Verderame,+Michael

Michael Verderame (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) Experience: 1 year coaching high school, 1 year debating college, 4 years debating high school Rounds judged: approx. 80 (0 on this topic) (CX); 25 (LD) (0 this year) Conflicts: Isidore Newman, Jesuit of New Orleans, Montgomery Bell Academy

I’ve been involved with debate off and on for about fifteen years as coach, judge, and competitor, but I’ve been away from it a few years. In my view the most persuasive debaters share a few characteristics, regardless of style and argument choice: they speak clearly, are creative, are polite to one another, develop their arguments rather than repeat them, synthesize the arguments in rebuttals, compare the merits of the evidence they use rather than expecting the judge to reconstruct the round from the evidence, and give the judge multiple alternative ways to vote for them in the final rebuttals. I want debaters to set the framework for the debate rather than have me do it. I’m open to both different arguments, frameworks, and styles of argument. However, I’m not and don’t try to be tabula rasa, and certain arguments (racist, sexist, homophobic, Malthus-death-checks, nuclear war good) won’t find a sympathetic hearing. For framework, theory, and topicality debates it is absolutely crucial to have clear, well-warranted arguments that are thoroughly explained upon their first presentation and defended and developed throughout the debate. Blippy theory blocks won’t convince me of anything. Absent clear abuse or irreparable harm, I’m sympathetic to “drop the argument not the team.” Arguments that are not warranted or impacted do not become any more meaningful because they’re dropped. I don’t consider arguments “dropped” that are implicitly answered with minimal extrapolation elsewhere on the flow. I have a pretty high threshold for ‘performance’ arguments—run them, but you’ll have a high burden in explaining/justifying why you’re doing what you’re doing. Assume that I know less about the topic than you do, because I almost certainly do. For case/disad debates, I think analytical defensive takeouts can go a long way. If part of the causal chain is missing or hopelessly compromised, I’m unlikely to weigh it heavily just because you’re winning a really big impact. I don’t like topicality violations that mutate, are unclear, or have hidden violations in the 1NC standards. If your 1NC shell is clear, though, I’m not very lenient when it comes to 1AR ‘extrapolations. I don’t like blippy theory blocks, undeveloped topicality or spec shells, cheap-shot voting issues, prewritten 2NR/2AR overviews, or overviews that merely restate the story of an argument that has already been introduced in an earlier speech. I won’t vote for any argument (critical or otherwise) that I don’t understand well enough to articulate back to you. The judicious and non-arrogant use of humor is good. Apt quotes of Futurama, The Simpsons, and Arrested Development are all appreciated, as are favorable references to the Chicago Cubs. Outside of the above, I won’t go into specifics about what arguments I like or don’t like. Generally, I prefer that you run the arguments that you want to run rather than what you think I want to hear. My default preferences only come into play (I hope) in the event of debates without real clash (such as duelling theory blocks) or in the case of arguments that I find repugnant and morally indefensible. I do have opinions on just about every theoretical issue in debate, and I encourage you to ask me anything you’d like to know (or even to email me if you’re considering how to rank me before the tournament). But I think putting a long list of default biases in a philosophy risks being prescriptive and contributing to the ideological polarization in the activity. Special notes for judging Lincoln-Douglas debate: I think the best LD debate is similar to the best CX debate. Both forms of debate are concerned with both “values” and “policy.” Clash in the late rebuttals is crucial; I don’t care for ‘80s style “duelling oratories” LD debate. I’m OK with either a definition-criterion structure or with the direct comparison of impacts. I don’t think LD should have an artificially circumscribed range of arguments compared to CX. If you prefer to speak at a conversational rate of speed, don’t feel that you have to speak faster to be successful in front of me just because I have a CX background.