Miller,+Joan

My name is Joan Miller. I’ve judged for 4 years in Idaho, Washington, California, Nevada, and Utah, and have judged both policy and LD. I default to policymaker/offense-defense and reasonability, and am fine with speed and most positions as long as they are clear.

Specifics:

Having not been a debater, BE CLEAR. If someone stops you mid speech, I should be able to repeat verbatim the last sentence that you said. I won't continually tell you to be clear. I may give it once-MAKE IT A PERMANENT CHANGE, even if it means dropping an argument. Most debaters slow for a sentence or two, then right back up to speed. If I can't understand you, I won't vote for you. Your job is to make sure I understand.

Slow down for structural markers, authors, and texts. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF YOUR POSITION, so you're probably not doing well with the position if I miss it. Cards should be just as clear as analytics.

I call for stuff if there is a dispute about contents or I missed flowing something.

Give me structure. A mess of arguments is hard to follow and flow, the claims made are not clear, which arguments warrant which claims is a mess, and I should be able to tell what you need to do to win offense or what your opponent needs to do to answer. If warrants are not articulated as independent, I'll default to assuming they are all part of a link chain and you will have to win them all. I am not going to give you the benefit of the doubt when you are obscure about the function of arguments. Structure them clearly and it won't be a problem.

Weighing is the easiest path to my ballot. Almost without exception the debater that does better weighing is the debater who is going to win the round. If you don't do weighing, don't expect me to do it for you; just because you say "I cause more death" does not explain to me why I care nor why that means you're somehow ahead. You have to do that yourself.

DAs and Counterplans: I have absolutely zero problems with these. Make sure they link, and that they make sense, and you have yourself a reasonable impact. I don’t care about WHAT you run a DA or counterplan on either – it doesn’t need to be a plan or an advocacy for it to apply. Just make the link obvious and strong.

Plans: No problem with plans (this bit is mostly for LD). Like DAs & CPs, make it make sense, make it link, and you will have no problem extending your impacts. That said, I do have a hard time swallowing K plans that don’t defend the resolution. I do feel that the resolution exists for a reason.

Kritiks: I don’t have a problem with the positions. That said, a lot of people run Ks for the sake of running Ks. Do NOT do that. NEG: I want strong links to Aff and an Alt. If it’s strategic and you understand it well enough to be persuasive, go for it. Also, not being a former debater, I have not read through the dense literature associated with Ks. So MAKE THEM MAKE SENSE TO ME. I have absolutely zero idea what ‘bare life’ and ‘bios’ are, so make absolutely sure to tell me, because it’s difficult to vote for something that I don’t understand.

Theory: I would caution you from using buzzwords or the more obscure shells because I do not go to camp or class on this. Abuse better be obvious, because otherwise I came to hear about the topic. Running theory as a strategy is highly unadvisable. DO NOT all in on theory. I will evaluate a well-warranted RVI against a frivolous shell accompanied by an offensive counter-interpretation, but otherwise debate the substance you came to debate.

"Meta" is not a magic wand to get you out of engaging warrants and neither are mantras like "epistemology precedes ontology." You may be addressing a set of questions in which some sense come prior to the questions your opponents framework arguments engage, but that doesn't mean that the particular arguments you're making preclude or answer back particular arguments they are making. In general, I give generic preclusion claims (including claims that skeptical arguments preclude positive warrants for an ethical framework) very little weight unless accompanied by substantive comparison of warrants.

Similarly to most judges, I will straight up drop any debater that tries to argue that sexism, racism, heteronormativity, or any other form of bigotry is ethically defensible or even permissible. Additionally, you will receive the absolute minimum amount of speaks permitted by the tournament, preferably zero. Arguments that are not quite this indefensible, but have an easy slide to becoming them include: the impact to oppression must be warranted, you must prove why oppression is bad, or arguments placing the blame for oppression on its survivors. It’s likely that you will make that slide unintentionally, and so I recommend avoiding these types of arguments just as vehemently.

tl;dr: I do not grant access to the ballot for theory without a warranted, in-depth discussion of why I care about how the practice affects debate; in critical debate we call this the role of the ballot. Ultimately, I will hold them to the same standard we hold critical positions for access to the ballot. If you care about why, keep reading; otherwise, skip this section.

I have reconsidered how I think about theory debates, after repeated exposure on a variety of different circuits. There is a critical problem with how theory debates – especially ones that relate to how critical positions should be read – are presented and perceived in Lincoln-Douglas debate. Theory is not used as a contingency for the checking of illegitimate positions, as it is intended, but rather as a strategic position, and a default argument to avoid engaging with the sometimes very legitimate and warranted objections being raised by the opposing team. Arguments that are merely strategic – meaning arguments that pre-empt, frame, or otherwise produce positive time trade-offs – are being implicated as illegitimate, often with only very basic and surface-level warrants. Worse, and more alarmingly, arguments that try to make debate a safer, more inclusive, and generally more educational forum of discussion are being particularly targeted; what we call the critical positions. Completely legitimate arguments about the safety of the debate space are being met with claims about their illegitimacy, and those responsive claims are being granted primacy despite purporting to pursue the same end. For some reason, we allow very exclusive arguments about ‘fairness’ of debate structure to exclude arguments about the fairness of the very foundation of the activity: the judges and competitors that constitute the forum of debate.

For this reason, I am clarifying the standard with which I evaluate those arguments. Instead of assuming that theory and framework arguments relating to fairness and educational value of debate structure get automatic primacy above all, I am going to hold them to the same level of rigor to which we as a community hold the arguments of debaters we identify as ‘critically’ indicting the fairness and inclusivity of the fabric of our activity. That means that your theory shell with superficial warrants about how fairness ‘is required to compare the skill of debaters fairly’ and education being ‘the only reason debate is funded’ is no longer sufficient to warrant my ballot. Instead, you are going to have to do the work to prove to me why the minor structural skew committed by the other team/debater is so egregious that they should lose, or even that they should be deprived of their argument.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This is especially true in instances where the legitimacy of critical arguments of the pre-fiat variety are concerned; not only is there an incredible abundance of literature on this issue, but this literature has been a prominent part of debate for the better part of two decades, and no-one who calls themselves a competent, multi-year debater should have any excuse to not be exposed to at least some of it. The thrust of this rant is fairly simple; if you’re going to read theory, you’re going to have to do something along the lines of proving a role of the ballot. If you don’t, don’t expect to get it.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Speaks: Be polite and civil. Being rude or condescending is the fast track to low speaks for me. That said, there is a difference between being polite and being nerve-grating - interrupting in CX, for example, is fine, but don't be passive-aggressive about it. Also, be articulate and clear in speaking (this includes spewing - just because you're going fast doesn't mean you can't be clear, if it does, maybe you're going too fast). It's not hard to get good speaks with me, if you actually pay it any mind.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">LD Specifics: The value criterion in LD IS NOT A VOTER. It’s a framework for EVALUATING voters. If you win your value criterion and you don’t win any impacts, it is unlikely that you will pick up my ballot. That said, I give them a lot of weight. If you don’t link to some variety of framework, which is usually the V/C in LD, then you don’t have impacts, and you need impacts to win the round.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Policy Specifics: I default to impact calculus unless given an alternate framework. Please don’t make me default; I’m someone who has a lot of experience with framework and can handle most things you try to throw at me. Also, don’t stretch your link stories. Pushing extinction when the link story is very sketchy is a fast way to lose your impact; a weak link means weak defense will take it out. Give strong links, and your chance of winning them goes exponentially upward.