Thomas,+James

James Thomas
TL;DR? Scan down and look at the bold parts. __Who I am__ I debated for Pace in HS, graduated 2001. I debated for West GA in college, graduated 2005. I then coached for UWG, Cornell, and Kansas State. I am now a criminal-defense lawyer in Atlanta. I have not really been actively involved in debate in several years, aside from judging the occasional high school tournament in the Atlanta area.

__ How I judge __

**I don’t read evidence or any debater work-product after the round**, __//**ever, for any reason**//__. I try to make my decision fairly quickly, without having to do much work for the debaters. I consider how each 2nd rebuttalist framed the debate, determine what questions I’m supposed to answer with the ballot, and go from there.

My laptop is buggy, so I flow on paper. My handwriting is terrible, so I don’t keep a terrific flow. Something to keep in mind.

As to procedural arguments / theory “voting issues” / whatever, I feel like **my threshold is a little higher than most**. It’s not insurmountable--I just need to know why what the other team did makes the playing field so unlevel that you can’t fairly have a chance to win the debate otherwise. (At least, //I// don't think that's insurmountable. Countless teams I've voted against on stuff like this may disagree.) “Conditionality makes it harder for us to keep track of how many arguments there are, thus: voting issue” or “if this aff wasn’t topical, then the topic would look like X, which would mean we’d have more debates about Y, which would be neat, so vote neg” = not persuasive. (If you want to lower the stakes, and say your theory argument doesn’t mean the other team should lose, but that it justifies reciprocal transgressions on your part, that may work.)

"Wait, how do you punish teams for clipping cards if you won't read evidence after the round?"

***Think about it. I don't call for cards. I judge the debate based on what I hear. Only what I hear. That's it. If the other team is clipping cards, they have bigger problems to deal with than accusations of cheating. If the negative block is 15 minutes of blurred speech, with the occasional tag-line that is audible, and if I don't know the warrants behind the arguments are at the end of it, they might as well have not given a speech at all. **You are in much better shape than you think**.*** "But they're going to extend all this evidence in the 2NR that they didn't read . . . "

**No they won't**. They'll be making new arguments, because I couldn't hear what they were saying in the block. **You are in much better shape than you think.**

__ "What should we run in front of you? Didn't you used to be weird? Are you still weird?" __

If my reputation as to what I used to do when I debated precedes me, don’t let it overdetermine your argument choices. I don’t pick sides in the battle of civilizations, if that's even what the kids are calling it these days. I think debate is for the debaters and you should do what you want to do, and as it turns out, I used to be a pretty normal debater before things got weird.

That being said, if your bread and butter is a big-stick hegemony debate (for example) and your options are limited otherwise, I’m not going to blame you for looking elsewhere on your strike sheet. That sort of thing isn’t a research interest of mine now and it wasn’t then, so there are more brainwashed qualified judges in the pool, I’m certain. I’m a lot more familiar with more kritik-y type literature than anything else, and since I’m not a full-time coach or judge, I’m rarely an expert on the actual resolution. **Frankly, high-tech hegemony and proliferation debates go over my head and/or offend me with how they encourage high school and college students to unquestionably presume the necessity of military aggression.**

Just please don’t think you have to debate like I did. “ . . . Hov did that / so hopefully you wouldn’t have to go through with that. . .” (Jay-Z, 2001)

**THAT BEING SAID. . .** I've heard through the grapevine that the rift between different styles of debate has recently grown deeper and much more vacuous than I could have ever imagined. I am not on Facebook, but I've heard that stupid things have happened there on this issue. Just one more reason I'm glad I'm not on Facebook. Anyway. I hear it's bad. Look, the point of the WGLF -- even if it went over everyone's head -- was that **there's a pox on all y'alls houses**. Before the weird folks can figure out how to make debate transgressive, and before the squares can figure out how to make debate predictable and fair, all y'all need to figure out how to make debate worth a damn and resemble a communicative activity that is worthwhile. It sounds like everyone is still working on that.

__ "Oh God. What have we gotten into. You're judging us. What should we do?" __

**There needs to be** a chunk of time at the beginning of the 2NR and 2AR that gives **an overview**. An overview is not a list of arguments that are in the debate. An overview is where you reveal what the puzzle looks like once the pieces fit together. An overview is where you do some macro-level work as to why the debate should be framed one way instead of another, why some things should be valued more than others. An overview is where you step in my shoes for a minute (or 25 seconds, or 45 seconds, whatever works) and pretend like you’re explaining to the other team why they have lost in a way that would satisfy even them. An overview is where you write my ballot for me. (Do people ever write ballots anymore? Or do you just tweet who you voted for and put #block30's if their politics align with yours? Plz let me know.)

**This last paragraph is the most important thing on here if you're trying to figure out how to win my ballot**. If you take away nothing else, take away this: if one team gives an overview at the top of the 2NR/2AR that does something like this, and the other team doesn’t, **the overview team will probably win, even if their evidence is worse, even if their arguments are worse, even if how they perform on the line-by-line is worse**. Framing is of utmost importance**.** Give me a frame.

Not only do I stubbornly insist on not reading evidence, but I’m not an active coach or judge, so my ears aren’t as attuned to the "hum" of debate as it used to be.

Clarity, enunciation, fluctuating your voice to reflect your passionate investment in particular arguments, etc. -- all this is very important and will be rewarded.

Sounding like a buzzsaw for the duration of your speech -- not good. Not good for so many reasons! Given that I don’t read evidence afterwards, reading a dump of more and more evidence is rarely a wise choice. Look me in the eye and talk to me about what’s going on and why I should care! Make an argument!

This doesn’t mean you need to talk at a conversational pace. Go ahead and talk briskly (unless you’d prefer not to, which is fine too). Just know that I understand the debate round to be an exercise in communication, not an exercise in stacking up research side-by-side and picking the better collection of evidence. I’m a trial lawyer--style and considering the needs of your audience are important to me.

And if nothing else, please, please, **please** don’t let your laptop block your face while you speak.

Specific follow-up questions to this before the round are always fine. Above all, have fun!