Mears,+Eric

Judge Philosophy:

First, I am not opposed to speaking at "a good clip". However, I have not debated in years. Recently, I have been in more tab rooms than debate rounds. It is easy to understand spreading when you are familiar with the information being discussed. You just listen for buzzwords and fill in the blanks with what you already know. It is difficult to both hear and interpret the information from scratch at such a rate.

Think about it: it has become common place for debaters to share their cases in round and use this extra information (seeing it, reading the whole card, re-reading when necessary) to advance the debate forward. Yet the judge is expected to not only have gotten it at first blush, but also intrinsically know the thought process of the debater in his or her interpretation of the information as well. This is simply a lot to ask for from me at least. If you choose to spread, I may get it or I may not. I prefer to think about the information while taking notes rather than mindlessly write it down. I prefer explanation, pragmatics, and world comparisons rather than relying on the third card of your second subpoint of your third contention to outweigh the entirety of the opposition's position. Quality of source is more important than quantity of source. Imperics, pragmatics, and "real world" are more persuasive than meta-physical analysis of "what is real, anyway?"

I view debate as a means of societal problem-solving. LD tends to address the question "why" some act ought or ought not occur. I would much rather hear a debate on that front rather than ought or ought not the topic exist.

At the end fo the round, the voting priorities are:

1) Standard debate 2) World Comparison 3) Line-by-Line