Derrick,+Geoff

Geoffrey Derrick Northwestern University Judging Philosophy—2007 NDT 1st Year Judging / 20 Rounds on the Topic

I vote for the team that does the best job of persuading me to their position in the debate. I try my best not to carry any ideological predispositions into my decisions. That being said, here are my feelings about standard arguments.


 * T—**I have voted neg once on T this year. I am less likely to vote on ASPEC or ground-SPEC than I am on a T interpretation that has a clear-cut definition, excludes the affirmative and has a net-benefit to its limiting function. T is the argument that I enjoyed debating most as a debater.


 * DA**—At the NDT, I expect that teams have taken the time to develop their DAs with more sophisticated links and impacts than have been run all year long. I understand most teams will not do this, however, it means that I will be much more impressed with those debaters who can demonstrate that they have innovated their arguments in smart and interesting ways for the NDT.


 * Impact Calculus**—I don’t want to do the impact calculus for you because it means that I will intervene. One of the quickest ways to my ballot is to clearly articulate “if—then” comparative statements about your impact calculus in the 2NR/2AR. For example, you may be winning magnitude outright, but if you tell me “If they win timeframe, then you should prefer magnitude for [x], [y] and [z]” then you’re more likely to get better points and the ballot.


 * CP**—I dislike theory debates. They’re always menial and bad. Certainly, you can get the ballot going for theory but you probably won’t get the best points. Counterplans are the neg strategy that I employed most when I debated so I am partial to a good CP + DA strategy as opposed to the DA + Case strategy.


 * K**—I can understand how people may think that I am a better judge for policy teams as opposed to K teams given that I never ran Ks while I debated at Northwestern. However, this isn’t the case. In fact, I think I have voted negative more on the K this year than any other strategy. As a judge, I have come to love good K arguments because the debates are often far more intellectually stimulating than the policy debates that I’ve seen ten times before. I do not view framework as an all-or-nothing issue. I think the aff should be able to access the advantages to weigh the case against the K, but it’s usually the case that the K turns the case so the advantages are irrelevant. As with DA impact calculus, “if—then” statements are the way to my ballot of framework issues and impact comparison on the K.

Here are some suggestions for higher points from me: 1—CX concessions—use them in the speech 2—qualifications—compare evidence quality 3—2NR/2AR “how to vote” overview—cut anything out of your overview that you’re going to repeat on the line-by-line. All I want to hear in your 2NR/2AR overview is how you think I should resolve the meta-issues in the debate.

I want to wish all teams the best of luck at this year’s NDT. Congratulations for making it this far.