Hodge,+Brian

Updated: 9/18/13

I debated for 4 years at Cypress Falls in Houston, competing primarily on the national circuit. I bid as a sophomore and junior, and qualified to the TOC as a senior.

I'd like to preface this by saying that you're probably best served by doing whatever you're most comfortable with rather than trying to do things that are more consistent with my 'paradigm.' What follows is just a set of preferences I developed as a debater and which tend to color in my understanding of arguments and their interactions. That being said, my only real preference is that debaters think in rounds and make good arguments. With that in mind:

I tend to see the resolution as a statement of truth, but exactly what that constitutes is open to interpretation, and I'm willing to listen to any argument as to what that interpretation ought to be, provided that those arguments have warrants. I think that there needs to be some kind of specification of what it takes to prove the resolution true or false, but I don't really care what form that specification takes, be it a traditional value/criterion structure, a standard, or anything else.

Theory is fine, but it should be treated as any other argument in that each logical progression in the syllogism of a theory argument needs to be justified. Because of this, I don't assume that voters like fairness or education are innately valuable, though I think there are good arguments to be made as to why they should influence my decision. If you plan on running theory, you need to be making those arguments; if you're answering a bad shell that doesn't include those arguments, or doesn't do a good job of making those arguments, you should probably point that out.


 * PLEASE** slow down when you're reading the shell. The nature of theory arguments is such that literally every sentence you're reading is (or should be) pretty important. At the speeds that people read shells at, flowing the internal warrants of your arguments is almost impossible. You can go quickly, but if I look confused or I'm not typing anything, you should probably slow down.

Speed is fine, just slow down on tags and author names, otherwise flowing can get tough sometimes.

Speaker points will be a reflection of how well you performed strategically/how entertaining you were. As a caveat, one thing that will definitely hurt your speaks is making arguments that you don't understand or clearly didn't write yourself. I find that this most often occurs when it comes to critical positions, but that doesn't have to be the case.

All in all, make good arguments, be smart. If you have questions, feel free to ask me before the round.