Johnson,+Jarrett

Jarrett Johnson

Post-Secondary: Freshman @ University of California: Los Angeles (Los Angeles, CA) Secondary: Thunderbird High School - Graduated 2009 (Phoenix, AZ) HS Affiliation: Brentwood High School

Experience: I have participated in Public Forum around the Arizona circuit along with Parliamentary Debate in the collegiate circuit. I have competed for three years total. While I may not have much experience with argumentation, I firmly believe that the burden is up to the debaters in how I should evaluate the round. So if I am on your panel, make clear of what I should evaluate. I prefer to judge novice rounds.

1. Speed: I have flowed rounds where debaters spread their arguments. While I do not mind this, I would highly suggest you do not as the chance for me to miss your significant contentions will increase. Therefore, I suggest a brisk pace of argumentation. I will say "Clear" twice without penalty if a debater is speaking without enough articulation, and each subsequent instances will force his or her speaker points to suffer.

2. Sign-Posting: The more often you do this, the better chance that I will flow your rebuttals in the correct place. Often I have debaters who tell me to flow this without telling me where and not addressing a particular argument.

2.5 Organization of Case: The more you organize your case, the better I will be able to flow your information. Saying stuff like "Contention One" "Subpoint A" "Little One" will alert me to place a tag for your arguments.

3. Topicality, Kritics, etc...: Coming from a PFD and Parliamentary background, I usually entertain topicality arguments as long as their legitimate arguments that is not unfair to the opponent. If you tell me Topicality is A Priori and your opponent fails to refute this, you have a much greater chance in winning the round.

4. Standards: If all meta-debate has been granted to both players, the next thing I tend to look for is which standards I will be using to perceive the following arguments. I consider standards as also a contention in itself, so treat it like one and attempt to defend it even if you have lost. If you believe that you have lost it, feel free to then weigh your arguments through your opponent's Value/Criterion (provided you have access to do so).

5. Warrants: The next thing I tend to look for is the warrants provided for each claim. Make sure they're legitimate and connects your claim/argument to the resolution through the accepted lens. I do not accept cards as a sole warrant to a claim. If you just say "My argument is X, Kant says THIS" and leave it at that, you are forcing someone else to argue for you without providing your own anaylsis. In an analytical paper, would you just have a topic sentence and a quotation? It's even worse when you use evidence cards as a contention on its own.

6. Impacts: The last thing that I will look for if the above seems to be washed are the impacts. Make sure you don't just state that impacts will occur from a particular action. Provide quantifiable and/or qualitative weight to your impacts or else I am to assume you have no impacts. I suggest straying away from saying "apocalypse" "extinction" "supernova" to achieve 100% quantification. I will then assume if you have done little to no work on your impacts if your opponent provides sufficient descriptions.

7. Silver Bullets: Although debate is a game that invites strategy, we have to look to this activity as a method of education. I don't mind a trap that has been set since the beginning of the debate, but don't introduce a card that comes from nowhere that entirely obliterates the opponent's ground and/or access to the resolution.

8. Presence: I come from a largely Theatre background since childhood, and I will usually provide extra Speaker points to debaters who utilize both their physical and vocal properties to their advantage. Remember, debate is an activity of PERSUASION. I firmly believe forensics is much more than just words.

9. Post-Round discussions: Amongst everything that I hate about judging, discussions after a round between a debater and a judge especially irritates me. If you ask me "Why didn't you vote for me here ->...I clearly won that contention?!?" Remember that it is the debater's responsibility to clarify arguments. If I don't catch something, I cannot take responsibility for something not emphasized enough. You can feel free to ask "What should I improve on for later rounds?" and I will gladly respond, but getting specific to certain contentions that were the deciding factors of the round is, to me, trying to critique the judge. You don't want to risk future speaker points and possibly a ballot, altogether.

9. Humor: I invite all humor as long as it does not offend. For each time you make me laugh, +.5 speaker points.

10. Theory: As long as you provide a coherent rationale, I am fine with it.