Gillespie,+Colin

Oct. 2, 2011 Colin Gillespie Affiliations: Niles West, New Trier

Tournament: Georgetown

Short version:

1) Persuading me of the merits of your position as compared to your opponents' position is the simplest way to pick up my ballot. 2) I would prefer that debaters be kind to one another and also enjoy themselves, though I won't insist on it.

Longer version:

1) Background: I debated for three years at New Trier High School (97-00) and coached intermittently there until 2006. I have not judged a debate round in five years. This should impact your attempts to persuade me of the merits of your position in the following ways: first, I have no familiarity with this topic beyond what I am told in the debate round.

Second, I have no familiarity with developments in the debate community beyond 2006. What is common knowledge, or cliche, or a fixed idea for some judges who have been immersed in the activity will, in all likelihood, be completely foreign to me. My own hunch is that this is particularly important with respect to modern developments in "framework" debates in particular, and critique theory debates in general. If I do not understand a position I am less likely to vote for it, and therefore, it may be necessary for debaters to expend more effort in explanation on these aspects of a debate than they are accustomed to.

2) Predispositions: What follows are default positions, subject to change by anything that debaters say in a debate round. With respect to aspects of my philosophy, I am indebted to certain of what I consider to be model judge philosophies, and will attempt to be true to their spirit in my own judging.

A) Arguments: I attempt to exercise no predisposition in favor or opposed to any variety of debate arguments, though my success in this enterprise is probably a delusion. What I enjoy in debate probably will not influence your strategy, nor should it. I am not necessarily inclined to vote on kinds of arguments that I enjoy. What I enjoy in a debate is a modality of debate (call it..."good") and this modality does not need to be tethered to the content of particular arguments.

B) Theory: A team probably does not need to win that what they do is "good", just okay. This of course is subject to change based on what debaters say in a debate round.

3) Impact calculus (or, when judges intervene): My own experience suggests that judge intervention is a result of debaters not resolving, for themselves, all of the contingencies in a round. That is, a team not resolving the implications of winning a risk of a disad, and losing a risk of a solvency deficit on a counterplan. (Or, alternatively, losing a risk of a disad, and winning a soIvency deficit to a counterplan.) If this contingency is not addressed by debaters in a round, or if I am not given sufficient guidance on how to address this contingency by debaters themselves, then I will resolve the contingency in the best way that I see fit. This may frustrate the debaters, but probably not as much as it frustrates me (trust me).

Additional questions? Please ask. ceg323@nyu.edu