Hester,+Michael

New Topic, revised philosophy (as of Jan 23, 2011):

the basics still resonate:

1) meta-debate is betta-debate. especially in the last two rebuttals (but potentially as early as the 1NC), telling me how you would judge the debate as a means of persuading me why i should judge it that way is most persuasive. being able to couch your arguments for the ballot in terms of why what you've done is a better (smarter, more educational, funnier, prettier talking, however you define 'better') form of debate than your opponent is the path to victory. in the last two rebuttals, the more you think and talk like a judge rendering a decision, the closer you'll be to winning debates.

2) the ballot has one and only one "role": evidence of my decision the tabroom uses to give one team the W and the other the L. this doesn't mean you can't bring your own politics into the round. it's your thing, do what you wanna do, i can't tell you who to sock it to. it does, however, mean that if winning your argument depends on convincing me to do anything other than recognize the winner and loser of the debate, then you've already lost. don't confuse with what motivates YOU to debate with what motivates me to judge debates. they need not be the same for me to vote for you in a particular round, and just because they *may be* the same doesn't mean you're more likely to win a particular debate.

3) there's some confusion amongst folks (some judges included) as to what counts as "smart debate" or proof that a debater has "worked hard on debate." i'll take a moment to clear that up -

a) being able to cite historical examples that either prove or disprove generic claims is evidence of "smart debating." being able to do so when the issue is "topic-specific" shows that you've been "doing work" this year;

b) being able to discern the difference between what makes a source "qualified" to cite as support for your argument and using that knowledge to differentiate arguments in the debate is a sign of "smart debating." knowing which sources are more qualified than others to make arguments on this year's topic is a sign you've been "doing work."

c) being able to argue Politics DAs (on the aff or neg) by referring to contemporary political circumstances is "smart debating." thinking that this last sentence means having lexis updates for 'will/won't pass" uniqueness is NOT "smart debating." understanding how which party is in control of the House and/or Senate affects a Politics DA and being able to use that knowledge to either extend or refute the Politics DA is "smart debating."

d) reading more evidence from the same K author who's the source of the 1NC cards that didn't make much sense is not "smart debating." reading less of that and instead being able to refer to specific passages of the opponent's evidence and/or speeches to illuminate the link arguments for your K is "smart debating." reading K authors who actually write/argue about this year's topic is proof you've been "doing debate work."

3) capital T truths - conditionality is bad for debate - "condo increases critical thinking" has been empirically denied nearly every time i've seen it employed; most Ks are much more strategic for the NEG without an alternative; 30% of evidence comes from sources wholly unqualified to make such assertions, another 20% is underlined and read in rounds such that it technically does not support the tag at all, and another 20% doesn't make any claim that is supported by common sense (this ev usually comes from authors whose last name begins with a "Z"). these are opinions i feel very confident of, and yet, they rarely if ever reflect the decisions i make. that's because i am still very good at allowing debaters to make their args and voting on what happened in the debate, not what happened in my version of "how should have this debate happened."

the only caveat to this is when i judge bad debates (don't worry, i won't hesitate to tell you if what you just did qualifies). in rounds where teams "talk like they have something to say, but nothing comes out when they move their lips, just a bunch of gibberish...," i am forced to fill in the blanks. if the teams are inexperienced and just starting out, i cut them slack and do a lot of teaching in the post-round. if the teams are old enough to know better, i make fun of them in the post-round.

4) Miscellaneous: topic specific arguments and evidence are rewarded (BUT neither Politics DAs relying on Sacramento Bee nor Agamben evidence about "the camp" should be mistaken for "topic specific"). analytics can take out entire carded (but dumb) positions. the direction of the link is more important than uniqueness when the impact is linear and/or systemic, yet ironically debaters most often say "we're winning the direction of the link" when they are going for impacts that depend on brink and threshold.