Hall,+Brad

Brad Hall – Wake Forest University/Glenbrook North Last Updated March 26, 2008

BACKGROUND: I debated for four years at Wake Forest University and I am now in graduate school at Wake Forest, coaching the Demon Deacons and Glenbrook North. I worked at the Wake Forest workshops last summer, and I have judged at the Wake Forest Earlybird, the Glenbrooks, and MBA so I have a solid familiarity with the topic, but probably not as in depth as many of you.

GENERAL: Debate should be hard, but not impossible. My default is to weigh the topical parts of the plan versus the status quo or a competitive policy option. What follows are my defaults, but I am certainly not wedded to them and can imagine myself voting exactly the opposite in practice. Switching to an argument you are less comfortable with will only hurt your chances of winning the debate, and there are only a few arguments I can never see myself voting on. Your speaker points may be slightly lower if you win on wipeout, etc., but think of it this way: the 8-0 team doesn’t need to care about their points.

THEORY GENERALLY: Rejecting the argument, not the team, is always my default position unless there is a well warranted/explained reason for rejecting the team. This means extending “intrinsic perm is a voter” in the 2NR will only warrant rejection of the permutation. I am serious about this: last year at Kentucky, I voted neg despite the block dropping “dispositional CP’s are a voting issue.” A 2AR consisting only of theory had better be very very good on “it’s a voter” or else they are likely to lose on the net benefit outweighing the case after the counterplan is rejected. A 2AR which goes for theory for half of the speech and then spends the remaining time weighing the plan versus the status quo is a much better option. Conditionality is the one area where I struggle with the voting issue question, but I would prefer the debaters propose an alternate remedy – e.g. stick the 2NR with the cplan if they kicked it, or kick the cplan if the 2NR went for it. “But that remedy doesn’t really help us” should be translated as “we are going for this not because it really hurt our chances of winning the debate, but because we were inadequate in other areas.” Extending, or even initiating, many cheap shots will not help your speaker points or your chances of winning the debate. I believe judges who actively enjoy voting on cheap shots (you know who you are) should rethink their contribution to this activity and ask what possible end could be served by their model of debate. Having said all of this, sometimes ya gotta do what ya do and if that means going for PICs bad, so be it.

COUNTERPLANS: I strongly lean negative on conditionality/dispositionality, PICs, 2NC, and multiple counterplans. I lean aff on consultation, states, condition on X and utopian counterplans (WOMP, anarchy, etc). Agent and international fiat are up in the air. Against a new aff, I think the negative gets more leeway on theory but is still constrained by the logic of policy choice. If you are negative, please spend 10 or 15 seconds stating the status of your counterplan during the 1NC. No one wants to hear the first half of cross-ex taken up by a rousing debate over the definition of dispositionality. The negative should be careful not to screw up your cplan text and smart affs should be more willing to take advantage of counterplan errors. I do not understand the logic of the arguments in favor of textual competition, but if you want to try and educate me on this important and constantly evolving issue in contemporary debate, feel free.

P.S. Does the idea that consultation CP's and other non-textually competitive CP's are terrible for debate, but generics like Lopez are cool strike anyone else as incoherent?

DISADS: I am not particularly a fan of the “we control uniqueness… there’s only a risk of the link” school of thought but I can certainly understand its utility and if you are doing pretty well on the link AND controlling uniqueness, you’re probably fine. Impact calculus is often the weak point of these debates… going beyond “the timeframe to our disad is two days because the India deal will come up for a vote on Monday but the plan’s impact is like a million years because we can never solve racism” is a good first step. Strong impact calculus and comparison/anticipation of your opponent’s impact calculus is of the utmost importance. I am not totally sold on offense/defense as I am not willing to give a team credit just for asserting a link to hegemony and then reading the Khalilzad card. Strong analytical arguments will reduce the risk of a disad, but unchallenged portions of a disad (or any other argument, for that matter) will be considered true. Finally, uniqueness is rarely absolute – even if you win a 95% chance of “aid to South Africa now,” if you don’t answer the link you will probably lose (especially true when there is a counterplan that solves the whole case).

KRITIKS: I am not as predisposed against kritiks as you might think, although the biggest barrier to persuading me to vote on them is my lack of knowledge about many kritiks combined with the debaters’ lack of explanation to fill in that missing knowledge. As a debater, I was heavily reliant on framework arguments against kritiks, but as a judge, I have been fairly reluctant to entirely dismiss a kritik on wrong forum-style arguments. I have been more likely to evaluate the world in which the plan happens and not let the neg “fiat” their alternative but instead evaluate the likelihood of its adoption. But, to be fair, I have not seen a well debated defense of the policymaking framework extended in the 2AR so I am not entirely sure how this will play out. The negative can overcome some of my anti-kritik biases by reading evidence about the necessity of their kritik, defending kritiks on theoretical grounds, and making the kritik as specific to the affirmative as possible. If you are aff, framework arguments (which are not always an end in and of itself, but should also be used to weigh the affirmative impacts versus the kritik), the permutation, impact turns and pragmatism-style arguments will go a long way. Be sure to answer arguments like “no value to life,” “the critique is a prior question,” “all your harms are inevitable,” and floating PICs (which seem unfair to me). If you are neg, you should focus on applying your arguments to the specific aff you are debating, explaining why your impacts make theirs inevitable/outweigh the case/are a prior question/deny the value to life/etc, and emphasizing the importance of representations (or whatever your K framework is) for policymaking.

If you are running a kritik, however, take note: I will find it very difficult to vote for an argument at the end of the debate that I do not really understand. I am not willing to tell the aff that they lost to an argument which I cannot explain somewhat to them at the end of the debate. Be warned that I might require greater explanation of kritiks than some other judges – I am not sure if it is because my brain does not understand the logic of most kritik arguments but I will try my best to understand your kritik if you try hard to explain it.

TOPICALITY: Topicality is a voting issue and never a reverse voting issue. I’m not firmly in one camp or the other when it comes to competing interpretations vs. reasonability. The aff should focus more on reasonability against arbitrary/contrived topicality arguments, especially when the neg has little or no definitional support. While I am open to kritiks on the negative, I am less open to affirmatives that do not defend the resolution. My biases are certainly in favor of the affirmative reading a topical plan and generating advantages from the federal government acting, although this is not an automatic win for a negative team which is poor at explaining framework arguments. No real biases about what Africa-specific topicality violations, probably because I haven't judged any in-depth T debates (that I remember).

CROSS-EXAMINATION: A vastly underutilized facet of debate. Please take prep time to get the cards your partner needs before starting the cross-ex. Politics disads and other suspect arguments can be significantly reduced with a good cross-ex. This will help your speaker points as well as your odds of winning the debate. Conversely, a bad cross-ex may hurt your speaker points and decrease the likelihood of winning. I consider cross-ex an important extension of speech time. As a result, you should avoid answering a good question with “we’ll answer that in our next speech” or “you didn’t make that argument in the 2AC” unless you follow it up with “but our answer is…”. If the 2NC refuses to answer a logical question, especially on a position whose substance was expanded significantly in the block, I am willing to give the 1AR flexibility to make what you might consider “new” answers. I do not have a problem with occasional interventions by your partner into your cross-ex, but, much like reading the Dillon 1999 card, please do this sparingly.

SPEAKER POINTS/HABITS OF HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL DEBATERS: Obviously, following all of the above advice to the extent possible will improve your speaker points. Speaking clearly, not going for too much in the 2NR/2AR, being funny, having a strategic vision, and having a sweet specific strategy, not losing the forest for the trees, pointing out the inadequacies of the other team’s evidence, are also good ways to improve your points. Being mean, speaking too quickly that your arguments can’t be flowed, speaking incomprehensibly, wasting cross-ex or speech time, bullying weaker teams, not comparing your arguments to the other team’s arguments, going for every argument you read in the debate, etc are all very good ways to decrease your points but also to improve your odds of losing the debate. I have found myself giving higher points in close policy debates in which the aff and neg are both making smart arguments and going for case turns/other small and case-oriented strategies at the end of the debate. Argument quality and strong cross-examinations heavily influence speaker points.

FINAL NOTE(S): 1. Because I believe most debaters work hard, I will work hard for you when I am judging you. I apologize for the length this process sometimes takes, but I try to give both sides a fair hearing and consider most relevant evidence (see #3). 2. Strong impact calculus and comparison of your arguments to the other team’s arguments are often the keys to success. The debates that I have judged so far have often come down to two things. First, one team fails to answer the impact calculus of the other team (DA turns the case etc) AND they also fail to establish a weighing mechanism between the two. Comparing the inevitable but long term impact of your advantage to a quicker disad that turns the case is crucial for winning. Second, cover all the small arguments on the line by line. I have found myself agreeing with one side’s big picture of the debate, but then voting against them because they screwed up a small part of the line-by-line (dropping a link takeout, DA turns case, etc). 3. Reading evidence – I tend to read evidence on the most important issues in close debates. Evidence quality often strongly influences my decisions, but I try to let the debating guide my reading of evidence. Concessions of bad evidence are concessions, even if the evidence doesn’t say much. That being said, if a debate is very close and one side’s evidence is stronger, I am likely to vote for them.

If you have any further questions, feel free to e-mail me or ask me in person. Good luck.