Jennis,+Dan

Name: Dan Jennis Judge Affiliation: Evanston Graduated From: Hopkins Years Out: Five Rounds Judged: A ton. LD Philosophy: The best way to pick up my ballot is to make the links to whatever weighing standard you set up as clear as possible. First, tell me on what basis the round should be evaluated, and then tell me why you win the round via that basis. If neither debater does a good job weighing arguments or writing my ballot for me, I will be forced to intervene, and I will likely base my decision on which argument on the flow I feel is best articulated. I am fine with speed, theory, kritiks, and anything else if they make you a better debater. If you go fast and make the round worse, I will hold you accountable. I base speaker points on clarity, persausion, and the quality of arguments you run. Running unique positions about which you are passionate will also improve your speaks. I really hate blippy and non-responsive arguments. Good flow coverage and effective speed make me very happy.

In terms of more specific things, I don't inherently believe in reasonability or competing interpretations when it comes to theory. I think that advocating one approach over the other is a strategic choice that debaters need to make on their own. Both make sense to me when advocated properly. If a theory debate occurs where the affirmative is implictly generating offense off of the negative's shell and the negative does not give me clear warrants for why the affirmative needs an offensively worded counter-interp, I will view those affirmative responses as offense. If the neg wins that the affirmative needs an offensively worded-counter interp, then I will accept that view. Personally, I think things are made clearer when theory is articulated as a matter of in-round abuse because the brightline for establishing better community norms is somewhat unclear to me. Nevertheless, I will accept the latter view if it prevails- I just want to put my personal biases out there.

In a more abstract sense, the activity changes so quickly that I really try to refrain from assuming that there are concrete and proper ways to run certain types of arguments. Obviously, I am not looking to see unstructured and incoherent arguments, but it seems unfair for me to either penalize a debate who lacks the exposure needed to run arguments according to circuit norms or assume that an argument has a certain function because it is usually run that way. The function of arguments always needs to be explained to me explicitly for me to vote on them or perform the action you desire.

I certainly believe in a truth testing paradigm more in the abstract, but most debaters operate in the comparative worlds model nowadays so I have no problem with that being used when it makes sense. I will try to avoid defaulting to a paradigm and instead use the weighing structures that debaters set up as those structures usually implicitly assume the prevalence of one paradigm over the other. If a debate over which paradigm we defer to needs to occur, then by all means have that debate.

I will adjudicate a debate about which side permissibility or presumption/defaulting flows to but I think it is a better strategy to just proactively win a round. When debaters employ the strategy of not extending offense and going for presumption or permissibility I find that the round often gets muddled and the warranting is poor which makes an impartial decision more difficult.

If you have any specific questions please ask me before the round. I really want you to feel comfortable debating according to your style and beliefs because I believe that this will make the round better. Don't feel like you need to tailor you strategy and perception of how debate works in order to meet my preferences. That amount of specification is rather absurd and tends to arbitrarily advantage the debater with more circuit experience.