Robinson,+Zachary

Updated January 10, 2014

In high school, I debated for 2.5 years for Omaha Westside. I debated another two years in college for Dartmouth (2010-2012). During my time as a college debater I worked with high school students during two DDWs and two DDIs. I also infrequently judged high school debates during the school year. If you know how the stereotypical Dartmouth debater/judge debates/judges, then you likely have a decent idea of where my biases lie (and if not, I’ll explain my specific biases below). Know that on the aff I mostly ran topical affirmatives with policy advantages, but know that I have also read topical critical affirmatives, planless affirmatives, and poetry. On the negative, I was most fond of a broad strategy that incorporates disadvantages, counterplans, kritiks, and case specific affirmatives. I have gone for politics and case and I have also gone for a 1-off k. I have been out of the activity for nearly two years. I have not judged a round on this topic. I have also spent the majority of the past year and a half in an isolated desert environment with limited contact with the outside world, which means I am substantially less aware of current events than your average judge (I barely read the news). I am excited to be judging again and I believe that the logical faculties that once made me able to debate and judge are likely a bit rusty but still in place. I also believe that teams put in large amounts of time, energy, and money to be able to debate, and that I should respect that commitment by doing my utmost to render a fair judgment. That being said, I would STRONGLY encourage teams to clearly define any topic specific jargon they may be using, and to assume that I have little to no knowledge about current events and topic related issues. I do not know what stock cases have been developed or what are generally accepted interpretations of the resolution. You should also know that my distance from the activity has made me increasingly skeptical of the intellectual defensibility of many hyperbolic internal links and impacts. I employ the word “bias” because these are issues where my prior predilections are most likely to have an influence. Because they are biases, I do my best to put them to the side when judging. I do my best to prioritize what debaters say in the round, but because I am a human being and not a purely rational machine, my perspective will necessarily influence my decision. i. **Predictable limits**. It is not possible to regularly have good debates without both sides having some sort of adequate preparation. This encourages under-preparation or defaulting to less educational generics instead of specifics. When people come to believe that the “Should” PIC is better for debate than running T, something is terribly wrong. Perhaps there are better predictable limits than the resolution (or there are creative ways of interpreting the predictable limits that the resolution provides), and you should feel free to argue that in a debate. ii. **Switch-side is good**. By “switch-side,” I am not merely referring to having to wear the moniker of “affirmative” or “negative.” Instead, I am gesturing towards the potential of debate to force individuals to inhabit a world that is different from the one they regularly believe and engage in. I think that this is an ethical and intellectual responsibility that the structural format of debate is uniquely poised to teach students. I also think that given the currently divisive atmosphere of the debate environment, forcing ourselves to distance ourselves from beliefs we hold tightly to the chest is vital to community building. If you can say the same thing on the affirmative and the negative, you are undermining this educational potential.
 * My background**:
 * My biases**:
 * 1. I place relatively little value on evidence and relatively high value on common sense**. Power-tagged evidence that supposedly says terrorism/capitalism/a piece of legislation is going to cause the end of the world is not persuasive and can be easily defeated by a smart analytic. I call for much less evidence than your average judge, so you should do more analysis in round. Claims without warrants are meaningless. Most advantages and disadvantages can have their probabilities substantially reduced by a few analytical arguments. Such analytics are an easy way to earn more speaker points with me.
 * 2. The short note on untraditional affirmatives**: my views on this issue are evolving, but for the moment I am a strong personal believer in the necessity of topicality. Being topical may include critical advantages, personal narratives, poetry, or other “untraditional” forms of communication. I also have come to realize that many affirmatives who are not topical are much better at arguing these issues than negative teams are, so do not be surprised if I side with a nominally untopical team.
 * The long note on untraditional affirmatives**: There are two aspects of debate that I currently hold sacred (which means that you should consider them strongly when preparing theory arguments):
 * 3. Affirmatives: engage**. Do not pull out the same “A2:K” block for every critical team. Framework arguments on the aff that are intended to exclude negative critiques are lazy and unpersuasive.
 * 4. My race has frequently been an issue in debate rounds**. I am black, white, and Japanese. I have almost always found that the combination of a hyper-competitive atmosphere, time limits, and a lack of shared personal history makes it easy for ignorant and insensitive comments to be made. If you decide to bring my racial (or gendered, sexual, national, whatever) perspective as a judge into the arguments being made in the round, know that you are likely playing with fire.
 * 5. Good theory debates are good, but most theory debates are not good**. I think debates about debate are incredibly important, but I find that they are often poorly executed. Do not engage in an extended theory debate unless you plan on putting down your blocks and going line by line. You should also know that I have pulled the trigger on absurd voting issues when they have not been well handled (the answer to “severance is a voting issue” is not “severance is good,” but rather “it’s not a voting issue”). I think topicality is (debatably) a voting issue and is just as legitimate to go for as so-called “substance.” Conditionality can be good, and it can also get out of hand.
 * 6. Debate is an activity rooted in communication**. There is a mystifying amount of pride associated with pretending you can flow anything. I have no desire to pretend. You should make an effort to clearly explain yourself to your judges and your opponents. I am willing to enforce a cult of clarity. I will let you know if I think you are being unclear. If you continue to be unclear, I will reduce your speaker points and not evaluate any arguments I cannot understand. I do not call for evidence just because I didn’t get it down when you read it the first time.
 * 7. Be nice**. Debate is a great way to make friends and be a part of a community. Whatever ideological disagreements you may have, the other people in the room are generally nice and reasonable people on a day to day basis. There is a large difference between an argument with racist implications and an irredeemably racist person. A large number of the problems our community has could be solved much more easily if everyone involved was civil. Your attitude can have a large impact on the speaker points I give you.
 * 8. Speaker points are not up for debate**. Because they are a relative metric that involves the entire pool instead of just a room of debaters, I must maintain consistency in scoring across rounds. I will not award higher points because a debater asks me to.
 * 9. If you cheat (fabricating evidence, clipping cards, etc.) I will automatically assign 0 speaker points to any debater I believe to be implicated and assign a loss to the cheating team.**