Woodhouse,+Scott

Scott Woodhouse Lincoln-Douglas Judging Philosophy

__Background__: I am currently in my seventh year as an assistant debate coach at Chesterton High School in Indiana. This is my fourteenth year coaching and judging Lincoln-Douglas overall. I competed for Bettendorf High School in Iowa, competing at the Tournament of Champions twice. In addition to my experience with Lincoln-Douglas debate, I have a bachelor’s degree and three years of graduate school experience in philosophy.

Generally speaking, the Indiana debate circuit continues to stress the importance of persuasive communication in addition to analysis and argumentation. I am basically familiar with the stylistic differences between this local circuit and the T.O.C. circuit, but I will not be as familiar or comfortable with the jargon, theory or speed as judges that travel the national circuit more frequently.

__General Considerations__ __Decision__: Whenever possible, I prefer to vote on the resolution, and whether the arguments presented by both debaters would make me more likely to accept the resolution as true or false. Given the time constraints of an LD round, this is made much easier by providing a clear justification for the standards I should apply to test the resolution, and then presenting clear argumentation that links to those standards. I will not vote for something simply because it has been dropped, nor do I typically vote based upon allegations of in-round abuse.

__Jargon__: As I mentioned above, I will not be instantly familiar with current trends in debate jargon, so you will be well-advised to take the time to explain things with a little more care than you may be used to. But even when using terms I //do// know, I would much rather hear you explain concepts and theory in a more common-sense way – imagine that you are presenting the argument to an interested and generally intelligent audience who does not have substantial training in debate. (Expanding jargon to a more substantive description about what’s right or wrong about an argument really //feels// like intervention to me.)

__Speed__: I do not like speed. I’ve seen it before, and may be able to keep up on the flow, but I think speed tends to present an unnecessary obstacle to genuinely understanding and evaluating the positions developed by both debaters. I prefer debate to be more than a test of a debater’s prior familiarity with an argument or ability to anticipate and block it out. If I believe that speed has prevented an opponent from understanding an argument sufficiently to have a chance at developing a response to it, then I am likely to assign that argument less weight than a position that both debaters //have// had a chance to converse about and contest. If you’ve read an argument too fast for me to flow or understand the first time through, you’re unlikely to convince me to give it the weight of a dropped argument in subsequent speeches.

__Speaker Points__: I believe my speaker points should help to differentiate between the debaters I’ve judged throughout a tournament, and should take into account not just how eloquently a debater has presented herself, but also how effectively she argued. That said, I tend to assign points within a sufficient range to make comparisons in points meaningful. The vast majority of debaters will receive somewhere between 25 -28 points from me (on a 30 point ballot), with few receiving 29 or 30. To get lower than 25 points, you will probably have to be doing something quite obnoxious.

__Case Considerations__: __Interpretation__: Resolutions frequently leave some things open for interpretation, but I don’t respond very favorably to cases that seem more interested in assigning burdens to one’s opponent or defining ground instead of attempting to prove the resolution true or false. The interpretations or frameworks I appreciate the most are relatively short and straight-forward, and are justified //clearly// by the wording of the resolution. The only time I consider deciding between rival interpretations based upon “education,” “fairness,” or “abuse” is when I’m convinced that there is irresolvable ambiguity in the way the resolution is phrased.

__Standards__: I prefer relatively robust debate over the standards I apply to the resolution. This includes both the value premises and the criteria presented by both sides. I generally assume that value premises should help to identify the truth conditions of the resolution (and should usually be accessible to both sides), while criteria may be more specific to the position developed by one side or the other. I am more persuaded by criteria that link directly to a well-established value premise than criteria that are defended by consequentialist considerations without obvious relation to a value.

__Evidence__: I am not particularly fond of cases that seem to be constructed around lengthy quotations that will later be extended by author name and applied to the resolution rather than defended on the basis of their content. It is far more important to me that arguments and reasons are contested, rather than sources and cards. Consequently, the only evidence I will weigh more heavily than well-articulated reasons from debaters themselves will be empirical claims that no one in the room will (presumably) be qualified to make based upon their own direct experience. It is especially concerning to me when debaters appear uncertain what their own evidence means and have trouble explaining it during the round.

__Rebuttals__: __Thoroughness__: I attempt to keep a fairly detailed flow, but I believe it is the burden of the debaters to explain to me the significance of a dropped argument. As mentioned above, a drop by itself isn’t assumed to be sufficient reason to vote for one side or the other. (And it doesn’t make the dropped argument more relevant to the resolution than it was before, either!) I especially appreciate it when debaters take the time in their middle rebuttals to mention the components of their constructives that they will eventually want me to vote on at the end of the round. I feel far better voting on arguments kept alive and relevant in this way than digging back into the first constructives to find arguments that neither side bothered to mention specifically in the middle of the round.

__Responsiveness__: I hold debaters to a rather high standard when it comes to defeating their opponents’ arguments. Signposting an opposing argument and offering a couple of sentences – especially sentences more directly connected to one’s own case – does not count as responding to an argument. This is fundamentally the same thing as dropping the argument, though it may be your contention that this argument is less relevant than another one elsewhere on the flow. While it seems fashionable for judges to decry “blippy argumentation,” this is where the same thing applies to me: blippy responses are very unlikely to be substantive responses to an argument.

__Clarifying Constructives__: Since I prefer a slower rate of delivery when initial positions are developed in constructives, I give both debaters a fair amount of leniency when it comes to clarifying their cases in cross-examination and rebuttals. In other words, I tend to react somewhat negatively when a debater insists that the answer to most cross-examination questions must be contained in the AC and that any additional clarification constitutes abuse. As long as I believe a debater has put forth a good-faith effort to provide a //prima facie// case, additional clarification on points one’s opponent specifically challenges is part of the reason we have rebuttals.

__Voting Issues__: Failing to give me specific voting issues risks me finding an argument I found most interesting on the flow and trying to resolve it myself based upon what the debaters said about it. That said, I really prefer voting issues to be given external to any line-by-line refutation, so that I can flow it in a separate place and directly compare it to the issues given by the opponent. I will take the offering of voting issues seriously – if you present me with three or four reasons to vote for your side of the resolution, those will be the ones I favor when making my decision. I won’t surprise either side by identifying another issue I’d rather use for my ballot.