Groves,+Dylan

Dylan Groves Judging Philosophy

EXPERIENCE I debated for four years at Bellarmine College Prep, two years at Berkeley, and have coached for Bellarmine and the Bay Area Urban Debate League for four years plus.

GENERAL i like debaters who dont take themselves too seriously, communicate effectively, and win debates with quality of arguments rather than making the other team screw up. as years go on, I find myself more and more drawn to arguments that stem from in depth, case specific research. i think debate's value comes from fostering persuasive communication, in depth research, and critical thinking. i will tend to reward debaters that reflect those values.

that said, my enforcement of those preferences happens almost entirely in speaker points - when it comes to winning and losing i have respect for the freedom of debaters to make the debate into what they will.

THEORY/TOPICALITY no special preferences, though I appreciate evidence in these debates.

COUNTERPLAN THEORY I am happy to vote for them, but I get frustrated with counterplans which are predicated on eliding substantive debate by either being terribly unpredictable or doing the entirety of the plan (read: consultation counterplans, discourse pics, agent counterplans). A solvency advocate would go a long way towards resolving my frustration.

I have no strong preference on conditionality.

KRITIK / POLICY / FRAMEWORK I think a lot of kritik debates are won and lost on questions of what the ballot means, though i dont have a particular bias between policy and kritik positions on the issue.

IMPACTS if it becomes a count the nuclear wars debate i have no issues, but i reward debaters who engage internal link/impact debates more deeply than just time frame/magnitude/probability. more than many judges, i give special credit to persuasiveness on impact debates beyond the line by line.

QUALIFICATIONS I think qualifications of evidence are important and wish that more debates involved talking about them. I can be convinced that card written by someone with little to no qualifications should be treated as an analytic argument