Bullock,+Jennifer

Bullock, Jennifer (St. Thomas More Catholic High School—Lafayette, Louisiana)

My judging preferences are relatively simple. If I had to pigeonhole myself, I’d say I’m a policy maker—more by default than philosophically. I generally try not to intervene, but if you plan to run something that’s really strange (sitting in silent protest for eight entire minutes, for example), you should probably ask me ahead of time. Otherwise, I almost certainly will not vote for you. Sorry.

I debated for four years, and I’ve coached now for four years. I’ve not judged any rounds on the environment resolution. Specific likes/dislikes are below:


 * Kritiks**: I don’t mind critical arguments, though I’m not familiar with all of them. If it’s something completely out there, you might have to explain it to me for it to carry weight. The alternative should be something substantive, even if it doesn’t solve the affirmative. I’m interested in changing my worldview (in debate).


 * Style**: Speed is fine. If I can’t hear you, I’ll yell, “Clear!” If I still don’t get it, I might not have it on the flow. If find that teams tend to get incoherent on topicality flows. If you want me to vote on t (or anything else for that matter) make sure I hear it.


 * Counter-plans & Disads**: I think the status quo is perfectly acceptable for the negative to defend. Of course, feel free to run a counter-plan if you think it’s competitive. Disads should have a link (and something plausible at that) but if the affirmative doesn’t argue the link story, I won’t intervene.


 * Topicality**: T is fine. However, I don’t really understand how “T is a voter for fairness and education” is supposed to be compelling as a voting issue. I think voters should be linked to standards and fleshed out a bit. If you’re the affirmative, one or two nice “we meet” arguments will always help you. I get bogged down and depressed by the dross of the standards debate. Clear violations and “we meet” arguments make my life much easier.


 * Performance**: I don’t get performance. That’s not to say that I won’t vote for you, but you have to explain a little more. I find that these debates degenerate into “We don’t want to be excluded from the debate community any longer” while the negative hastily argues, “Some of our best friends are minorities.” It gets tiresome because no one is debating either the resolution or the other team. If you’re the negative, you should either argue on their terms (i.e., let’s hear //your// narrative and evaluate the two), or explain why performance is irrelevant; don’t get scared that you’ll be pilloried for being racists, sexists, ageists, etc.


 * Speaker points:** Pre-round “discussions” about your TOC bids don’t impress me; they don’t frighten the other team either. I find that teams who engage in this type of discussion are usually jerks during the round. Jerks (with or without TOC bids) get low speaker points. If you don’t care about speaks, by all means, be a jerk.


 * Evidence**: I don’t like to ask for evidence after a round if I can avoid it. Know your evidence. Be ethical (don’t power-tag, omit or downright lie) about your evidence. Use it to your advantage. Refer to its author and implications when you cross-apply or extend it.


 * Rebuttals:** If I can pull the trigger on a dropped argument, go for that argument and impact it in your rebuttals. Otherwise, you should use your final five minutes to help me evaluate the one or two most compelling arguments in your favor. Magnitude is great, but even the most horrific of impacts mean little when they’re totally improbable. Timeframe is lowest in the impact calculus hierarchy.

If you have specific questions, please feel free to ask me. Best of luck to you.