Goodman,+Adam

Judging philosophy – Adam Goodman For 2011 Harvard tournament 1. I was on the top cross-ex team at Glenbrook North for two years and typically did the 2A and 2N. My partner and I won a number of national circuit tournaments. While in college and law school I was an assistant coach at GBN for three years and at GBS for one year. I debated intermittently in college for two years and was also nationally competitive in extemporaneous speaking. After having no involvement with debate for a number of years I more recently coached at Morgan Park High School in Chicago for two years and am now in my second year of coaching at Jones, another Chicago public high school. My full time job is as an attorney in private trial practice. 2. I flow with a pen, and in great detail. I always write down the author and the year, frequently write down the tag, and write down as many phrases from the card (or an extended analytic) as possible. If qualifications are read I write those down too. There are several consequences of this. First, extensive underviews, overviews, etc. are a poor alternative to line by line clash. Second, debaters who read cards in 1NC (or 2NC) on case but without actually clashing with the 1AC text are unlikely to get optimal speaker points, and are likely to be at a substantive disadvantage if the other team does clash. The same is true for 2AC or 1AR who does not actually clash with the text of a new negative argument. Third, I rarely ask to see evidence after the round unless the meaning of that evidence is actually debated and I am not sure whose interpretation of the evidence is correct. 3. I do not have any substantive or stylistic preferences. That said, I am very receptive to analytical arguments that a position does not make logical sense, has no internal link, is irrelevant, and so forth. So those making unorthodox critiques or offering performances need to be able to explain why what they are saying or doing is germane, and those confronted with poorly thought out or poorly evidenced arguments of any kind should say so and explain why. 4. I have no problem with occasional prompting or correcting but if done throughout a cross-examination or a speech speaker points are likely to suffer. 5. I am unlikely to be persuaded to vote against a team to “punish” them for making bad theory arguments. 6. I am unlikely to be persuaded that topicality is not a voting issue. Conversely, I am likely to be persuaded that a topical counterplan is a reason to vote affirmative.