Archibald,+Tommy

Tommy Archibald Emory University ‘19

This paradigm is for the 2016 Barkley Forum. I’ll update it for future tournaments.

I was an LD debater for 4 years at Vestavia Hills High School in Birmingham, AL and am currently a freshman at Emory. I attended NSD and debated on the national circuit a fair amount, so I feel like I am generally familiar with most styles of argumentation. With that being said, the BF will be the first tournament I’ve judged at in over a year, so I might be a tad rusty.

I feel like my job as a judge is to be as objective as possible and evaluate the round solely on the merits of the arguments presented. I will vote on anything as long as it is clearly explained, well defended, and weighed against other arguments. In an effort to maintain consistency, this does mean that I will vote on less than stellar args (i.e. NIBS, frivolous theory, etc.) that get dropped or insufficiently covered, but I won’t be happy about it and I probably won’t give you great speaks. As much as I dislike dumb arguments, I dislike arbitrary judge intervention more.

Speed is cool with me. Just be clear and slow down for tags and authors. I’ll yell clear if I can’t understand. Just keep in mind that if I can’t understand you, I can’t vote for you. I might call for cards after rounds if need be. Progressive strategies such as theory, T, LARPing etc. are all good with me.

I’ve never been too high on K debate. It’s not that I won’t vote on them, but I am not particularly familiar with most of the literature. I never got around to reading much of it, and I never really ran K’s as a debater. If you’re prepared to explain it really well, have at it, but I don’t consider myself to be overly qualified to properly adjudicate a dense K debate. I’ll be up front and honest and say that if you’re a dedicated K debater, I wouldn’t pref me too high. I don’t feel like I can give you due diligence. It’s not you, it’s me.

Things I default to:

-Competing Interps -No RVIs -Drop the Arg -The resolution is a statement that is to be proven true by the affirmative -Offensive counter-interps or meta-theory require justification as a practice in order to count as a higher layer -Theory comes before K’s and T -Fairness and Education are theoretically legitimate reasons to exclude certain practices

If I left something out, feel free to ask about any other default positions that I have before the round. These defaults aren’t necessarily preferences; rather, they are my default assumption if debaters fail to directly address the issue. I do, however, strongly feel that meta-theory is NOT intrinsically a higher layer. If you run it, you’d better justify it as a higher layer. Otherwise, I will treat it like a counter-interp without an RVI.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Speaks: As previously stated, I will dock speaks for cheap, tricky args or general douchebaggery. I will, however, reward you with higher speaks if you:

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">-Make interesting and nuanced framework arguments <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">-Jedi mind trick your opponent in CX <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">-Make a funny joke/pun <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">-Crystallize well <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">-Do exceptional weighing

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">My typical speaks scale looks something like this. I'll give decimals if I feel you're halfway between:

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"><25—you said something overtly offensive/rude <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">26—Not good--Probably the result of really bad spreading <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">27—Ok <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">28—Good <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">29—You should break <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">30—You are a personal hero of mine

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">If you have any more questions, feel free to email me at tarchibald25@gmail.com, or ask me before the round.