Smith,+Verity

Verity Smith, Lecturer, Committee on Degrees in Social Studies, Harvard University (updated February 2010)

Background: I debated seriously in high school (mostly c-x, some l-d; also trophied at the NFL in extemp) for Bainbridge High School (WA) and Interlake High School (WA), and did CEDA at Whitman College through my sophomore year of college. I coached at summer institutes after my senior year of high school and my freshman year of college, and continued judging throughout college. However, while I was once an active participant in the activity, I have not attended a tournament in over 15 years, so am a bit rusty.

Style Issues and Other Aspects of Judging Philosophy:

-When I debated and coached myself, I was quite comfortable with speed, and still certainly consider myself a "flow" judge. However, even then I felt that excessive speed that sacrificed clear articulation and argumentation was problematic (eg slow down and emphasis key points, including taglines -- I may miss what you are talking about if you refer to a piece of evidence only by source/date w/o linking it back to an argument and/or tagline; also be sure to provide LINKS between parts of an argument - esp. re: DAs). That is likely to be even more the case now, as my flowing skills are rusty.

-I will ask to examine evidence after a round when necessary - eg if I think a debate may hang on a card that I need to rehear or etc. - but I won't attempt to reconstruct an entire debate from briefs/evidence provided after the round if I missed the *arguments* to which this evidence was meant to be linked in the first place.

-This also means that 2AR and 2NR who provide clear recaps and attempt to construct decision rules and/or narrow the scope of the debate to key arguments are more likely to prevail than those who simply throw a bunch of new evidence on the table (unless, of course, new evidence is necessary to extend/respond to a preceding point).

- I am very open to just about any kind of argument, including Kritik and performative styles of argument, theory, counterplans, args re: topicality, etc etc. HOWEVER: simply running these args as shells as part of a larger spread is not enough. The arguments must be *made*, must be compelling, and if contesting the overall framework of a debate - eg not just the substance - I do think the burden is higher to establish good reasons and arguments for such a strategy. That said, I will and have voted on such issues before.

- re: the above - I should also say that I teach social theory/political theory/gender theory/philosophy. That means that I have read the thinkers often cited in Kritik style debates - often seriously, many times - and while this makes me receptive to hearing these kinds of claims, on the one hand, it may also make me skeptical of random cards from these perspectives which seem to me to be out of context or wrongly applied. So, be sure you actually understand the larger framework of a thinker's claim before deploying it in a facile fashion.

- re: "new" arguments in rebuttals: I tend to be sympathetic to the claim that wholly new arguments should not be raised in the final rebuttals. However, I give a fair amount of leeway to 1AR and 1NRs when raising related points / modifications of foregoing args that may still seem "new." 2AR and 2NR should be careful to frame args in terms of what went before.

- Being aggressive, intense, or dramatic is fine. Being rude or disdainful of your opponents is not. The line between these is sometimes tough to navigate, but it is important.