Past Tournaments as the "Basis" of Quizbowl Knowledge

Old college threads.
User avatar
No Rules Westbrook
Auron
Posts: 1238
Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2004 1:04 pm

Re: Past Tournaments as the "Basis" of Quizbowl Knowledge

Post by No Rules Westbrook »

A couple really quick things.

As I've said many times, I don't think the canon has much applicability to novice players - and it shouldn't, they by definition haven't studied old packets. So, you obviously have to rely more heavily on other indicators where your primary audience is novice players. That isn't to say, in agreement with Bruce, that the canon doesn't help novice players seeking to be good - cause it surely does.

Secondly, I do look at course notes when writing science questions - it's one of the primary things I do look at, provided that I can understand the notes. It's not going to produce wonderful questions...because, well, I often can't understand the notes...and, when push comes to shove, I'd rather drop a clue that seems cut-and-dry and concrete (has a dynamic version called the Autler-Townes Effect!) that I found in a source somewhere than try to babble on about conceptual ideas and derivations and experiments that I don't really understand. I don't want to bog this discussion down in science writing, it's clearly its own beast and been talked about ad nauseum - and I'd never claim to be able to do it better than people who have legit knowledge of biology, physics, math, astro, or comp sci (though I'd suggest to my credit - that I don't think I do it worse than anyone without legit real knowledge in those subjects).

I'm glad that I answered Brendan's question, because I wanted to dispel the notion that writing according to my scheme means you basically go look at a bunch of old packets and copy stuff. I have no problem with people looking at old packets in some contexts - but as for myself, when I write on things, it's almost always cold start-from-the-beginning "find a reliable source and start writing down clues about this thing that I don't know much about (cause I hate writing on things that I know a lot about)" Now, when I start analyzing the difficulty of those clues, I do it in light of my past experience with old packets and games - but that's a different thing.


Darn it - one quick other thing. Contrary to what people might think, writing with a knowledge of the canon can actually help you to come up with and propagate underexposed and new important topics that haven't yet been written on. Often, I'll hear some player go "Wow, a tossup on Thing X, that's really cool!" and I'll blandly respond "eh, it's been done before." Familiarity with the canon helps you realize and locate that "next important thing" to write on (notice I said "next important thing" not just next thing - another short story by Oe might be a possible next thing, but not the next important thing - so obviously, when you evaluate a new answer choice, you have to evaluate it in terms of its importance in whatever field you're talking about, etc.).
Ryan Westbrook, no affiliation whatsoever.

I am pure energy...and as ancient as the cosmos. Feeble creatures, GO!

Left here since birth...forgotten in the river of time...I've had an eternity to...ponder the meaning of things...and now I have an answer!
User avatar
setht
Auron
Posts: 1205
Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2004 2:41 pm
Location: Columbus, Ohio

Re: Past Tournaments as the "Basis" of Quizbowl Knowledge

Post by setht »

No Rules Westbrook wrote:I do look at course notes when writing science questions - it's one of the primary things I do look at, provided that I can understand the notes. It's not going to produce wonderful questions...because, well, I often can't understand the notes...and, when push comes to shove, I'd rather drop a clue that seems cut-and-dry and concrete (has a dynamic version called the Autler-Townes Effect!) that I found in a source somewhere than try to babble on about conceptual ideas and derivations and experiments that I don't really understand. I don't want to bog this discussion down in science writing, it's clearly its own beast and been talked about ad nauseum - and I'd never claim to be able to do it better than people who have legit knowledge of biology, physics, math, astro, or comp sci (though I'd suggest to my credit - that I don't think I do it worse than anyone without legit real knowledge in those subjects).
I guess I've been unclear--I don't think writers have to look at notes and write questions only from the material they find there. I'm suggesting that looking through course notes may give a good feel for which answers and which clues people learn about in science courses. I think this is likely to work better than consulting old packets, recent papers, or textbooks online in trying to pick some answers and some clues associated with those answers. If a writer finds some non-course note source that's easier to understand I think it's fine to make use of that source in writing out clues based on what the writer found by looking through course notes. For example: if a writer looks at some course notes for fluid mechanics courses at different levels, it should be clear that "circulation" is a better topic for a tossup than "the Orr-Sommerfeld equation" despite the latter being doubly-eponymous. It should also be clear that Kelvin's theorem and the Kutta-Zhukowsky theorem are good clues to use in a circulation tossup. Once the tossup answer and some clues have been picked out, I think it'll generally work out fine if the writer goes somewhere else for material to use in describing Kelvin's theorem and the Kutta-Zhukowsky theorem. The problem is when people don't make some attempt to check that that Autler-Townes effect is something that commonly shows up in courses (hint: it isn't).
No Rules Westbrook wrote:when I write on things, it's almost always cold start-from-the-beginning "find a reliable source and start writing down clues about this thing that I don't know much about (cause I hate writing on things that I know a lot about)" Now, when I start analyzing the difficulty of those clues, I do it in light of my past experience with old packets and games - but that's a different thing.
I'm suggesting that while an online textbook or peer-reviewed article is very reliable in the sense that it won't be full of false information, it also won't necessarily have any connection with what people learn outside of playing quizbowl, so it won't be at all reliable in finding answers and clues that help knowledgeable players demonstrate knowledge. Consulting past experience can help a bit, but it might not help someone like Ryan filter out stuff like Autler-Townes, which has shown up in plenty of packets and has probably generated plenty of buzzes that look good to an outside observer. I would wager that the number of quizbowl players that can say anything intelligent or useful about the Autler-Townes effect beyond "dynamic (or AC or whatever) version of the Stark effect" can be counted on zero to one hands.
No Rules Westbrook wrote:Darn it - one quick other thing. Contrary to what people might think, writing with a knowledge of the canon can actually help you to come up with and propagate underexposed and new important topics that haven't yet been written on. Often, I'll hear some player go "Wow, a tossup on Thing X, that's really cool!" and I'll blandly respond "eh, it's been done before." Familiarity with the canon helps you realize and locate that "next important thing" to write on (notice I said "next important thing" not just next thing - another short story by Oe might be a possible next thing, but not the next important thing - so obviously, when you evaluate a new answer choice, you have to evaluate it in terms of its importance in whatever field you're talking about, etc.).
I agree--canon knowledge (or rather, paying attention to what's come up in the last several tournaments) can help with negative filtering of possible tossup answers, as Andrew mentioned in the original post. Coming up with a good new answer (or bringing a good answer out of retirement) requires some judgment and super-canonical knowledge on the part of the writer/editor.

-Seth
Seth Teitler
Formerly UC Berkeley and U. Chicago
President of NAQT
Emeritus member of ACF
Sargon
Lulu
Posts: 26
Joined: Sun Jan 25, 2009 1:55 am

Re: Past Tournaments as the "Basis" of Quizbowl Knowledge

Post by Sargon »

First, I should point out my favorite example of canon self-propagation, the Bogomils, a Bulgarian heretical group that at least one Orthodox Priest I knew had trouble coming up with, but which inexplicably came up several times in quizbowl. Central African empires are another such example; while one or two questions on them a year would be fine, the current level of 1-2 a tournament is excessive.

I think a deeper problem though is the tendency to cluster around answers, even if the answer itself is legitimate. Since everybody knows Sibelius (and justly because he rules), he gets asked about a decent amount. But then we move from Sibelius to questions on particular works of Sibelius and end up asking a tossup on his Kullervo symphony, which while good, would probably not lie in his top 10 most famous or important works. Other composers who may not be as important Sibelius, but probably are more important than some of his minor works are crowded out. I am curious if this might be solved by cutting back on work X questions in favor of author X or composer Y questions (which can be written while avoiding the biographical excesses of the days of yore). This still does reward legitimate knowledge since my experience (in Latin literature which I studied as an undergrad) is that you pick up a lot about minor authors and the gist of their works in legitimate studies, which until they become quizbowl famous, no one else would even think to memorize. The downside of this is that it makes acquiring knowledge from the game harder, since if a answer comes up once or twice a season, if you didn't know it to start with, you probably won't remember it (whereas if it comes up every tournament, or in the case of Oda Nobunaga at Penn bowl a few years back, several times in the same tournament, people are likely to remember it). Also in my experience a tossup on novel I haven' heard of by an author I have is much less tedious than one on an author I wasn't aware existed. However, the plus side is that this makes rapid canon expansion unnecessary , which is not a bad idea if we want quizbowl, especially at the lower levels, to be accessible to new people. It also limits self propagation since there is a much lower tolerance even among bad questions writers for tossups on the same answer coming up frequently than tossups only relating to the same answer.
Paul Gauthier, Quizbowl crackpot
Vanderbilt 2004-8
U Chicago 2008-
Locked