Bellon,+Joe


 * Joe Bellon**

September 2012

WHO?: I’m the Director of Debate at Georgia State University.

SUMMARY: I try to let the debaters decide what the round is about, and what debate should be like. I will vote on whatever arguments win -- Counterplan-Disad, Procedurals, Kritiks, Affs with no plan, framework, or even some kind of performance. The worst thing you can do in terms of winning my ballot is fail to explain your arguments. The second worst thing is to fail to respond to the other team’s arguments. The third worst is to assume you know what arguments I like and make strategic decisions based on your guesswork.

MY LATEST PET PEEVES:

1) Failure to label off case positions in the 1NC. Label all of them. Even the first one. ESPECIALLY the first one. Don’t make me hurt you.

2) I will dock your speaker points 0.2 every time you say "thumper."

3) Clash-of-spread debates where one team goes line-by-line and the other team is more global. Both teams expect me to adapt to their preference without ever mentioning it, then I am left to sort out how to resolve the inevitable flow nightmare. Explain to me what I'm supposed to do in these situations, or don't be surprised when my decision fails to include whatever applications and cross-applications you thought were obvious.

THE SPECIFICS: I try to have no substantive or procedural predispositions prior to the round. Basically, this means you get to argue why you should win. If you win a round-ending argument, I won't shy away from voting for you just because I think it's stupid. Of course, I expect your arguments to be backed up by persuasive reasoning (or whatever else you find persuasive), but if you convince me that the other team should lose because they have no fashion sense, I'll pull the trigger. This puts a huge onus on all of you to explain why you should win. If you fail to explain why you should win, I will feel personally licensed by you to make things up. No, seriously -- explain your arguments or I may simply not understand them.

THIS DOES NOT MEAN I LIKE STUPID ARGUMENTS. It means that I want to let debaters debate, and I have some humility about my own ability to decide ahead of time what arguments are good or educational or whatever. In this vein, let me say that debaters often do not explain things like how the counterplan wins/loses the round, how the kritik relates to the counterplan, whether topicality trumps the kritik, and so on. Don't be like those debaters. Explain the hierarchy of decisions in the round.

TOPICALITY: If you’re good at it, I am a lot better for you than some of these jokers who seem to think T isn’t a legitimate issue. I do, which doesn’t mean I will vote for you just because you run it. It means that if you win it, I will vote for you even if all the cool kids think the aff is topical. However, I have also voted on arguments like T is genocidal and whatnot. The point is not that I'm eager, but that I'm willing.

READING EVIDENCE: Debates where I have to read a lot of cards are either really good or really bad. If the debaters in the round don't do their job to resolve major issues for me, I am not about to read 50 cards to overcome their ineptitude and/or replay the round in my head. Instead, I'll try to identify a few key cards and read those instead. If you want me to read a piece of evidence after the debate, you should cite it by author name and explain why it's important. In fact, if you do this really well and the other team doesn't respond, then I may just take your word for what the card says and not call for it at all. The bottom line is that, if you want an argument to influence my decision, you should say it out loud during a debate.

COUNTERPLANS: I love me some tricky counterplans. I don’t really have any set opinions about issues like whether conditionality is okay and whether PICs are legitimate. In my experience, most of those kind of theory debates get unacceptably messy and impossible to resolve. Every once in a while, though, I do like to see someone get decapitated on CP theory.

KRITIKS: I know them, I write them, I have read a lot of so-called postmodern stuff. This means that if you are a team that relies on the judge being mystified by big words, you don’t want me. However, some of y’all read insanely complicated stuff really fast without doing enough to explain what the hell you’re saying. I like fast debate, but if you read the overview to your torturously complex kritik at top speed, you’re going to lose me. If your kritik is not overly complex, feel free to punch it. For those of you that hate the K, don’t worry. I will vote on framework or the perm or your turns too, as long as you win them.

PERFORMANCE: I just want you to explain what you are doing, why you are doing it, what my role is, and how I’m supposed to decide the round. I also want you to act like the other team actually exists, and to address the things they say (or the dances they do, or whatever). Is that too much to ask? If it is, you don’t want me. If you feel like I should intuit the content of your args from your performance with no explicit help from you, you don’t want me. If you are entertaining, funny, or poignant, and the above constraints don’t bother you, I’m fine for you. If you answer performance arguments with well thought-out and researched arguments and procedurals, you want me, too.

DECORUM: AGGRESSION IS FINE, BUT DON’T BE AN ASSHOLE. Do be entertaining. Please, please be entertaining. I'm a sucker for funny debate, friendly smack talk, or anything that gets the blood going. As long as you're not being pointlessly hostile, intolerant, or a jerk, almost anything goes. POINTLESSLY HOSTILE CROSS-EXAMINATIONS SUCK. Chill out, people. Hostility is only good in cross-ex if it's making a point -- and even then you'd better be able to handle your high. Be nice to your partners. At the end of the day, they're the ones you have to go back to the hotel with.

SPEAKER POINT SCALE. For the time being, here's how I'm assigning points:
 * 30: I can't imagine how you could have been better. I haven't given one in years.
 * 29.0-29.9: Damn, you're good. Overall, you were great and there was at least one "wow" moment in your speeches.
 * 28.0-28.9: Nice job. Solid work.
 * 27.5-27.9: Meh. You did alright, but your execution was lacking and there was nothing special for me.
 * 27.0-27.4: Not up to par. There were some *major* flaws in your performance.
 * 26.0-26.9: Really poor. Either I didn't think you were trying hard or you were annoying.
 * Below 26: You did something to really piss me off, and after my critique you will have no question as to what it was.