Min,+Richard

 Richard Min - things about debate

Always thought of pref sheets this way..

Debate's a stressful yet rewarding activity! - that's why it's great to see debaters just get lost in the moment for the amount of time a debate career can offer. The group of people you meet, the cities you encounter, and the massive amount of information researched about the world makes this environment a bewildering, sometimes scary, experience; however, those struggles and those nightmares hopefully turn many of us into doing extraordinary things in life - for better or for worse. I follow the philosophy of debate exceptionalism. My responsibility will be to think hard about the core issues being debated and vote for the team that did better at communicating those resolutions for me in their favor.
 * what does the judge think about the activity?**

"Fighters have rules, too. Friendship, trust, integrity. Always keep your promise. Without rules we wouldn't survive long."

But that being forwarded - I've got many complaints about these judging philosophies---

**who do judges think they are?** Judges adjudicate rounds - debaters debate. I'm not an educator, I'm not a policymaker, I'm not whatever you assume I am - why force me to be beings I don't believe I am? "Who won the debate" should not mean "who did the better interrogation of ____" while this can certainly be the metric of how to evaluate whether you did the better debating or not.


 * how do judges want debates to go down?** Debate is all about clash and execution. 0 sympathy for failure. Most importantly, resolve the main questions for me. Aff defend something. Neg defend something?? Please???? Whether it's the topic? Or about whatever else?


 * what do judges expect in speeches and cross-x?** Ask questions in cross-x. Answer questions. Why do I need to even write such rudimentary debate nuts & bolts?

Tags are whatever you make of it - if it's an argument you want the judge to flow, certainly it must have some utility - !?!

My ideal debate: Strategy, strategy, strategy! It's game day. Get your playbook and win the round - or lose I suppose? This is on you!

Persuade me to enjoy judging this round - utilize wonderful speaking or brain-smarts (or one could lead to the other) - persuade me to give you great speaker points. You're persuading me to vote for you, so why not be a good speaker while you're at it??

While I expect a healthy discussion to take place after a round, I certainly find an aggressive judge cross-x more amusing than anything. You can't believe it? Well "that is why you fail"..


 * which way does a judge lean?** Such an important question, but one that I think misses the forest for the trees...

As a debater working the prefs game, I’ve always noted how problematic judging philosophies are; sometimes just plain confusing for me - as a collective group there seems to be some tendency to recount different versions of public memory and invoke them for our own purposes that seeks to craft a vision of debate that we justify utilizing these invocations. And I think all this judge intervention "I default X" or "I default Y" is a plain old cop-out. It makes so little sense to place a higher burden on a team's arguments simply because you don't believe in it. If you won, you will win. If you lose, you will lose.

BUT! Debaters have to resolve issues - not judges. If everyone loses, no one will be happy when that decision arrives. Why is this assumed to be a thing? Even the best debaters leave it all up to the judge to decide the issue - are you just that confident they'll resolve it in your favor? That's just glorified judge adaptation, not debating.

Asking how a judge resolves X issue or Y issue is difficult especially if they weren't able to piece it together in the first place. These judge cross-x's always baffled me as a debater and now as a judge they baffle me even more. Maybe it makes sense to do this in the speech? Persuade them to resolve X or Y issue a certain way to result in Z?