Paciotti,+Dawn

//Background: I've been judging high school Lincoln-Douglas debate since my graduation in 1995. I have judged in multiple states, at Nationals, at TOC. I judge policy at local tournaments, but not national circuit ones. I have judged Parliamentary and Public Forum debate, as well as most IE events.//

November 2016 update:

I am no longer tolerant of extreme speed in debate rounds. I have tried to adapt to students, but I am no longer willing to do that. It's a communication-based event, you need to be willing to communicate to me. Note that slight speed - using a clipped pace, but still clearly being able to tell the distinction between words, is acceptable. If your words run together, if you are double breathing, if there is no intonation because you have to read at the same tone, that is no longer acceptable to me. I will say clear once, but if you ignore that you risk me not fully understanding your arguments, which means I will be unlikely to vote off of them. If your opponent does adapt to this preference and you do not, it is highly unlikely you will win the round. If your opponent also ignores my preferences, I will devolve to looking at what you did strategically in terms of clash and responding to argumentation to determine a winner. I understand if there is more than one judge that you may hedge your bets and only go after the others' ballots. I don't think that's a necessary or smart move, but I won't be personally offended. If I'm the only judge in the room and you STILL try to go fast, you will lose my ballot and your speaker points will be as low as they can be.

The other parts of my paradigm have not changed:


 * Respect for the Resolution:** The resolution is not a suggestion for discussion. It is the perimeter of what can be meaningfully established in a 45 minute debate. Running cases and ideas that are tangential to the resolution does not make you creative. By tangential I mean actively rejecting the wording of the resolution, or making an argument that is related to, but not affected by, the resolution. Some kritiks fall into this category, but not all do. True creativity means finding novel solutions inside a set of boundaries. By trying to eliminate those boundaries, you are simply asserting your identity into negative space. While that is great if you are writing a blog, it doesn't work so well in a communicative process. You should be talking __to__ people, not __at__ them. By proving the resolution in a holistic manner, you are entering into the same mental space as your competitor and judge. That shared experience is what us dinosaurs like to call 'education' (trust me, it gets cooler the older you get). The second part of respecting the resolution means answering it. Counting up dropped arguments isn't a way to meaningfully prove an idea. Maybe when they get robots to judge debate, it will be. Until then, I would really like to know that you can tell a coherent story about what your side of the resolution entails.


 * Respect for the Judge:** The more respect you show me, the more I will show you. I'm a social person, I like to smile and laugh. If you're not, or you're nervous, I get that. But don't be rude, don't be arrogant, and don't be bored. I have a way to show how much respect I have for your overall attitude and presentation. They're called speaker points. I use them. If you're unsure of specific issues in my paradigm, feel free to ask. Don't make assumptions based on what you've heard from others, especially if their knowledge is several years old.


 * Respect for your Opponent:** This is the difference between debate and bullying. In a debate, you are one of two talented competitors, trying to show that for this 45 minutes on this topic, you are more persuasive and thus deserve a win. In a bullying contest, you are trying to make yourself look good by making your opponent look bad. Bullying seems to be fairly effective in modern politics and court trials, but not so much in other fields. If you're trying to pitch ideas, or trying to convince your clients to act a certain way, bullying tactics will get you nowhere. Persuasive tactics //are// useful in law and politics, as well. If you want to be a corporate lawyer ($$) or the kind of politician that is respected and loved, I'd recommend the persuasive thing over the bullying thing. In terms of high school debate, it's pretty easy to conceptualize. Saying your opponent's arguments are stupid does not magically make yours look good. Being snotty and condescending to your opponent makes me root for them on principal. Telling me they couldn't handle the five unimportant arguments you put on their standard as a time suck does not make them look weak to me. On the other hand, telling me their argument is good, but here's why yours is better, looks very strong. Being willing to kick out of an argument because your opponent has an excellent rebuttal to it can be very impressive if you show me why you still win the round. If you are kind to an opponent who is less experienced, or more nervous, or just having a bad day, it makes you look like a star.


 * Respect for Yourself**: The ideas you're presenting in a debate round are your own, and you should be proud of them. So what if they're not the most popular ones? So what if other people have stock responses to them? The debate is a fluid activity where the end result is based on what happened in that round, not what rote arguments generally carry the day. Most importantly, do not let someone else put you in a position where you question your ideas simply because they are louder, faster, or older than you are. See bullying point above. If your opponent disregards my paradigm and decides to be an arrogant meanie, you automatically get my sympathy. Please take that sympathy and turn it into a ballot by sticking to your own arguments and making a persuasive case of why you win the resolution. You may lose the flow. But what you need to win FOR ME is the resolution. If you give up on the resolution as well as the flow, I can't do anything for you. Have faith in yourself. Don't assume that your judge wants to see Popular A "facecrush" Lesser Known B. In fact, the only rounds I would describe as facecrushes were where someone calmly and methodically tore through a debater who was so egotistical they didn't even see it happening. On the other hand, if you are Popular A, you should be proud that you have made it this far already. Respecting yourself means trying to take your debate to the next level by challenging yourself in new ways. If you have an opponent who is not as experienced as you are, and you're not feeling like there's much at stake in the round, then figure out a way to have some risk. Take their strongest argument, and try to put 4 unique responses to it. Work on grouping arguments to see how much is too much. Try out that strange idea your friend told you was totally lame and see if it flies. As long as you're sticking to the resolution, I'm game to hear it. This can be a round we get through, or a round we remember. That's entirely based on how much energy you as debaters are willing to invest.


 * My Respect for You:** I will be paying close attention to your debate. Sometimes this will look like me flowing intently. Sometimes it will mean me not flowing so I can focus on processing what you're saying initially, rather than writing it down to process during prep time and after the round. It may even look like me shoveling food in my face during prep time so I don't have a hypoglycemic spike and lose brain power. If you need time signals, I can give them. If you just got out of a round and need a second to breathe and pre-flow, I can wait. If you have a question about a round earlier in the day, you can ask me when you see me walking around later. As I said earlier, I will give you speaker points based on the intangibles of your performance - how respectful you are, how persuasive you are, how interesting your arguments are. The ballot will go to the debater that proves the resolution true or false. If you are a total jerk and yet your opponent lets you walk all over them, you will get a 'W' for that round (but kiss your speaker points good-bye). I will attempt to explain my judging decision as thoroughly as I am able to. I will try not to use too many metaphors. I will try to utilize logic-speak and science-speak (I generally live in emotion-speak or artistic-speak, it's more fun). If disclosure is appropriate, depending on tournament preference, I will tell you who won. If you have something about the round you want me to discuss with your coach, I will try to (if they're rude to me, it will be a very short discussion). If you have some kind of personal emergency, I will help to find the person who can fix it. I'm not coaching, so I won't be prepping out your opponents, although I may discuss a particularly intriguing argument with fellow judges. If you see me joking around with your opponent's coach, it's probably because I'm friends with them and am trying to have a non-debate discussion. If you see me joking around with other competitors, it's probably because I've judged for their school and I'm coded against them, or we're discussing an earlier round.

Thanks for reading this far, thanks for using the paradigm after you read it, thanks for taking part in an event that has the potential to truly change and inspire people's lives, but just as importantly - thanks for having a life outside of debate. I have one, too.