Bennett,+Adam

LD Judging Philosophy

Background: I debated for four years for Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles, and competed extensively on the national circuit (at a rate of about 12 tournaments/year).

I have done no prep on the Jan/Feb 2014 topic, nor judged during this academic year.

General Information (THE IMPORTANT STUFF): I will evaluate any and all arguments presented in the round without prejudice so long as they have a WARRANT and can reconstruct/understand the argument from my flow.

-- I will disregard a warrantless argument without being told to do so, but my threshold for the existence of a warrant in this case is quite low, so do point out warrantless arguments as long as there aren't, say, 20 in a long spread of short rebuttals.

-- I spread (albeit incoherently) as a debater, and can flow almost any speed. If you are going too fast for me, I will say slow down; if you are unclear, I will say clear. I will only punish a speaker for lack of clarity if I have to say clear twice. Be warned, if I am forced to say clear, it means I missed what you just said, so it would probably be best for you to repeat your last sentence if you want that to be on the flow. Please slow down and use verbal emphasis to highlight key headings, tags, author names, and arguments, so that I know exactly what words you want me to flow.

Substance: You can run dense philosophy in front of me, but you should slow down a bit if you want me to understand that philosophy. Same thing applies to kritiks. I will and usually know how to evaluate them, but I need to understand the warrants in your evidence for me to use your framework to evaluate the round. I was always better at debating/keeping track of debates that were heavy in contention-level argumentation and evidence comparison, so that might be something for you to keep in mind if you want to control for my imperfections as a judge.

Theory/Topicality: Again, this is probably one of the easiest things for me to judge. I have no higher standard for theory debates than I do for substance. If you don’t run a counter-interpretation or an I-meet argument against theory, you will lose the theory debate. In the absence of any arguments by the debaters in the round, I will presume theory comes before other prefiat (like those stemming from kritiks, etc) and postfiat impacts.

Also, in the absence of any discussion by the debaters, I presume that RVIs are a valid form of argumentation, so long as the debater running the RVI is generating offense on the theory debate (meaning they need a counterinterp.)

Speaker Points: I know this is broad, but i will give speakerpoints based on the skill of a debater relative to others at that tournament.

I believe debate should be treated more as a fun extracurricular and not simply as a strict educational enterprise. That means I will not reduce your speakerpoints for arguments that are “stupid,” “cheap-shots,” or “meant to confuse ones opponents.” Also, I believe that no topical argument should be off limits to debaters because it isn't PC. If you win, you win, and I’m not going to punish you for how you accomplish that.

There is one big caveat to this rule: don’t be rude to your opponent.

I will reward debaters who run clever, creative positions, use their time efficiently, and are eloquent, along with those who are especially kind to an opponent. (For instance, slowing down for an opponent with limited exposure to spreading)

Other Things...:

CX is binding; if it weren't it would be pointless.

If you decide to have a debate over paradigms of debate (i.e. Truth-Testing, Competing Worlds, ...) explain VERY clearly what your paradigm is and why it excludes certain arguments. I really don't see much of a difference between Truth-Testing and Competing Worlds, in fact I personally believe they collapse into each other (because a competing world can prove the resolution false and truth statements determine the parameters of potential competing worlds). I went to VBT for four years and still don't know what offense-defense means. Just keep this general confusion in mind.

Have fun! You can ask me any other question before the round.