Thompson,+Marshall

Updates for TOC 2017. I have not judged LD debate all year, I will be rusty. I still trust myself to accurately evaluate FW debates, stock substantive debates and plan/CP debate. I do not really trust myself in adjudicating theory debates or K debates. While I have always been a bad at judging K debates (just ask Jonathan Alston) and theory debates (ask anyone who graduated from Scarsdale a few years ago); I expect it will be worse this year. Also, prep time ends either when you email the speech doc or remove the flashdrive from your computer. Also also, I will only look at evidence if there was contestation or if I got distracted during the round (I don't think its fair that I can look over particular pieces of text for a while given that your opponent had to process the whole case under time constraints).

My paradigm has always been long and rambling. Over the years it has become longer and ramblyer; the result is that I worry many debaters lost rounds because they got caught up in my paradigm's brambles. This is my new attempt, hopefully it will be more useful for actual pref and adaptation purposes. Anyone who wants to see the old paradigm (its not like I have changed my views, you can find it here https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1531536/Old%20Paradigm.docx)

Most important information:

__**Flowing**__ // The Problem // While the flow strongly constrains my adjudication I am probably less of a 'flow judge' these days than many other common circuit judges (less because my flow technicalities have decreased and more because they have not 'kept up with the times'). This is for two reasons A) my flowing is and always has been extremely poor. This posed a problem for me while I debated, but it is an even greater problem now as far more rounds come down to quick technicalities which I just do not have. Here are three random flows I pulled from my judging at the Yale 2015 tournament to try and give you a better idea of what I m looking at when trying to adjudicate your round: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1531536/Sample%20Flows.zip B) LD is, I firmly believe, in an awkward position where there are simply not enough speeches of long enough time to support meaningful evaluation (at least for myself) of many of the hyper technical debates that occur. Flow-centric adjudication is one that frequently centers around drops and coverage. This makes it incredibly difficult to adjudicate debates that occur late in the round. The negative never gets to extend concession on 1ar theory, the tendency to uplayer results in rounds getting pushed further and further back, growing use of many progressive negative strategies (from CPs to theory) and some of their bizarre 1ar responses (meta theory to Ks of T) results in less debate occurring on any one flow (much less on the aff case) which creates flow development to really allow me to assess what is answered and what not. I am just not a good enough judge for strict flow adjudication in these rounds. //The Solution// First, you need to crystallize. If your plan is to spend all three minutes of the 2ar extending as much as you can hoping I will vote on something, you might as well not pref me. Extend one piece of offense, win on one layer and explain to me why it matters. If you are going for more than one layer in the 2ar as independent ways to win you are adapting wrongly. If you are going for more than two layers as independent ways to win in the 2nr you are adapting wrongly. Indeed, I think 2nrs for me would be better spent winning one layer and explaining why it matters for the first three minutes, and then spend the last three minutes preempting the 2ar than by extending even a second layer of offense. Second, reference arguments and ideas not numbers and names. I may not be one of the smartest people in the debate community, but I am either bright or experienced enough to follow the ideas most debaters appeal to. However, because of my difficulty in flowing if you say 'extend my second answer to X card' I will be far more confused than if you say ' On the contention specifically the issue X, extend that Y' and reference the ideas directly and not the mechanics of the flow. This is especially true for weighing and crystalization. Saying 'X card outweighs Y card because' does nothing for me, saying 'this issue constrains that issue because' on the other hand makes perfect sense to me.

__**Speed**__ The complexity of arguments needs to be inversely related to your speed. I consider myself most qualified to evaluate framework debaters, and yet I frequently find I don't know what is going on even in those debates given the rate of delivery. I will need to understand an argument in the first speech its made to be a live option in my decisions. This has resulted in me dropping debaters certain they were winning because I did not understand the framework warrant they choose to extend when it was first read. Don't put yourself in that position. To help clarify this issue I am adding a new 'call' while I judge. If you are unclear, or going to fast for me to understand and flow I will say 'clear'. If instead I can understand all the words you are saying, but the rate of delivery is going behind my rate of comprehension I will say 'Aaaerrrghhhh!!' fairly loudly. That means you are talking about something too complex for the rate you are going, but that you can probably speed up once you get to simpler parts of your case.

__**Access**__ The debate round needs to be accessible. What this means most concretely is that if you are a senior hitting a freshman, a circuit debater hitting a more traditional debater or a budding philosophy genius hitting someone who has not been introduced to the works of Plato, you had better adjust how you debate. I have no interest in voting because your opponent could not answer your position, instead I want to vote for you because you were able to deal with your opponents answers. Win rounds on jointly accessible playing fields where and when ever possible. If you don't you will not be at all happy with your speaks.

I assume a context model of arguments in a debate round. If an argument is not complete in the speech it is made (meaning it does not have any positive implication, but instead is contingent on your opponent making some answer before it does anything) then I assume your opponent can answer ALL of the argument after it is extended and applied, not just the application. This most commonly applies to 'spikes' thought it would also apply to things like 'additional reasons to prefer the standard' if those are simply designed to preclude or answer the negatives VC, but does not positively justify yours until their framework is read.
 * __Preempts__**__**/Spikes**__

__**Intuitions**__ Intuitions matter in FW debate, just like they matter in professional philosophy. Practically, this means that intuitive failings of frameworks are costs to the frameworks and you will need to show that the assumptions of your premises are more reasonable or well grounded then the problematic conclusions are unintuitive (should your opponent point this out). This will be difficult to do if you framework can, for instance, give no articulation of why something like rape or genocide is wrong. For what it's worth, my assumptions are likely informed strongly by my Christianity. I think humans have a fundamental dignity, there is a special moral obligation to care for the orphan, the stranger, the poor and the oppressed. I tend towards strongly anti consequentalist intuitions (the ends do not justify bad means). This does not mean you cannot argue for utilitarianism (I have voted for utilitarianism many times) because frankly, I find every framework run in debate fairly implausible intuitively for various reasons (so the intuition game won't put you too far behind as long as your conclusions are not self-evidently ridiculous).