Jones,+Andrew


 * Update - BFHS 2014**

I'm a first year at Emory. My argumentative preferences as a debater took a much more definite direction at the end of my high school career and in college, which merits an update in my preferences as a judge. While I am more familiar with critical literature, I still read about foreign policy and debate policy arguments on the regular. I believe that the most basic task of a judge is to suspend their prior understanding of a topic except as a minor tool to assess a students understanding of that topic in round. This doesn't mean I'll vote you down because your k answers are 'incorrect' -- it does mean that if the other team demonstrates a thorough understanding of //why// your answers are incorrect and goes the extra mile to make that relevant, you'll be fighting uphill.

I was a 2n in high school, so I understand the negative frustration when an aff never responds to the thesis of the critique but still wins on spin. The solution is to characterize your argument with greater nuance and applicability to the plan. As a 2a in college, I understand the affirmative frustration with random critiques which the neg has thought about for years and will therefore dominate on a thesis level. The solution is to talk more about your aff's relationship to this thesis. If you let the debate become critique yes/no, you will probably lose.

The above and the rest of this philosophy could be rephrased as a concise tech vs truth issue, which I think has a relatively simple answer. Tech and debating always come first, but truth may direct you to the path of least technical resistance.

Regarding spin vs evidence: I will assess the overall quality and explanation of an argument as presented throughout the debate. This means that if the negative reexplains an entire argument with its implication in the 2nr but doesn't run back through all the nuance and examples that were in the block, they will get more credit for the argument than they would for the 2nr in a vacuum. Evidence is strategic precisely because it condenses that constructive development into a shorter chunk of time which is transmittable in the same form to the judge after the debate. This doesn't mean that I'll treat ev with equal authority as debating, but it does mean that a lot of analytic work can keep you in the game on issues where you lack quality evidence. It also means that it is your job to make it relevant in the rebuttals when you have strong evidence and they don't.

Debate as you will.

I’m a junior at Stratford Academy. I’ve only judged a handful of debates, but I care/think about debate a pretty psychotic amount. My love for the activity means that I will work hard to judge well and I will give you more post round comments than you ever want to hear. It also means that I will not tolerate clipping, racist/sexist/homophobic language etc.
 * Woodward Judging Philosophy**

My favorite judges are jon sharp, Calum Matheson, Bill Batterman, and Nick Miller. You might be better off reading those—I won’t pretend to have anything new to say and my judging will most likely reflect how I like to be judged.

Insert generic “do whatever you want if you can do it well” caveat here. Do not interpret this as ‘go for stupid arguments’. My predispositions are almost exclusively stylistic/meta level, and one of them is that I privilege high quality explanation and analysis over technical minutia and the capacity to say the words ‘they dropped x’ without telling me why I should care. I will be a very technical judge, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to vote for you just because they dropped subpoint g of the aspec overview you read like a card. Their overarching argument often answers the majority of what you think is dropped--the phrase ‘they say’ is seriously overrated. The flip side is that I could not care less about an arguments truth or quality except as it relates to explanation within the debate. If you can give a 2nr on aspec that makes me soil myself with excitement, be my guest. Be honest with yourself though--you probably can’t, and if you fail miserably I will drop you and give you miserable points without remorse. Dumb arguments are considered dumb for a reason, so you’ll need to do the heavy lifting.
 * Disorganized mess**

I am more of a blank slate than Jason Sigalos (the judge) and less of a blank slate than Jason Sigalos (the Taoist)

Moment of honesty--I am a bad flow. I’m not //that// bad, but it’s worth mentioning. When debating I manage to credibly pretend that I have some legible record of what the other team said, so I’ll probably be fine when judging. Be warned though—telling me what you're responding to or trying to maintain some semblance that you're responding to arguments in order can help avoid chaos and will boost your speaks. I debate (and will probably judge) more based on my memory and overall conception of the round than based on what I manage to scribble down, so highlighting your key arguments rather than screaming them at top speed for 5 seconds is recommended.

This is first because such an overwhelming number of debates and split decisions seem to come down to this. I err somewhat towards the side doing superior analysis and explanation, and I will be less willing to read into evidence in the post round than most judges //when there is not clash//. Evidence is extremely important and better evidence and research often //leads// to better argumentation, but if you are not clashing over evidence and doing a lot of work to explain warrants I am loathe to do it for you. I am increasingly frustrated when I hear decisions along the lines of ‘I originally thought the aff was winning this arg, but then I found an unhighlighted warrant in one of the 400 cards the neg extended by cite alone’. Maybe it’s because I always lose those debates and I’m just grumpy about it. Either way, don’t be surprised when I don’t vote for your sweet ev vs. their well-developed analytics when you only repeat the tags. I probably won’t even call for it. Clearly if there is a lot of good debating and clash over evidence I will call for it, though still probably less than most judges.
 * Evidence vs. Argumentation**

Slow down. No seriously, slow down. Pot kettle I know, but there are very few people who are actually effective at going fast. If you are one of those people, speed is great. If you aren’t, you are probably losing so much efficiency from gasping and incoherently repeating yourself that slowing down will increase your true speed.
 * Stylistic Issues**

“I fucking love Cross-X. Most people don't care enough about cross-x. If you use your Cross-x well (e.g., if it is well thought out and used to generate arguments and understandings that are useful in speeches for important parts of the debate), my happiness and your speaker points will increase.” -- Nick Miller.

Explain your arguments more. I already said this, and I’m going to say it a third time. Explain. Your. Arguments.

I should be able to understand the text of your evidence. If I can’t, your speaker points and my understanding of your arguments will drastically decrease. I won’t call for ev I didn’t understand the first time to piece together what you said.

It might be sad that I often read this part of a philosophy first. Take what you will from that. Being aggressive is more than okay if you’re doing it well. Ruthless clash over arguments is sweet. Being mean for the sake of being mean is not. Once the timers go off, you should be friendly and have fun. It won’t kill you to crack a joke or talk to me/each other every once in a while.
 * How aggressive/snarky/ruthless can you be?**

Stop needlessly cutting people off. If they’re rambling, not answering your question, or haven’t let you finish asking it’s fine. If you never let them answer your questions, I will assume it’s because your questions suck and their answers would have crushed you.
 * Don’t yell.** It will only piss me off. You should be able to crush your opponent while whispering. If you have to yell to sound impressive, I’m unimpressed.

This is the least important section. Fourth time; explanation is paramount. Specificity is too. I will do my best to ignore these preferences when judging
 * Specific Argument preferences**

Topicality—bores me. I probably find reasonability slightly more persuasive than most, though nobody explains it well. If the only card you read in the block is from 1984 I probably will think you are lame. Do more impact calculus.

CPs—pretty agnostic. If the CP text includes the entire plan text, I will probably think it is stupid. Process/consult CPs can be strategic but I sort of hate them and ideologically err aff on competition questions. There is not always a risk of a net benefit and there doesn’t need to be a net benefit to a permutation.

Critiques—dig it more than most people think. 2ACs are generally pretty terrible here. In general, the amount of time spent explaining the k in the context of the aff will have a direct correlation with your speaks and likelihood of winning. Case specific Ks are sweet, but generic ev shouldn’t mean generic explanation. The aff should lock down the alt in the cx of the 1nc, otherwise the neg gets way too much leeway. The 2AR should always be about the aff. Both teams should explain how their framework arguments implicate the rest of the debate, as I often fail to see why they do.

K/non traditional affs—you’re fine as long as you’re really, really upfront in cx. If you don’t think that certain arguments should apply to your aff, say so when they ask. If you’re shady about your framework or what does/does not apply, and if you change this stance from speech to speech, I will become incredibly grumpy and give the neg a lot of leeway. I am more impressed by 2NRs that clash substantively with these (e.g. impact turns/Ks) than 2NRs on framework. Framework should more often be couched in terms of T.

Conditionality—is probably terrible for debate, but most of the time the 2AC/1AR don’t invest enough time to make it difficult to win that 2 condo is okay. The neg should couch their arguments in terms of portable skills and ideological flexibility. The aff should couch their arguments in terms of the terrible and shallow debating that occurs because of conditionality—‘it’s hard and makes us sadface’ is less persuasive, perhaps with the exception of contradiction based arguments. Potential abuse is also less persuasive.