Yount,+Dave

David Yount-Philosophy

Affiliation: St. Mark’s of Texas Strikes: St. Mark’s Kinkaid Number of years judging high school: 22 Number of tournaments judged under this topic: 2 Number of rounds judged under this topic: 11

Philosophy: I tend to fall under the camp that believes that debate is composed of a series of arguments that I am to resolve, based on criteria established by the debaters during the round. I am not truly disposed to be a policy maker, games player or adherent of any other philosophy, but tend to resolve debates based on validating the correctness and fairness of the arguments in the last 2 rebuttals. I tend to have a higher threshold for considering arguments as new during 2AR, and prefer that the lines are drawn clearly as to where the debaters are deriving the last rebuttal arguments. Here is my best definition of winning arguments in the context of my ballot: The preponderance of argumentation which I can directly refer to from my flow which figures in my decision calculus is almost inevitably the argumentation that I will vote for.

T- I tend to vote on T based on the argument as a debatable issue itself, I. E. a round can be lost because 2AC has a wretched set of responses, the same as for any other argument. The most persuasive arguments for why topicality has a function in any round are predictability, prior notice, and clash, but the ability to run new cases is clearly preserved by a counter interpretation or “we meet” argument that accounts for the fact that different cases will always be run, and that lack of preparedness can occur even with sufficient notice. Framers intent or any other standard that requires an interpretation to be imported into the round circumvents the burden of the debater to persuade me of the superiority of their position, and does not impress me as a great exercise in discourse. If you want education, go to the library, but don’t argue it as a standard for T. Beside, loss of ground can clearly be made up for by clever use of…

Counterplans- I tend to evaluate counterplans with a great deal of latitude to perms and straight competition arguments because I think that unless the CP is demonstrated to be a superior option for solving the case, it doesn’t deny the aff’s upholding of an example of the resolution. Conditionality and dispositionality are not issues that I will give a great deal of credence to as a RVI, but they can influence latitude granted to final rebuttal arguments if the work previously done in the round is mooted by a stance taken by kicking a counterplan. Generally, I expect you to debate your way out of the predicament created by the negative’s use of time. Creative C-X questions, particularly regarding whether aff has the right use a reciprocal strategy as whatever argument neg refuses to take a stand on, combined with aff having the last speech, usually resolves the debate into an argumentative framework that is fair enough to both sides that the superior debate team wins.

Critiques- I am close to many judges as to how I evaluate kritiks, I. E. that if the argument has enough substance to win the round, it might as well have been run as a disad. The norms have shifted so far away from accepting critiques as uber arguments that they are now attacked on grounds similar to counterplans and incrementalism arguments of an earlier day. I hold that the evolution of responses to the critique were necessary to prevent debate from becoming a series of arcane argumentative philosophies that could only be beaten by weirder and more arcane philosophies. The best way to win a critique in front of me is to be able to demonstrate that it fulfills most of the functions attributed to counterplans, but that because of the nature of the critique argument, it is a series of occurrences that will solve for the case and other advantages, and that it will be incompatible with aff’s plan or advantage scenarios in a way that can be understood by me.

As far as general dispositions are concerned, I am not a familiar quantity to many of you. I will attempt to explain my dominant characteristics as a judge, because that is what these philosophies should really be about. I am willing to work fairly hard to piece a round together during the decision process, if the quality of the debate demands it. The function of evidence in a round is not necessarily to bind the debaters to read cards on every argument, but that does not prevent a team from having the burden to validate warrants made in rebuttals. Too many times I have seen teams get rebuttal arguments into the flow by making them direct responses in the 1AR, but if the opportunity existed for that argument to fairly enter the round in the 2 AC, then the argument should be considered new in my opinion, and should be claimed to be new, and excluded from my decision calculus on that basis. Too many of the best rounds I have ever seen have been won by 2ARs that were allowed to explain, amplify, and in general persuade their way to a ballot that left 2NRs grinding their teeth because of the unfairness of allowing aff to circumvent the burden of fair clash. I look at the round as an exercise where if I were a participant, I would want the explanation for the win or loss to be as fair and good as the round. That is what keeps people coming back to debate.