Rubaie,+Brian

Debate Coach @ University of Iowa, Greenhill

I consider it an honor to judge every debate I judge, and I treat each one like my last. Immediately below is the one minute/pre-round version. Below that is set of 10 kinda rough things to help guide judge prefs/pre-tournament version.

**PRE-ROUND**

__What my judging is__: an honest assessment of who did the better job winning their argument, no matter the argument.

__What my judging is no__t: a statement noting the superior argument or team. I'll say which argument I liked better in the //RFD//, the best debaters will get the best //speaker points//, but the //ballot// signifies one thing: the winner of that one particular debate. I never ask "who is supposed to win this debate?" Never cared, never will. Not saying I'm an amazing judge, but I've never once repped and never will.

__The debates I judge__: I judge mostly framework. That's cool with me; I like thinking about what debate should be. While this appears to be my fate, I will judge any kind of debate with equal vigor. I judge what I am told to judge and how I am told to judge it. If you're looking for someone who digs your argument and can fill in the gaps for you, I'm not that dude.

__What I used to judge when I judged actively in 2013__: I tended to be one of the only judges who "fit" in a lot of debates, i.e. MSU v Loyola, Towson v Georgetown, etc. I'm not positive what folks said about me, but the common read was likely "he'll vote for anything, he votes for framework one round and against it the next." Neg teams sometimes chose to read a K instead of going for framework because they thought they had a better chance to prevail technically. If that was the common read, it was about right.

__What changed since I left active judging in 2013__: not much. Less hair, more deliberation in decisions, still down for whatever. Never cared about the "precedent" of my ballot, still don't. Don't get it twisted: I am //very// active re; what debate can/should be, and I have some very strongly held opinions about current practices. I handle my politics outside of judging with the people I need to speak to.

__What you should read__: whatever you do best. I am a big fan of "second level" debate, i.e. how well can you defeat the 1nc/2ac first level of response? Probably not worth breaking your new stuff in front of me if you haven't practice the 2ac/2nc stuff before the debate or you're a prophet; I'm much better for the old stuff that you know well.

Things I often say after the debate:


 * "you needed more direct comparisons,"
 * "you're good on your arg, but you aren't really answering their's,"
 * "you should've answered a major argument that was repeated more than once directly,"
 * "you needed to slow down/frame (x)," and
 * "the 2nr/2ar was trying to do too much, a more focused/simple one could've won the debate."

**PRE-TOURNAMENT**

1. **I enjoy judging most every debate**, and I'll be honored to judge whatever debate I am invited to. I determine the winner more often by depth of explanation and strength of execution than by quality of evidence. Evidence quality is very important, but I won't say a lot of words in my decision that weren't said in a debate.

2. **My goal** is to help students learn to listen, think, and analyze information on a variety of different content areas. Listen carefully to your opponent and respond in some way that I can clearly follow. Everything else is secondary.

3. **Whatever works best for you**. I tend to judge a lot of debates between teams with very different approaches and that's just fine with me. There are more thoughts on framework in numbers 9 and 10 below.

4. **Things I'm good and bad at**. A decade of judging has taught me that I'm good at some things and not so good at others. I work really hard to make sure the better angels prevail, but I want to be fully honest.

Good at: paying attention to detail, listening, flowing. Anything within my control (i.e. my full undivided attention) is something you can always count on, no matter what division it is, what arguments are being run, or the records or argument choices of the competitors. I will always give it 100% and I am always rooting for each team to do their best.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Not so good at: knowledge/vocab related re; many Euro K authors, some deeper K innovations from 2014-2017. I am perhaps likely to receive the "I can't believe he voted on (x) when we had three great cards!" line of criticism. I tend to elevate analysis above evidence at a higher rate than many other judges that I hold in high respect.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">5. **Less is more**. A smaller 1NC strategy with a lot of emphasis on the case (regardless of what the "case" is) is almost always better than 6-7 off. A 2AC with 5-6 good answers > 10 decent ones.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">6. **CX matters**. Prep a couple important CX questions before the debate. It matters even more in content areas I consider myself less familiar with (Baudrillard, Bataille, etc.) You'll be rewarded.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">7. **Stuff I'm possibly better for than most**: structural Ks, a "defense" oriented strategy, topic DA/lots of case, new-ish 1ar spin, an unconventional T interp with good ev, Ks without alts and fringe competition theory for CPs (opportunity cost, positional competition, competition by comparison, etc.)

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">8. **Things I'm maybe worse for than most**:


 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">floating PICs -- probably good for the PIC part and bad for the floating part. Do you, but early depth is better than late-developing whatever.
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">offense/defense -- can be very useful in some debates, but I think it's overrated in many others
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">"no plan=no perm" -- the aff can say there isn't a link, the neg can win links to prove them wrong
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">"dropped" blips -- well-developed conceded arg likely = W but I don't care about blips

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">**9. Teams going for T/framework:**

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">**(a) Re; politics: engage the 1ac throughout the debate**, including the 2nr. It's much more difficult to win if you spot the aff's impact and solvency mechanism. You could win examples of how the state/law are good, but still lose because the aff wins that whatever they do is pretty effective, too.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Long rant about engaging the case: If the Aff's role of the ballot is something like "vote for whoever produces a structural analysis that best performatively/methodologically addresses (x)," you should try to argue that that their structural analysis of (x) is somehow flawed. This can be done analytically, even in the absence of preparation or evidence. Use the same skills you use in other debates; you'd rarely give a 2ar without saying 'the alt doesn't solve' -- why not give 2nrs that go for 'the aff isn't the best at resolving the issue they've identified?'

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">It's not offensive to engage the 1ac. It's much worse to ignore it or posit that it can only be a totally uncontestable truth claim. Make solvency args! Saying "you don't fully/accurately assess (x)" doesn't dispute the importance of the 1ac or its ethical value, it disputes its efficacy. This is just like saying "the alt doesn't solve."

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Keep it mind that "solve" can mean something different in many of these debates. If the goal of the aff is to produce an analysis, but not a law or vision of politics, winning that this analysis is flawed could arguably be offense. It wouldn't require you to win the aff makes things worse or is bad, just that it doesn't achieve whatever stated good.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Give specific examples to help me think through the benefits of various modes of argumentative norms, scholarship, politics. What is the topical version of THEIR aff, why is the law necessary for achieving justice, how does learning bureaucracy aid in achieving outcomes that advance in achieving meaningful measures of racial justice, etc.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">(**b) Re; theory**: the arguments made by folks I coach who have read framework has usually veered more towards ground than limits. I try not to let this influence the way I evaluate your arguments, and my thinking on this is open to contest. That being said, I feel like this is a somewhat unusual view, and would like to clarify the answer to two things;

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">-- Why the love for ground? I think it's important for the aff to defend a contestable, stable thing, even though I have often voted that thing doesn't have to be the USFG. Voting aff in those debates, however, doesn't mean that it's hard to persuade me that the neg should have some stuff to say, and that stuff should be desirable and predictable. I think the questions of 'what should the neg be able to say?/'what should the aff be required to include?' are sometimes easier to answer than 'what should the aff not be able to say?'/'what should we try to exclude?'

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">-- Why is that different than limits or a traditional fairness claim? Arguments about ground and negative preparation seem to provide a compelling reason to ensure that there is a floor, i.e. a basic expectation of what you should research and be able to read if you are neg.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">It seems much harder to win that there should be a ceiling that exclude affs designed to address patterns of oppression, and it also sometimes creates a basic tension with the efficacy of the topical version of the aff, i.e. a predictable limits claim could also exclude a TVA to ban prisons.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">-- That being said, the utility (and difficulty of winning) of limits seems to vary dramatically based on the aff. While it might be tougher to win 'debate should only be the USFG' in debates regarding structural oppression by the USFG, i.e. debates about anti-blackness, settler colonialism, etc. it might be easier to win in debates about, say, Bataille or Baudrillard.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">**10. Teams answering T/framework**:

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">(a) What question does the debate answer? Many teams have gotten very good at saying what they're not--i.e. winning on Ks of framework--and I sometimes vote aff on these questions alone. However, I am still very interested in what the 1ac is, what your vision of debate is, etc.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Whether you should be required to produce a vision of debate is open to contest, but I do often find it helpful if you are able to demonstrate that the Neg has some meaningful role in the debate. I am very open minded about what debate can be, and I have voted to affirm that thousands of different ways of doing debate have value. This is a long way of saying that having some defense to ground/theory etc. is very helpful, even if (and perhaps especially if) you're way ahead on your view of the political or what questions debate should answer.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">(b) I've found the language of impact turning to be helpful, i.e. "we are an impact turn to democratic deliberation and building stronger civil society networks." Sometimes there are things a topical version can't possible resolve (i.e. the parts of your offense that are a direct criticism of whatever the Neg says must be included, like institutions, the state, etc.) This is sometimes the simplest way to frame debates for me.