Roberts,+Jeff

Jeff Roberts
//**Updated: Apple Valley 2014 - 10-27-2014**//

I work with the Debate Team at Mountain Brook High School in Birmingham, AL. I help them out by teaching the debate class and going to judge at one or two events, and I still do some work at summer debate institutes like Samford University.
 * Experience:**

1. I am a judge of arguments made not unmade. 2. I will strive not to actively intervene. 3. I believe that debate is fundamentally an argument game played by a set of rational rules to be agreed upon, or tacitly agreed upon, by both debaters and/or an external governing body and side constrained by my paradigmatic preferences. For my paradigmatic preferences: 4. I believe that arguments should be logical and well supported with sound reasoning. Challenged arguments must be responded to by opponents and unchallenged arguments are considered conceded.
 * All debate formats Paradigm:**

Additionally, I do often agree with the following:
 * 1) new arguments should not be evaluated after the constructive speeches end
 * 2) debaters may use their prep time whenever they choose - though post round is a bit odd
 * 3) reciprocity is generally better for the game than not
 * 4) the game needs to value education but it is not slave to the concept
 * 5) evidence should be cited and made available upon request of debater or judge
 * 6) theory provides a valuable tool for communication in argumentation

General Preferences:
 * 1) I can flow at an "average" speed for judges - I was never a debater and so I cannot flow very fast mostly because I cannot write fast enough to keep up and often cannot hear all that is said.
 * 2) I do NOT enjoy giving commands about your speed of delivery so please do not ask me to say clearer etc. just slow down a bit and you will be fine.
 * 3) I prefer to hear a real cross-examination but I do not mind questions of clarification during your prep time.
 * 4) I will deduct many speaker points for meanness or curtness in exchanges between debaters and reserve the right to drop a debater in extreme cases. At the same time, do not be afraid to undermine or illustrate poor logical conclusions by your opponent - joke away, just make it about the argument and not about your opponent i.e. be nice above all else!
 * 5) I prefer examples and analogies that help illustrate complex arguments - this is especially true when it comes to difficult philosophical positions. Go ahead and assume, correctly so in many cases, that I am probably not as smart as you about the theory, philosophy, kritik, or topic nuance you are discussing.
 * 6) I basically think of things in debate as a game, so I therefore prefer to treat arguments as strategic moves in the game rather than as positions one believes to be sincerely advisable in the world.
 * 7) I prefer debaters who collapse the round to fewer and fewer arguments as the game progresses rather than those who extend all of their constructives in every speech. So, I like strategic argument selection and round narrowing to occur.
 * 8) I prefer speakers who make comparative argumentation early and often. Give me reasons to prefer, reasons that explain clear metrics in multiple scenarios and that take into consideration the possibility your opponent is actually winning a few things too - not just worlds wherein you alone have arguments standing at the end, such would be nice, but it is far more rare a situation than debaters often notice until they are on the other side of the high school careers.
 * 9) I prefer debaters who narrate the argument chain in each speech rather than approaching the line by line as a taken for granted technical task to be accomplished. i.e. Get above the flow from time to time and give round over views, road maps, and decision calculus in signposting rhetoric to help me follow your thinking process for how each argument interacts with the rest - I loathe doing such work for you and generally refuse to even try.
 * 10) Want higher speaks, describe the arguments and qualify the clash rather than merely reciting popular debating phrasing - explain and develop the arguments with persuasive appeals and you get high speaks, but if you leave it at the cool one liner or "blippy" power phrase e.g. "it's try or die for the aff" or "I solve for every impact" then expect very low speaks and possibly a loss.

Speaker Points: Love me or hate me on this, I don't care, here is how I do it as best I can tell: I award speaker points based on my own subjective assessment of how well I think you debated compared to my personal reference set of other debaters I have seen at high level tournaments. Yes, even if it is a novice round at a small local tournament, I hold you to the final rounds of the TOC, NFLs, and NDCAs that I have viewed and what I enjoyed best in those speakers.

I tend to think of my scale like this: 30 = amongst the very best of the Varsity division of most tournaments I attend and could be a contender for a speaker award or even semi-finals, 29.5 = really strong performance and should be able to make varsity quarter-finals of most tournaments I attend, 29 = a strong debater who is likely to make the octa-final round of most varisty tournaments I attend, 28.5 = this debater is arguing at a level high enough they would fair well against other debaters who break at most varsity tournaments, 28 = on the bubble and is probably a really strong JV level debater or possibly a young varsity who is close to breaking, 27.5 = more or less an average performance and will struggle to make the bubble, 27 = an average performance but unlikely to do well against the best debaters in the pool, 26.5 = this debater's performance in this round was at a level below what I consider it takes to break in the normal varsity pool, 26 = this may be a very good score for a novice or JV level debater (and this may be one of the higher scores I give at a novice only tournament unless told to do otherwise by tournament directors) but for varsity debaters this score means you have significant technical flaws or logical mistakes which are impeding your success in what I consider to be the average varsity rounds, 25.5 or Below is a very rare score for me at a national circuit event (maybe for meanness or academic dishonesty or lack of preparedness and stealing prep issues etc.) but can happen more frequently on some smaller circuit events or in the novice and JV levels where these score would be more indicative of the typical 27 in the varsity pool. For novices, a 26/27 is very near a 30 from me on the scale above and likewise a score of 24/23 would seem nearest a score of 27/26 on the varsity scale if you will.