing a tossup on, say, Taft-Hartley, get an idea of what a proper giveaway is for it. Block off how many words and lines it will take you write the giveaway. When I first started writing, I'd think about all these cool lead-in clues, start running out of room, and slap on a lazy giveaway. That doesn't work.
I'm pretty sure I've suggested this before for science, but I think it probably equally applies to any subject you're not familiar with: write your questions in reverse. That is, start with your giveaway, then write the sentence before that, then the sentence before that; eventually you'll have something that resembles a pyramidal tossup, even if it's a little too easy (it's always easier to make questions harder than to make them easier).

A lot of times when I write, especially about subjects I'm less familiar with, I try to use a sandwich approach. I start with the ends - first I get an interesting lead-in sentence or two, then I write the giveaway and maybe the sentence before the FTP. If the lead-in sucks or the giveaway isn't really helpful, it's time to junk the question. Then it's time to fill the space between the two ends with yummy middle clues. The only real drawback to this approach is that sometimes you end up skimping on the middle clues, but if you find yourself regularly doing this, then just consciously limit length on the lead-ins.
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Re: Writing a packet

Post by Captain Sinico »

Cheynem wrote:2. Adopt a sort of "grip it and rip it" strategy. With no offense to Matt Bollinger, I remember a time when he kept asking question after question about how to write a certain tossup and whether or not a lead-in was good, etc. This is an admirable attitude from a hard working young man, but it can be self-destructive because you become obsessed with creating a sort of perfect tossup that no one will ever make fun of on the boards. This leads to a sort of really tentative, nervous style of writing (which usually results in many, many lead-in clues, no middle clues, and an abrupt giveaway). Have some confidence in what you write. I'm not saying write slapdash, but put in a good faith effort, write something pyramidal on something difficulty appropriate, and the editors will do their job.
I don't think this point can be overemphasized. There's a lot of art to writing questions that you'll only acquire (if you do) by actually writing. I think the modern state of the game has the balance between talking about writing and simply writing wrong.
I'd couple this advice with the following: you should find someone to whom you're willing to listen and whose judgment of questions you can trust and ask them about your questions. Some of that you'll get automatically by just submitting. Editors will do some of it, both by editing so you can they kept and what they changed and by providing direct commentary, which is usually available for the asking. The forums will do some, too, but forums criticisms are too often hyperbolic, inaccurate, or both for many people. Therefore, I've found close, personal feedback from someone a new writer trusts invaluable.
Now, I have a question for you advice-seekers. I've been thinking recently that I might go over in detail how I wrote some questions, like: "I got the idea from this question from ___. I judged it was okay because ___. I found these clues in ___. I ordered the clues this way because ___." Do you think that might be useful to your writing endeavors?

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Re: Writing a packet

Post by AKKOLADE »

Captain Sinico wrote:Now, I have a question for you advice-seekers. I've been thinking recently that I might go over in detail how I wrote some questions, like: "I got the idea from this question from ___. I judged it was okay because ___. I found these clues in ___. I ordered the clues this way because ___." Do you think that might be useful to your writing endeavors?

MaS
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Re: Writing a packet

Post by Cheynem »

Yeah, I'd love to see how different people approach the writing process.

Also, Mike, as he usually is, is absolutely correct in talking about getting someone to provide more trusted, intimate criticism. I'm a little spoiled because I play on a team filled with fine writers and editors, but the best editors/writers will volunteer their time to provide feedback.
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Re: Writing a packet

Post by Cheynem »

Wanted to bump this a second because I just remembered a quote I'll always remember when I write packets:

At my lit event at MO, Mike Sorice buzzed in on a tossup. He answered it, and then pointed out that one of the clues was really misplaced. I started to apologize and he immediately interrupted me and said "It happens."

He might not remember that, but it's always stuck with me when I write questions for packet submission stuff. It's this idea that "you can't be 100% perfect. You are going to screw up and include a bad clue or a misplaced clue somewhere in your packets. Having a separate set of eyes [editors] to help you with that is a good thing. Your job is to just get it into workable shape for them." Obviously this is different when you yourself are the editor.
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Re: Writing a packet

Post by Auroni »

I'll share my packet writing philosophy: if you are a new player, there is a temptation to write questions on subjects that you know a great deal about. Resist this urge. In fact, unless you are writing a great portion of a tournament or editing one, challenge yourself to write on things you don't know a whole lot about. These tossups do not have to be perfect: this is what editors are for. The reason that you want to write on things that you have heard of, but don't know too much about, is that it quickly makes your weaknesses into strengths.

I've gained a reputation in quizbowl for knowing a lot about Japanese literature. This was not the case when I first began playing; I didn't come in knowing a lot about it. Rather, I encountered it in packets and eventually remembered a few of the authors' names, then I wrote questions on those authors for packet submission tournaments. There, now one of those subjects that I would always dread coming up very quickly becomes a subject that I have fun answering and still learning about.

Besides that needless digression above, writing on things you are unfamiliar with has a two-fold benefit: you can answer questions on those things in the future, having gained some deep knowledge about it while scouring for clues, and you can answer questions on things more core to your knowledge that might come up in other packets at tournaments.
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Re: Writing a packet

Post by nobthehobbit »

Ice Warrior wrote:I'll share my packet writing philosophy: if you are a new player, there is a temptation to write questions on subjects that you know a great deal about. Resist this urge. In fact, unless you are writing a great portion of a tournament or editing one, challenge yourself to write on things you don't know a whole lot about. These tossups do not have to be perfect: this is what editors are for. The reason that you want to write on things that you have heard of, but don't know too much about, is that it quickly makes your weaknesses into strengths.
I almost agree with you, Auroni, except that it is worthwhile to write questions on subjects you know a great deal about: since you already know a lot about them, you're less likely to misplace clues and such, and so writing those questions can help a writer who isn't yet comfortable with the technical parts of question writing get comfortable with those. It can also help build confidence in one's ability to write questions. I personally write so infrequently that when I do write, I'll write one or two questions on stuff I know just to reassure myself that I can, in fact, still write decent questions.
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Re: Writing a packet

Post by Auroni »

nobthehobbit wrote:
Ice Warrior wrote:I'll share my packet writing philosophy: if you are a new player, there is a temptation to write questions on subjects that you know a great deal about. Resist this urge. In fact, unless you are writing a great portion of a tournament or editing one, challenge yourself to write on things you don't know a whole lot about. These tossups do not have to be perfect: this is what editors are for. The reason that you want to write on things that you have heard of, but don't know too much about, is that it quickly makes your weaknesses into strengths.
I almost agree with you, Auroni, except that it is worthwhile to write questions on subjects you know a great deal about: since you already know a lot about them, you're less likely to misplace clues and such, and so writing those questions can help a writer who isn't yet comfortable with the technical parts of question writing get comfortable with those. It can also help build confidence in one's ability to write questions. I personally write so infrequently that when I do write, I'll write one or two questions on stuff I know just to reassure myself that I can, in fact, still write decent questions.
I see where you are coming from. I guess my post was more geared toward newer players that are attempting to submit full packets to submission tournaments.
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Re: Writing a packet

Post by Cheynem »

When I wrote a large volume of lit questions for MUT, I used this strategy: I picked out a number of authors and books that I knew the giveaways for, but little else. So, for instance, Schiller's "The Robbers." I knew the basic idea, but not plot points or characters. A quick and dirty tossup on it solves that problem, and I've confidently buzzed on "The Robbers" clues twice since then. I would advise using this strategy (where you're pretty sure of the giveaway at least) rather than picking something you truly have no idea what it is. It's always good, of course, then to run such questions past experienced editors, which for the most part I did.
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Re: Writing a packet

Post by Down and out in Quintana Roo »

I think this is a totally separate discussion, but i'm going to throw it in here just to see what anybody says.

What do you do to encourage high school players to write questions? In high school, there aren't any packet-submission tournaments, so many of them don't see a point in doing it. We're not going to be hosting any house-written tournaments anytime soon, but yet i know how important writing questions can be... and all the teams better than us (there are quite a few) write questions all the time and get tons of knowledge by that.

What can i say to encourage high school players to write questions when many of them don't see why they should? I can't make it a threat (i.e. "you can't play next year unless you write a good packet"), or can i? Only Trey on CR has really ever written any questions, and it was not many. I just think i'm at an impasse when it comes to the dedication of my younger players (i'm losing 3 dedicated and 5 partially-dedicated seniors) and they're not going to do this sort of work unless it's for an actual (read: tangible) reward.
Mr. Andrew Chrzanowski
Caesar Rodney High School
Camden, Delaware
CRHS '97-'01
University of Delaware '01-'05
CRHS quizbowl coach '06-'12
http://crquizbowl.edublogs.org
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dtaylor4
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Re: Writing a packet

Post by dtaylor4 »

Carangoides ciliarius wrote:I think this is a totally separate discussion, but i'm going to throw it in here just to see what anybody says.

What do you do to encourage high school players to write questions? In high school, there aren't any packet-submission tournaments, so many of them don't see a point in doing it. We're not going to be hosting any house-written tournaments anytime soon, but yet i know how important writing questions can be... and all the teams better than us (there are quite a few) write questions all the time and get tons of knowledge by that.

What can i say to encourage high school players to write questions when many of them don't see why they should? I can't make it a threat (i.e. "you can't play next year unless you write a good packet"), or can i? Only Trey on CR has really ever written any questions, and it was not many. I just think i'm at an impasse when it comes to the dedication of my younger players (i'm losing 3 dedicated and 5 partially-dedicated seniors) and they're not going to do this sort of work unless it's for an actual (read: tangible) reward.
Take them to packet-submission tournaments. Freelance questions for housewrites elsewhere and see if you can mirror them in exchange.
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Re: Writing a packet

Post by tiwonge »

I don't know how your high school practices work, but could you have a mini-competition (intramural, between teams in school) on student-written packets? Maybe once a week or so have a 5 question mini-packet (one question from each of the big 3, one at your discretion from minor distributions, and maybe one student choice) and have the writing team read it for the other teams. A mini-packet of 5 questions for a 4 player team shouldn't be that hard to write. And if it's not ambitious enough, you could increase the size of the mini-packet. It's possible that reading them in practice gets good quick feedback on the questions and encourages students.
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Re: Writing a packet

Post by dxdtdemon »

Maybe collaborate with other high schools that could also write a few packets for a tournament and just have it mirrored at each of the packet-writing sites.
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Re: Writing a packet

Post by Susan »

Carangoides ciliarius wrote:I think this is a totally separate discussion, but i'm going to throw it in here just to see what anybody says.

What do you do to encourage high school players to write questions? In high school, there aren't any packet-submission tournaments, so many of them don't see a point in doing it. We're not going to be hosting any house-written tournaments anytime soon, but yet i know how important writing questions can be... and all the teams better than us (there are quite a few) write questions all the time and get tons of knowledge by that.

What can i say to encourage high school players to write questions when many of them don't see why they should? I can't make it a threat (i.e. "you can't play next year unless you write a good packet"), or can i? Only Trey on CR has really ever written any questions, and it was not many. I just think i'm at an impasse when it comes to the dedication of my younger players (i'm losing 3 dedicated and 5 partially-dedicated seniors) and they're not going to do this sort of work unless it's for an actual (read: tangible) reward.
They could always submit the questions to NAQT if the questions are SCT- or ICT-level (or submit them and have them sit around for a year or two if they're IS-level, I guess). Is filthy lucre enough of an inducement?
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nobthehobbit
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Re: Writing a packet

Post by nobthehobbit »

myamphigory wrote:
Carangoides ciliarius wrote:I think this is a totally separate discussion, but i'm going to throw it in here just to see what anybody says.

What do you do to encourage high school players to write questions? In high school, there aren't any packet-submission tournaments, so many of them don't see a point in doing it. We're not going to be hosting any house-written tournaments anytime soon, but yet i know how important writing questions can be... and all the teams better than us (there are quite a few) write questions all the time and get tons of knowledge by that.

What can i say to encourage high school players to write questions when many of them don't see why they should? I can't make it a threat (i.e. "you can't play next year unless you write a good packet"), or can i? Only Trey on CR has really ever written any questions, and it was not many. I just think i'm at an impasse when it comes to the dedication of my younger players (i'm losing 3 dedicated and 5 partially-dedicated seniors) and they're not going to do this sort of work unless it's for an actual (read: tangible) reward.
They could always submit the questions to NAQT if the questions are SCT- or ICT-level (or submit them and have them sit around for a year or two if they're IS-level, I guess). Is filthy lucre enough of an inducement?
Or, if they're ACF Fall-level and meet the distribution, compile them into a packet and get large discounts there--plus a tournament.
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Re: Writing a packet

Post by tiwonge »

I'd guess that for most high school programs, the school, not the students, pays for the cost of the tournament. In such a case, it's possible that the high school students might not be motivated by the discount to ACF Fall.

Unless the coach says something like "If we get that ACF Fall discount, we can use the money to buy lunch."
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Down and out in Quintana Roo
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Re: Writing a packet

Post by Down and out in Quintana Roo »

tiwonge wrote:I'd guess that for most high school programs, the school, not the students, pays for the cost of the tournament. In such a case, it's possible that the high school students might not be motivated by the discount to ACF Fall.

Unless the coach says something like "If we get that ACF Fall discount, we can use the money to buy lunch."
Our school doesn't pay anything. I made the kids pay about $10 each and i always pay whatever else. Don't get me started on buses when we take them (+$300).

But, yeah, that's a decent idea.
Mr. Andrew Chrzanowski
Caesar Rodney High School
Camden, Delaware
CRHS '97-'01
University of Delaware '01-'05
CRHS quizbowl coach '06-'12
http://crquizbowl.edublogs.org
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nobthehobbit
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Re: Writing a packet

Post by nobthehobbit »

Carangoides ciliarius wrote:
tiwonge wrote:I'd guess that for most high school programs, the school, not the students, pays for the cost of the tournament. In such a case, it's possible that the high school students might not be motivated by the discount to ACF Fall.

Unless the coach says something like "If we get that ACF Fall discount, we can use the money to buy lunch."
Our school doesn't pay anything. I made the kids pay about $10 each and i always pay whatever else. Don't get me started on buses when we take them (+$300).

But, yeah, that's a decent idea.
So, the ACF Fall incentives could be, for instance (if they write questions now or over the summer, maybe?):

1. Only $20 entry fee (or less). You could tell them that they could play a tournament for free if you're willing to pay $20. I know almost nothing about DC-area geography, but I'd imagine there should be a site quite close by.

2. Practice at writing questions, which has been proven to make players better.

3. Another good tournament played, also proven to make players better.
Daniel Pareja, Waterloo, Canadian quizbowl iconoclast

Stats zombie.
William Lyon Mackenzie King wrote:There are few men in this Parliament for whom I have greater respect than the leader of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation. I admire him in my heart, because time and again he has had the courage to say what lays on his conscience, regardless of what the world might think of him. A man of that calibre is an ornament to any Parliament.
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