Murrell,+Matthew

Demographics: Coach & Director, McNeil High School, Austin, Texas - 6 Years

College Debate: SWT, Late '90s High School: Lindsay HS (small school Texas debate), '95 State Runner-up, '96 State Champion

General Ideas: For the most part, though I loathe labels, I would probably fit best into the paradigm of “argument critic”. I evaluate a round from the last two rebuttals backwards. I examine the 2NR and 2AR, take what I find to be the persuasive arguments in those speeches, then use my flow and your evidence to assign validity and weight to those arguments. Absent anything else, I default to two ideas on argumentation - (1) I buy into Toulmin's model completely (a complete argument has a claim, data, and warrant) and (2) I buy the offense/defense idea with a caveat. That caveat is that defaulting to a 100% offense/defense model has eroded a lot of good research and turned debates into "any risk of X means we win." It's hard for me in some cases to pull the trigger when the neg wins a small risk of an incredibly generic link to an improbable impact scenario versus a well articulated, specific defense story by the 2AR. Like most, I'm a huge fan of specificity. I’m also motivated by non-intervention; if an argument isn’t in the 2AR or the 2NR, then it will not factor in my decision. Throwing out a four-second, unwarranted, unsubstantiated claim in the 2AR/2NR means that I’m not pulling the warrant for you. By the same token, mentioning an author’s name in those final speeches without explaining the claim and warrant in the evidence likely means that I will not be reading that evidence for you after the round. Finally, I can’t imagine a world where I would vote for the negative absent some sort of offensive reason to do so, given that the affirmative does their job in the 1AC.

Style: Generally, my flow is solid. I make every attempt to keep a tight flow and am generally communicative if I miss arguments. Please ensure that I have pen time on theory, analytics and elaborate tags you want on my flow. A 2AC that can put 8 answers on T in 25 seconds may be impressive, but if I'm not writing them down (and they're not warranted), they're really not helping the affirmative. Your speaker points are partially dependent on your demeanor. Be nice. If you're not, your speaker points will suffer. Ethos goes a long way with me. I love appropriate humor, and will find you substantially more persuasive if you do things that show me you’re more than a line-by-line refutation machine.

Theory: I'm fine with these debates, and I think they're a great vehicle to see who is good at articulating warrants and adapting blocks versus someone that's just going to read someone else's args that don't interact in that particular round. I generally default to the idea that theory debates aren't be all/end all propositions. For example, if the aff wins conditionality bad, it's much easier to sell me that the neg is stuck with the CP than the neg loses the round outright (though it's certainly up for debate and I've voted that way before). In 95% of situations, real, in-round abuse is necessary and very persuasive. By in-round abuse, I mean that you can point to a specific argument on the flow, and say “This argument proves abuse because it…..” I believe there may be a couple of instances where well articulated potential abuse is fine, but those situations are rare. I can’t imagine a theory debate that I would find persuasive that wouldn’t have lots of articulated interaction between multiple flows/positions. I think T is up for debate for any 1AC, and will certainly pull the trigger if the negative wins the flow, but don't see that happen often. I'm a 5 minutes on T in the 2NR kind-of-person, so your 30 second T Hail Mary at the top of the 2NR before moving on to another flow is a waste of both our time. I haven’t voted on an RVI in years, and in that instance, it was dropped in the block and I still felt bad. I do generally err neg on theory to protect the negative, and don't default to the idea that things like conditionality or no alternative are abusive, though I can certainly be persuaded that they are. I err neg here because my presumption on the substantive debate goes affirmative. For example, I'm not buying that Federalism links to their foreign policy 1AC just because you read a link that all federal action coopts state action; however, your conditional counterplan and K with no alternative that advocate different worlds are fine absent offense by the affirmative and a viable way to reconcile those worlds and decide the round in the 2NR. I’m not a fan personally of OSPEC, T Resolved, T Should, T Colon, or running theory for the sake of running theory. All plan-based arguments need to be written down before they are read in a speech. For the neg, this includes topicality violations, counterplan texts, and alternatives. For the aff, this includes your plan, perms, and we meets.

The K: I'm an intelligent person, read a lot of nonfiction, and buy the idea that language and discourse shapes our world, and that said language and discourse is usually created by those in power to crush those out of power. In addition, I've read some of the critical authors, both for debate and non-debate reasons. THAT BEING SAID, I see two trends in the K debate that trouble me and that I have a hard time overcoming. First, I see more and more K cards that are underlined down to the point that I have no idea what they mean. At the end of a round, if and when I call for evidence, I'll usually read a card three or four times without reading the tag. If I don't have any clue what the card says, then I'm not very likely to give that argument much weight in the bigger picture. I can’t count the number of rounds where the team that I thought was winning before I read evidence lost because their evidence was terrible. In K debates, it seems to happen frequently on both sides. Second, I see a lot of the arguments and literature that I generally understand essentialized in debate rounds to the point that it's comical. The idea that someone could summarize some authors in five minutes is mind-boggling. I've seen it done well, and voted on it, but it's done poorly more often than not. A bad, uneducated K debate is much worse than the same disad debate. If you didn’t cut your K (or the answers) and don’t understand the cards on the level that you understand that 1 + 1 = 2, then you probably shouldn’t be running it in front of me. I am an active card-cutting coach, and my threshold for all evidence, especially K evidence, is incredibly high.

Framework: In a round absent any sort of critical/pre-fiat ideas, I will default to policymaker. In a round with critical implications, I won't default anywhere. It's your job to tell me why pre-fiat doesn't matter, or why it should be weighed the same as post-fiat, or why post-fiat should come before pre-fiat, or why the entire notion of pre-fiat and post-fiat is dumb and we should go to something altogether different. If you give me no framework or way to evaluate the round, then you really have no reason to be happy or angry with my RFD.

Debate as an activity: I agree that debate is not perfect. The demographics aren't where they should be, and we need a better plurality of participants and viewpoints. As of late, however, an increasing number of debaters criticize the activity beyond that level, arguing, among other things, that it controls all of us and turns us into mindless subjects. Their ultimate conclusion seems to be that debate is somehow evil and produces more bad than good. Understand that if you run these arguments in front of me, there is a good chance that you will lose the round. Not only do I love this activity, but I also think that it's good for those participating and has produced more net good than evil. Also understand that I'm 30 years old and have been involved in debate over half of my life. I made the conscious choice to go to college to be a high school teacher and debate coach. I made the conscious choice to take my job. Every year, I make the conscious choice to spend my holidays and free time writing and editing topic papers for the national ballot. It's VERY hard for me to not intervene when you say that this activity is wrong and bad. Could the activity improve? Yes. Do a lot of folks need to change the way they advocate ideas and the rhetoric they use? Absolutely. Will I listen to and vote on those arguments? All day long. But at the point that you insult what is a large part of what I do and who I am, don't expect me to be able to be objective. Beyond that, it blows my mind that someone can run that type of argument and then be pissed because they lose the round. In my mind, that simply proves to me that you're commodifying the argument to win. And yes, all of this will factor in my decision, regardless of its presence on my flow. Performance: If you perform, I’m more than likely not the critic you want in the back of the room. I was in theatre in high school, have listened to The Dead Prez, KRS, and others for over a decade, and do everything I can as a coach to make this activity more inclusive. Without SUBSTANTIAL framework debate justifying your performance, however, I will default to what I personally believe policy debate should be. The affirmative should present a topical 1AC, the negative should present some sort of persuasive reason why the 1AC shouldn’t be voted on, and all argumentation should follow Toulmin’s notion of what arguments should be.

Conclusion: If you have any questions, please ask. I think that it's your job to figure out if your strategy jives with how I view the debate world, and to that end I will readily answer questions about specific arguments or positions that you may have. Ask me questions before the round. PLEASE. Be nice. Have fun.