This thread is for discussing the article Investigations - The Search for Collateral Truths by Eric Shukan.

Very solid article, I'm looking forward to Part 2 and 3 of the series.

This is one of my new favorite articles I have read. Parts 2 and 3 are highly anticipated.

What a great article!

Example #2 brings up a key scenario for me: judges often go to extreme
lengths to try and check these Collateral truths. The key thing I look at
is that proving the more collateral truths doesn't get you a lot. It just
gets you more evidence to support an already strengthened hypothesis. If
you have already verified three collateral truths and the fourth one will
take you five minutes to do, is it worth it?

Kevin

Kevin makes a good point - we often spend a lot more time than necessary, probably because we want to be Absolutely Certain for something as severe as a DQ.

That's an admirable objective, but keep in mind, most DQs involve far less certainty than “Absolute”; there's usually only one person who really has that certainty, and that person is the one who doesn't want to be DQd.

So, as Eric said in his article - identify the things you need to confirm or correct, and do so efficiently.

d:^D

Hi, all. Part 2 will be out within a day or so.

And part 3, not coincidentally, deals entirely with how to decide when to stop an investigation. That one is scheduled out within a week :)

-Eric S.
—– Original Message —–
From: Scott Marshall
To: eshukan@verizon.net
Sent: Tuesday, December 30, 2014 12:08 PM
Subject: Re: Investigations - The Search for Collateral Truths (Article Discussion)


Kevin makes a good point - we often spend a lot more time than necessary, probably because we want to be Absolutely Certain for something as severe as a DQ.

That's an admirable objective, but keep in mind, most DQs involve far less certainty than “Absolute”; there's usually only one person who really has that certainty, and that person is the one who doesn't want to be DQd.

So, as Eric said in his article - identify the things you need to confirm or correct, and do so efficiently.

d:^D

—————————
If you want to respond to this thread, simply reply to this email. Or view and respond to this message on the web at http://apps.magicjudges.org/forum/post/96852/

Disable all notifications for this topic: http://apps.magicjudges.org/forum/noemail/15067/
Receive on-site notifications only for this topic: http://apps.magicjudges.org/forum/noemail/15067/?onsite=yes

You can change your email notification settings at http://apps.magicjudges.org/notifications/settings/

I must echo the praise for this article already shared by my colleagues above. And, yes, I too quite look forward to Parts 2 and 3.

Much of this discussion so far reminds me of an entire course I had in Diagnostics in Psychology. If Parts 2 and 3 are remotely as clear and concise as Part 1, I may steal the series for my students to read.

Congratulations on being voted the best Judge Article of the Year 2014!

Christian

Thanks, Christian
—– Original Message —–
From: Christian Gawrilowicz
To: eshukan@verizon.net
Sent: Monday, March 02, 2015 5:03 AM
Subject: Re: Investigations - The Search for Collateral Truths (Article Discussion)


Congratulations on being voted the best Judge Article of the Year 2014!

Christian

—————————
If you want to respond to this thread, simply reply to this email. Or view and respond to this message on the web at http://apps.magicjudges.org/forum/post/106443/

Disable all notifications for this topic: http://apps.magicjudges.org/forum/noemail/15067/
Receive on-site notifications only for this topic: http://apps.magicjudges.org/forum/noemail/15067/?onsite=yes

You can change your email notification settings at http://apps.magicjudges.org/notifications/settings/

My sincere thanks to all.

It was quite an experience for me to write that series - the culmination of a couple of years of experiences, at least. I knew we had articles about “investigations”, but there wasn't much stuff about how to think about CREATING the actual line of questioning. I figured I'd go for it, and in the process it dawned on me that there were 3 separate ideas, and so I needed a 3-part series.

And in the process I could use my own experiences and cases from teh Investigations Committee. So I had REAL data to present.

I'd like to acknowledge the efforts of Alejandro Raggio and Jared Sylva - they helped shaped my thoughts in some areas and did some editing. I'd also like to acknowledge the efforts of the team that posted it onto the appropriate sites and all the people who helped edit the article for that posting. My memory here is poor, but I think that was Evan Cherry, at least.

Anyway, I hope everyone finds it useful and entertaining, and my thanks again.

Eric Shukan