Gray,+Robbins

Debate Judging Philosophy of:

Robbins H. Gray

Affiliation – Fullerton Union High School, Orange County California

Brief background - I debated in Policy Debate for 3 years in high school and 2 years in College. I broke at most of my college tournaments and was in finals twice. I was a conventional spread debater. I have coached high school debate for 9+ years. I have coached multiple teams to the TOC and one to quarters at the TOC. I have been an active coach flowing on average more than 100 debates per year though I only judge about 20. I watch my own team and scout more than I judge. I took a few years off of coaching, but have been back since 2015.

I am a flow sheet judge. Every time I don’t hear what you said I will say clear. If you make no changes at all I will start saying other things. If you believe it is something you might want me to consider you should probably go back and repeat it. I will consider things I hear and remember even if it’s not on my flow. But if I didn’t hear it as far as I’m concerned you didn’t say it. If it’s important you might want to emphasize it to insure it’s on my flow. If it’s not on my flow, chances are you were too blippy or unclear and it’s not my fault. I’ve been in lots of rounds with other judges and I usually have things on my flow that they don’t have on their flow. If your 1AC needs to be fast you should start a little slower and give my ears time to warm up. You should read your theory a lot slower if, for example, you want me to get all 8 reasons why conditionality is good.

I try to be a tabula rasa judge but in my heart, I view debate much like a game. If a paradigm is not debated or discussed in round I will attempt to view the round without a paradigm; through the lens of the debaters in the round so to speak.

Except for death good, really untrue arguments, or teams that believe they don’t need to be topical; My argument preferences don¹t really matter in the grand scheme of things. Your debating is going to have a much bigger impact on my decision than any preference I have.

All debates are impact debates. You must explain why your arguments matter; and all arguments must have an impact. This is true for theory, policy, and critical debates, as well as activist and performative ones. Impacts should be extended in the 2AC, the block, the 1AR, the 2NR and the 2AR.

Procedural issues almost always trump substantive issues. In order for there to be a good substantive debate both teams must be able to have a reasonable expectation that they could wind up debating the given argument; and that continued expectation should be good for debate.

Fiat. To me Fiat is the ability to view the world of the affirmative and the world of the negative and way one against the other. I lean towards the opinion that fiat is good for debate.

 Framework other than T and Theory. I believe we should be able to way the world of the aff and the world of the neg and vote for the better world.

Topicality arguments and Theory arguments are attempts to exclude the other team. If you are advocating one of those Topicality or Theory argument’s you must explain what both worlds look like and why yours is better. If I don’t understand your world, which is trying to exclude the other team, I will not vote for you If you expect me to exclude the other world; it is your job to make what your world looks like clear to me and explain why it is superior to the other world.

Topicality, I will err aff on T. I love good T debates. T must be QPQ or T can’t be QPQ is not my idea of a good T debate. On the Africa Topic, T in is throughout against a team that does a plan in one city was a good debate. Topicality is not genocidal. Critiques of topicality are not persuasive unless severely, and I mean severely, botched by the neg. I believe the affirmative contextually defines the topic with their advocacy. Therefore, I believe the Negative’s topicality argument is a counter interpretation. In round abuse is not necessary. In my opinion allowing non-topical cases would destroy debate. An interpretation that would allow 10,000 cases would destroy debate.

However; there could be a reason to allow 1 of those 10,000 cases. For example: your case is topical and even though you link to their violation which allows 10,000 cases your case is predictable thus checking back any potential abuse and your issue is so significant that it would be worse for debate not to debate your case. In that instance, you might want to perm the negative definition i.e. “the negatives definition plus our case”.

I believe Fairness comes before Education because debate is a competitive event and even if rounds are educational I don't believe anyone would keep debating if they were not fair.

Theory. I am a theory hack but I err neg on theory. I view theory as a useful and debilitating weapon. I love theory. Mostly because I believe that is where we should try to define what would be good for debate. What rule(s) would be the fairest, the best for debate. The idea that judges should establish provisional rules for debate holds sway with me. My experiences as a debater and judge have taught me that the team that has thought more about the theoretical issue at hand will usually win the argument. To me theory debates are about what debate would look like in the opposing worlds.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">Non-Traditional (Performance/Counterfactuals/Irony/Pessimism/Critical) affs - I love a narrative, even without a plan, if it affirms the resolution. I am more than skeptical of any aff., (call it non-traditional if you want) that does not affirm the resolution, that provides unfair ground or explodes limits or worse very little ground for the negative to debate. Consequently, these debates veer towards ridiculous argumentation and I am probably easily persuaded that they are bad for debate. I think when you are aff. you have to defend the resolution. This ensures predictable and fair limits and ground for the Neg. I think fair and predictable limits and ground for the negative outweighs the aff. arbitrarily deciding what they want to talk about or the exclusion DA if that’s your thing. If you don’t like the resolution, that’s why you get to be Neg. half the time. Many performance affs are critical of USFG action, state action, US involvement in Vietnam, etc. It seems that these examples don’t justify the resolution, but rather indict it, which is usually the goal of the Neg. I’m going to say this again here: Topicality is not genocidal. Critiques of topicality are not persuasive unless severely, and I mean severely, botched by the neg. When Framework links, I believe, the Negative team is probably on the right side of the issue. However, if you are neg in front of me against a team that does not use or endorse Unites States Federal Government action (3 branches located in Washington D.C.) please go for T and not Framework in the 2NR. If I’m on a panel with other judges and you feel they won’t vote for T you can get my ballot by spending 15 seconds on T. “They don’t meet our interpretation of USFG exploding potential actors which destroys predictability and makes in-depth debate impossible. Our model of debate, which is more in depth, is better.”

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">Critiques: Like most arguments they are only as good as their links. I think it would be good if teams explained how their critiques function relative to the specific aff. If you think that your critique somehow takes out or turns the aff, you should be able to explain how. Similarly, if your critique claims to create a framework in which the aff/case debate should somehow take a back seat to your critique, you should be able to explain why. You should also be able to explain what the world of your Critique looks like and compare it to the world of the aff. We all know nothing really happens with fiat. But guess what; I’m not a big believer in your ability to change my opinion; much less the way the world functions. I think you can imagine a world in which the aff. happens and a world in which the Critique happens and compare those worlds. That does not mean anyone gets 100% solvency, unless of course it’s conceded. I really love a critique with a real-world alt. and a net benefit.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">Counter plans. I am fine with any counter plan. Cheaty is a claim. If it is cheaty you should win the theory debate.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">I would truly love overviews if they were attempts to identify the two or three literal questions that the debater’s thought was going through a judge’s mind, made strong “even if” comparisons between their warrants and the strongest (most dangerous) warrants of their opponents within the framework of those questions. Brief overviews that address meta-issues and make arguments that don’t fit elsewhere on the flow can help resolve issues in the debate, but long overviews tend to confuse things. A strong overview frames an issue: “They’ve conceded x and y; therefore, we only need to win z.” A weak overview merely summarizes arguments that belong else-where on the flow: “Here are all of our links, and here are all of our impacts.” A strong overview takes stock of the arguments a team will probably win and the arguments that team will probably lose: “Even if they win x, we still win because of y.” A weak overview presumes that one team will somehow win all of the arguments in the debate: “We’ll win x, y, and z; therefore, we’ll win the debate.”

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">I vote on a variety of arguments and rarely reject things said by debaters out of hand. That said; I will not vote on something that makes no sense to me simply because the debaters have said it. Debaters have the responsibility to respond to their opponents' arguments, but not everything said by a debater counts as an argument. For example, simply uttering the phrase "voting issue" does not turn an issue into an issue that I vote on. There are some arguments I don’t like. I don’t like imagining the world of your argument when that world results in my death. I believe analytics are enough to beat well evidenced arguments that are not in line with an educated understanding of reality. Think: Flat Earth.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">Good debate depends fundamentally on argument resolution. Debaters often concentrate on constructing and rebutting arguments without resolving them, leaving the most important work for the judge. Debaters that resolve arguments will win my ballot and earn good speaker points. I will not vote on evidence I don't understand so reading long cards with lots of big words without an appropriate explanation will probably not get you very far.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">Wishing you all the best of success. Let's have good debates, Robb Gray