Hodgman,+Thomas


 * Background**

I competed in policy debate for four years in high school and one year in college. This will be my fifth year judging high school policy debate. While debating, I made a wide variety of arguments, both critical and policy, and debated on both the national circuit as well as locally in front of lay judges. I was an elimination-round competitor at both the TOC and NFL my senior year in high school. I coached high school policy debate for a year after graduating and also lectured and led labs at various debate camps my first two summers after graduating.


 * Methodology**

As your judge, I will do my best to evaluate the round fairly and effectively based solely on the arguments you have made in the debate. To help me do so, it is essential that you devote sufficient effort towards addressing decision-making heuristics and framing arguments and respond sufficiently to the arguments your opponents have made. The best debaters, who will get the highest speaker points and be the most likely to win the round, are those who do an excellent job of arguing how I should decide the debate. Absent sufficient work in this regard, or in places where the debate is close, I will rely on my preferences while still attempting to remain as fair as possible.


 * Preferences**

I will generally be more impressed by a passionate and in-depth defense of a position you really believe is true, than a strategy which depends on overwhelming your opponents with a large quantity of arguments and technically out-maneuvering them. Truth is something I value very highly, and can be appealed to through any style of debate or within any framework combining elements of policy-making, critical theory, and/or performativity. I am more impressed by high-quality evidence, plausible impact scenarios, creative analysis, and efficient argumentation than I am by rapid-fire delivery or contrived scenarios.


 * If you have any questions about my background, methodology, or preferences before the debate, please feel free to ask me.**