Severson,+Brian

Brian Severson
I’d like to think of myself as the kind of judge that is open to just about anything. Now, as much as I would like to believe this, I know deep down that I have various prejudices and predispositions that alter what I consider to be a good argument. As a judge, I would like to believe that these never impact my beliefs of what occurs in a debate, but nevertheless they do. Some of the predispositions I have as a judge are as follows:

1. I believe that every argument has to have a claim (the tag so to speak) and a warrant (the reason why that claim makes sense) [Clearly, most of you know these obvious statements, but for some reason people still do not express arguments in this fashion.] I also believe that having evidence to back up a claim tends to be a good thing, and oftentimes I will side with those that actually have a card supporting an argument. That said, I also believe that sometimes the “truth” of a situation can be ascertained without evidence (for example, there is a missing internal link to a disad; an endemic problem of all politics disads). Additionally, source indicts can have a decent impact on how I evaluate evidence (I am sorry, having some hack-job say a ridiculous claim doesn’t make it so.) I also believe that questions of date or recency can be irrelevant absent a clear warrant as to why having a card from yesterday is more important than last week (for example, some major event their evidence doesn’t take into account.) I think an important thing to understand about me as a judge is that I detest source lists in rebuttals and would much prefer an assessment of why a particular piece of evidence or line of argumentation is superior.

2. Impact calculus matters – and this extends to virtually every argument that can be made in a debate round. You should explain why the nuclear war, value to life lost, or ground lost is more important than the opposing side’s nuclear war, value to life lost, or education lost. Start these debates early, and it will help you get my ballot.

3. Offense/defense seems somewhat silly to me considering that sometimes I believe there to be ZERO risk of an argument. However, I can see the case why most offensive arguments tend to me more important than defensive arguments, and while I believe that there are times when you can win zero risk of an argument, it probably benefits you in having offensive arguments as well.

4. CX is binding and I tend to take notes about it. If there is a damning concession, I will make sure I know about it throughout the debate.

As for specific, controversial arguments, I generally believe the following:

1. Critiques…whatever, I don’t care, so long as they make sense to me at the end of a debate. If they don’t, you will have a hard time winning my ballot. Make sure you make examples of how the other side’s logic, rhetoric, etc. is specifically problematic. These questions also extend to non-traditional Affirmatives. I tend to believe the best strategy for a non-traditional Affirmative against a framework/topicality argument is “impact-turning” it, and providing some justification why a particular worldview of debate is still predictable in some sense of the word.

2. Topicality & Theory…I tend to believe it to be a voting issue and I like to believe that topicality is a question of what the topic should like throughout the year. I am not sure how I adjudicate questions of “in-round” abuse. I also tend to evaluate topicality more in terms of evidence than in terms of random examples. It's better if you have a card saying their interpretation leads to bad stuff, rather than just asserting it. Theory debates tend to be resolved in a similar fashion, however, I am not a fan of “cheap-shots” and saying something is a voting issue doesn’t make it so. Deep down I believe in abusive negative strategies, but I can see myself “pulling the trigger” on theory arguments.

The important thing to keep in mind about a lot of this is that deep down I want to be open to what you debaters offer as arguments. However, it is probably better for you if you couch these arguments in terms of my predispositions.

Proviso for high school debaters: I am not terribly on-top of the specifics of the National Service topic and I have judged at one high school tournament this year where the only argument I think I heard that was "topic specific" was an Iraq Pullout DA. That said, I will work hard to understand what is going on in a given debate. I wrote a thesis on Don't Ask Don't Tell, so I probably know a lot about that particular issue. If it's an issue, I may ask you to explain what a particular word or phrase means at the end of a round.

Speaker points: The central themes that enter into my decision of speaker points are (and these are in order of importance): (1) The quality of the arguments presented. It is strange to me that people expect good speaker points because they sound "smooth" and "persuasive" on an obviously ridiculous argument like OSpec. I am also not a big fan of the "throw a bunch of shit against the wall strategy" and will not reward debaters based on the number of cards they read. (2) Clarity. If I can't understand the words coming out of your mouth, that is bad for your speaker points. (3) Assessment in the later speeches. A great rebuttal can make up for a bad constructive and its harder the other way around. I tend to put more emphasis on strong rebuttals. It is hard for me to come up with an exact formula for speaker points, but I hope that gives you an idea of how I decide such things. I have never given out a 30, and I only reserved 26's for the most obviously bad speakers.