Bacon,+Michael

Michael Bacon Newburgh Free Academy

Greetings, while I have spent a great deal of my time and energy in debate on things policy I have coached and judged L-D since the 80's and greatly prefer L-D at this moment in time, I love strategical debates and am always happy to discuss any issues of L-D anything. I am VERY VERY nervous about judge pref sheets because I find them to be an excuse for judges to run amok and force debaters to kowtow to their biases...Be that as it may, I think it's your debate, do what you want, __please do it well__ and even more usefully, do it better than than your opponent

Some Suggestions

1. we call it debate for a reason, ignoring the other person's arguments and simply repeating yourself ad infinitum does not debate make... 2. I am open to theory more than the average judge but if you decide to run topicality, counterplans, etc and you do it badly I promise I will be the first person in the room to notice so be careful what you wish for 3. I VASTLY prefer organized presentations of voting issues, I really hate random easter egg hunts for voting issues where debaters sorta just shout out that's my x number voter at odd intervals 4. unlike some L-D judges, I think specific examples enrich an argument and help specify what an individual is discussing 5. claims without warrants are about as useful as submarines with screen doors and just as easy to sink 6. who cares how fast you speak ( I learned to flow about a thousand years ago), it's what you say that matters, there is no penalty or reward for speaking at a certain rate 7. Calling something a priori is fascinating but there really ought to be solid reasons why it is or it seems you are in point 5! 8. An argument is pretty much true until you prove it isn't no matter how painful the inaccuracy, its YOUR job to say ummmmmmm...no 9. every judge wants rounds that aren't boring, if you can avoid being an idiot personality can go a long way 10. It seems like the round comes down to 3 things- a battle of values, a discussion of burdens and/or a issues of "theory"- but who knows maybe you have a whole new paradigm 11. I have a definite sympathy for the horrors of the 4 minute 1AR and give latitude to 2AR expansions of underanalyzed arguments as long as an argument was actually made in the 1AR, negs ought to be able to predict what will be blown up and can beat up that which they choose to at will in their NR 12. Aggressive argumentation is often good, nice debaters who do that are even better

13. It would absolutely kill me to see you run frivolous theory. 14. Why is this still up? I'm kind of dead now. It's my job to look at what was said and decide who did it best, it's your task to do it best!