Keeton,+Joe

Joe Keeton

Judging Philosophy Update January 2010. For the past year I have been managing a private company in preparation to assume full ownership and the experience has given me a greater respect for certainty of outcome and how these philosophies relate. __My background:__ I starting debating as a college novice on the SE Asia topic (1997) and have been involved with a HS or College Rez ever since. My high school never had a policy debate program but debate has been a part of my life ever since I found out it existed. I left academics after receiving my bachelors because I wanted to get out of the bubble that characterized my experience and so debate was something I did outside of the 9-5 corporate hours. For the record (because people have requested it): I debated for the University of Richmond 1997-2001 (Lisa Heller & Jason Stone each for 2 years as head coaches). I’ve coached high school debate at Miami Beach FL High 2001-2002, The Bronx High School of Science 2003-2005 and Jenkintown PA High 2006. I’ve coached college debate with the New York Coalition 2006-2009, and I now work with West GA 2009 – present. __Approach to the round:__ I come into each round expecting to flow as best I can both sides. I want to make my decision on what was said during the speeches and will often default to how cards are characterized and impacted during the speech instead of reading them after. I do pay attention and try to spot inconsistencies in arguments made between positions during the round. The single most important thing for you to constantly explain is why whatever argument you go for should win you the round, if I had to pick one thing to say. __Aff:__ I’m looking to be able to draw a straight line from the 2ac-1ar-2ar, and dislike a 1ar that goes off the reservation set up by the 2ac. I reserve the right to unilaterally protect the 2nr by excluding “new” 2ar argumentation but I can appreciate a well articulated 2ar. Beyond a failure to constantly extend argumentation I find an aff will lose because they often concede way too much, often by way of non-response, and/or they don’t maximize any concessions the neg has given them. __You run a straight up policy aff/k aff with plan text__: Remember I debated in the D7/ADA in the late 90s when T is a voter and the K must be unique were in the rules. I may not have agreed with all these rules but it certainly gives me experience in dealing with affs that claim extinction scenarios, have to defend topicality, and value consequentalism as a core value. If both sides default to policy argumentation and neither side gives me a criteria to evaluate the round I will probably default to an offense/defense mentality but would much rather use criteria introduced by the teams during the round. I’m also a big fan of a well timed impact turn and affs that can make strategic concessions and still outweigh. __You read a K aff without plan text/do other stuff__: I would say that the more your project relates to the topic the more confident you should feel in front of me. I happen to really enjoy nuclear weapons as a topic and believe they can be a focal point for a lot of criticism that has a literature base. If many of the cards you do read in both constructives reference nukes or some aspect of their being then I’m likely to be more receptive then if you project moves toward other topics and your responses become very specific for what you are doing but generic in relation to the topic. I think the aff gets a chance to explain what they are doing before I vote. So for example if there is no plan text, sock puppets, musical instruments, k’s of debate or something else project you want to engage in while you are aff whether I vote for you depends on how directly you handle the negatives attacks and explain how and why your project should wins you the round. __Evidence vs. Analytics__: This is very much contingent on the round. I’ve judged rounds where I thought the 2ac would need to read 50+ cards to beat the 1nc, and I’ve listened to negative positions where, imo, a couple of on-point analytics with historical examples, well developed logic, or well articulated clarification would be enough. Often how much weight I put into analytics in deciding the round is a function of how well it’s extended, explained, and defended from any opposition refutation in final rebuttals. I’m very favorable to someone who can explain why the evidence says what it says. __Reading cards in the round:__ There is definitely a point of diminishing returns for teams that just read evidence. I only need so much evidence to establish an argument and would caution against just reading cards and providing no context for how it relates to the debate at hand. __Asking me to read cards after the round__: I will call for cards but my pre-disposition is to do so as sparingly as possible. I prefer to default to the debaters to explain what the card says and how it relates to the debate and will default to that analysis if it’s provided. Keep in mind, if I do call for evidence at the end of the round I’m either looking to accept it or reject it and I reserve the right to look at the card in its entire context. I have voted against teams because their arguments were not supported by their evidence before. __Negative:__ Overall I’d recommend you tailor your strategy as specifically as possible to the affirmative. Beyond that I’ll listen to any argumentation you offer and how well you extend and explain why your positions should win the round will form my opinion of the round. __Disads:__ I can assign a disad zero risk. Some things that can lead to that outcome: if an argument is just extended in the 2nr without any impact calculus, if you drop aff responses, or if the argument is just incomprehensible. I am part of the cult of uniqueness, as I’ve found it to be called. Also I will vote on disads that do not end in extinction. That’s not to say if the aff sets the framework to impact level and solves multiple extinction scenarios that I’m going to vote on your single, less then extinction, argument but I think plenty of reasons exist for why a policy should be rejected that don’t end in extinction that can be articulated. __T__: I really view T more like an evidentiary hearing in a civil or criminal case. I’m interested in the aff at hand and not as interested in how an interpretation might affect debate as a whole. To evaluate T I will likely call for any definitions read, plan text, and my flow. I would generally say that I side aff as the year develops. I’m more likely to vote on a violation that is specific to the affirmative instead of a generic violation applied to the affirmative. __Theory:__ People will probably say I don’t vote on theory nor am I a big fan and they are right. If you want me to vote on it I’d suggest two things. 1. Tailor your theory arguments as specifically to the round at hand as possible. 2. If you think the theory arg should be a reason the other team loses the round, as opposed to a reason to reject a position in the round, you should be upfront about that from the start with warrants. I’ve had conversations where someone has defended the idea that there is no distinction between 1 conditional argument and 6 (random #) conditional argument(s), I disagree. A negative that runs 3 conditional cps a k and impact turns case is much different than a negative that runs and cp and k in the 1nc. Lastly I must confess that I am 3-0 including being on the bottom of two out-round panels in the following scenario. Team A makes theory argument and predicts what team b will do in the next speech. In that next speech team b does exactly what team A says obviously to being called out in the prior speech. __Aspec/Ospec –__ You should know I have a pretty high threshold for the following logic – Because the of affirmative plan text we can’t read an argument (which we may not even have) because the affirmative could make a clarification denying us the ability to ever get a link. There used to be a time when negatives would read their argument, wait for the aff to re-clarify out of the links, and then respond in the block. __Vagueness/Plan flaws__ – Much more receptive when the affirmative attempts to avoid taking positions or has written their plan with an obvious flaw. __K:__ In a conversation earlier this year I heard the following quote “I can take in and appreciate a k round, esp. a good k round, but that doesn’t mean I want season tickets nor does it mean that I want to see the wildest and most eccentric because I don’t always know what to do.” If you do want to run a K I would say the more specific you can tailor your arguments to the affirmative the better you’ll be. That said I’ve seen a number of very good debaters respond very poorly to critical argumentation. I have spent time reading K literature in an attempt to better understand it on its terms but don’t assume I support everything I’ve read. I have coached a number of k teams and will vote on the arguments. How the other team links and why the argument should win the round are the two most important questions to be answered. Two scenarios I’ve observed 1) I’ve seen a number of debaters who will drop a lot of buzzwords and shallow explanations and expect the judge to fill in a lot of assumed by unstated assumptions about arguments and 2) teams will run ridiculously complicated theories figuring that the judge will go along with them because people fear having to say they just don’t comprehend certain arguments. I’m not looking to replicate either of those two scenarios. __Lastly speaker points__. I’ve found formulating a process to assign speaker points arbitrary and inconsistent and believe that debaters are the guinea pigs in experiments between 30 & 100 point scales with other variations depending on the tournament. I’ll say that I’m willing to consider input given by debaters during the round when I formulate speaker points. Let’s be clear I’m probably looking for more then you telling me to give you perfect speaks because it would be great for you, but if you want to provide a range or offer an honest assessment of your performance in the round and how I should rank you, I’ll consider what you say when forming my opinion. You don’t have to if you don’t want to I’ll continue to generate points on my own but consider the invitation open.