Turoff,+Corey

After a decade, I’ve now finally decided to update my philosophy. I’ve found that nothing I could say about each of the main argument categories would be particularly relevant because of one simple issue- my ultimate preference is to evaluate the round in whatever way you tell me to. I’m not saying you can call me a “tabula rasa” judge, if people even use that phrase anymore…I’m saying that my goal is to intervene as little as possible in the debate. That being said, here are some things that might be helpful for you to know:

1. I find myself evaluating every argument in a debate as a disad. This is obvious for actual disadvantages, counterplans, etc but for me, it's also true of theory, framework, and topicality. Did you read framework against a critical race aff? Then you likely have a predictability disad and a fairness disad against the aff’s framing of how debate should be. Did the neg read a conditional CP, K alternative, and insist the SQ is an option? You probably have ground and fairness disads to the CP/K. In those instances, you HAVE to make an impact argument that makes sense. Exclude the aff, reject the CP, reject the team…whatever. I will compare those impacts to the impacts the other side has (flexibility, education, etc.). It’d be a lot better if you did the comparison for me.

2. It is very unlikely for you to convince me that someone’s argument should be excluded from debate because of framework (I'm only talking about outright exclusion...explaining how your aff impacts compete with the K's are good arguments in my mind). I have an easy time evaluating topicality debates against affs with a plan. I have an easy time (if you talk at a reasonable pace and actually organize your answers to what the other side said rather than just reading a block) evaluating theory debates against counterplans and K alternatives. But- saying the K doesn’t belong in debate because you weren’t prepared to defend the assumptions behind your plan is unlikely to win me over. And by defend your assumptions, I mean the reasons why your aff is a good idea. In other words, I don't see why investigating the ways your aff is effected by how you've described the world could be unpredictable for the aff. They are your assumptions. You made them while putting together your aff. Did you not think about your use of security, technological thinking, etc? Moreover, saying the aff doesn’t belong in debate because you couldn’t predict their aff is likely going to lose to the education disad built into the 1AC (i.e. we should talk about this stuff because of racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. probably outweighs the risk of your hollow threat to quit because you don’t like debate anymore after this particular round). This does not mean a more substantive version of framework that tries to engage the other side's method for engaging in politics is similarly doomed...I really enjoy those debates.

3. I hate reading cards after debates. It seems like a difficult proposition to avoid intervention if I have to read all the evidence and reconstruct the round after it happens. No, I don’t want you to flash me your speech before it starts. I flow during your speeches. If I wanted a totally backwards, out of order, patchworked record of your speech, I’d prefer to go hang out with my friends while you prep your speeches and then just get an emailed document for me to read at the end. And while getting extra time to hang out sounds amazing to me, it doesn’t really fit the goal of being at the tournament.

4. Your flow should look a lot like mine. If you’re one of those people who rarely flows and instead just look at your opponent’s speech doc, I’m going to hate watching you debate and you will get low speaker points. The number of debates I’ve had to call for cards or decide based on things people missed in their opponent’s speeches because they weren’t flowing is staggering given what judging was like for me before paperless. I don’t want to do this. I want to give you a fair shake at winning the debate. And I want you to control your destiny and that is not going to happen if I’m reading everything after the debate.

5. If I do call for cards, it’s because you did not do the work in your speech for me to have enough for a decision. I would just like to warn you about this situation- when I read cards, I look at everything. The un-underlined parts of your evidence help me determine the quality and context of said evidence. I will not feel bad telling you (after a debate where I needed to read your evidence) that your evidence sucks, is about something else, or that I think its just wrong after reading the warrants. More likely than these scenarios, if your opponent reads evidence too and does enough work analyzing it (with spin), I won’t even read yours and decide they’re right.

6. Impact comparison is the most important part of your rebuttals. Discussing the comparative probability of impacts seems, to me, more important than the magnitude but hey, who I am to tell you how to do your job?

7. Yes, I am fairly -well versed in critical literature. Yes, I read those arguments in college. To be honest with you though, that was a long time ago. I did not read critical arguments in high school and at this point, the time difference between now and my years in college vs. the time difference between now and my years in high school is a negligible amount. I am not a K judge. My goal when I walk into a round with a ballot is to help you see the debate from an outside observer’s point of view in the hope that your next round is that much better.

8. Last framework rant- Topical version of the aff needs a solvency advocate (or at least something that resembles one...the threshold for which seems easily debated out in the round) AND an actual explanation for how it resolves the aff's framework offense. It really bothers me when the 2NC stands up and makes up a "topical" method for "solving" the aff's critical offense. If half your argument is about fairness/predictable literature base, why would Debate be better if we had affs like the one you just concocted from nothing? What kind of "education" would result if a plan was read that only artificially related back to the "advantage" area? So far, the answer to those questions have been "it wouldn't" and "worthless" in debates I've judged.