The Individual Event Ballot: Pedagogical Tool or Narcissistic Soapbox?

Before developing some standards for evaluating/judging individual events, it is necessary to understand what exactly a ballot should do, and to look at some of the problems surrounding present standards and why new standards are in order. This paper will focus upon the pedagogical aspect of judging by first, examining the educational aspect of forensics; second, exploring the useless ballot issue and attempting to identify some causes of the problem; and finally, presenting some possible solutions and guidelines which might aid in correcting this concern. Hopefully, discussion will be generated from this paper and panel which will result in promoting our discipline as a whole. This paper attempts to merely be the catalyst for that discussion as the author is confident that many of his ballots have received some colorful metaphors as well