Shields,Matt

I haven’t been involved in debate in some time. In fact, the last time I judged a round was about five years ago, so that’s probably worth keeping in mind. But I think there are a few things I can say about how I’ll approach the round that I hope you’ll find helpful. The main thing is that I’m looking for you to tell me how to evaluate the round. I want – to use that standard line – to interfere and intervene as little as possible. But I have a feeling I have a different sense of what that involves from other judges. To me that means the entire decision should be laid out for me from start-to-finish: I want to know what the standard is for evaluating the round (or if we’re not using one, then I’d like it explained how you want me to go about evaluating arguments), I want to know exactly what the warrants for arguments are, what their links to that standard (or other weighing mechanism or metric) are, and why your opponent’s offense doesn’t link to that standard, or, what in my experience was usually more relevant to making a decision, why your impacts outweigh your opponent’s offense. Pre-standard arguments (or whatever the kids are calling them these days) are fine, but I need it explained in significant detail what the argument is and why exactly it’s powerful enough to take out an opponent’s entire position or potentially win you a round right off the bat. I should say that I’ve rarely seen this done for these kinds of arguments to the degree I’ll be looking for, but there’s no reason, strictly speaking (as there isn’t for any argument), they couldn’t be successful. In short, my philosophy is that anything goes, but that ‘anything’ has to be absolutely clear and it has to be deeply substantive. Three-sentence arguments, loaded with jargon that aren’t linked to a standard or any other kind of evaluating mechanism will be assigned the weight they should be by any judge who seriously considers themselves anti-intervention, which is to say virtually none at all. If you spend fifteen seconds on an argument, then you’re telling me that’s how long I should spend evaluating it. If your argument’s completely jargon-dependent, then it’s almost certainly substance-less. Why should you get an advantage because there’s a chance I’m already familiar with the concept or author you’re referencing? This kind of debate //requires// me to intervene. It involves me making links you didn’t explain or conjuring whole arguments you didn’t make, and that’s something I don’t want to do, won’t do, and, more importantly, you don’t want me to do. That irritating cliché you hear from the elder statesmen and women in the activity about writing the ballot for the judge? Might be trite, but it’s great advice. And it’s how I’ll be approaching the round – looking for you to do the work for me. Policy-level speed is probably going to be a problem for me. The fact is that I simply can’t understand what you’re saying. And I won’t yell out ‘clear’ (a practice I’ve never understood) for the same reason I wouldn’t yell that out for an argument I find poorly developed or too confusing. I also won’t call cards – unless I think it’s my fault for not following a specific exchange. But, like everything else, the onus is on you to communicate within the round itself. I’ll evaluate what you say and manage to get across, and that’s all. I also have a very low tolerance for new arguments in later speeches. Rounds obviously require strategy, and you can’t know in your first speech exactly what you’ll be going for later on. But an argument that received little-to-no attention in your initial rebuttal can’t suddenly become a round winner in the next speech. To me that counts as a new argument, and that’s how I’ll treat it. I should also probably reiterate what I said at the top – that I haven’t judged in a good long while. That means I’m probably not familiar with some of the latest trends or tics that are popular these days. I don’t think that should affect my ability to follow what’s going on in the round (again, that’s your responsibility through and through), but it’s only fair that I call your attention to my time away from the activity. Finally, but absolutely most importantly, play and be nice. It’s been a while since I’ve observed a round, but my guess is that some things don’t change. When I debated, this was an enormous, sometimes almost surreal problem. It’s one thing to be passionate or have an exaggerated dimension to your in-round persona (and let’s hope for a lot of these cases that’s all it is…), but the kind of behavior I sometimes experienced firsthand as a debater and later observed as a judge was completely and utterly unacceptable. The belligerence and hostility, the arrogance, and the disrespect directed at judges were all just simply jaw-dropping. I found it nuts at the time, and looking back now, I honestly can’t believe how students and, even more upsettingly, in some cases, coaches permitted themselves to act. It’s destructive for the future of the activity, it prevents scores of students from enjoying themselves at tournaments, and it sends a terrible message to students about how they should behave going forward (particularly in the context of dealing with success and failure). But most importantly it’s hurtful, and it’s wrong. You wouldn’t treat your teachers or peers in the classroom back at school the way I saw debaters treated, and I expect the exact same standards to apply in a round. The culture of the activity unfortunately encourages this type of behavior, and it needs to change. But that’s another story. For now, I’d appreciate it if you did your best in front of me to keep things respectful and courteous, and I hope, but obviously can’t control, that you’ll choose to do the same in front of other judges. I feel like all of that might come across as a bit doom and gloom. But I hope it doesn’t. LD’s a great activity, and I’m looking forward to judging again. Probably the best piece of advice I can give is just to have fun!
 * __ Paradigm: Matthew Shields __**