Davis,+Michael+(AZ)


 * Note, there are more than one Michael Davis entries on this site. I am associated with Basis Scottsdale in Arizona.**

I am a former policy and Lincoln Douglas debater. This is my third year of judging on the Arizona and national circuit. The simplified version of my philosophy is:

I will decide which debater's __arguments__ as written __on the flow__ makes the proposition "vote aff" or "vote neg" __more true__.

The following details may be useful to remember:
 * "arguments" are well developed links, warrants, and impacts. Assumptions may be implicit or explicit, but there will be less confusion the more explicit they are.
 * "on the flow" means that if I don't write it down I don't evaluate it. Reasons that something you say may not get written down incude, but are not limited to:
 * Excess speed / Insufficient clarity. I can handle most speed as long as your speech is clear
 * Disorganization. If I am trying to figure out where to write it, I'm not writing it. Signpost and minimize repeated switching between AC, NC, Off case, etc.
 * Confused exposition. Balance between saying too little and too much on each argument
 * "more true" is the crux of the matter. At the VLD level all debaters are capable of taking a set of assumptions and constructing a coherent argument leading to their desired conclusion. The way I will choose between two equally valid arguments (in the formal sense) is to accept whose assumptions are "least surprising" to me as a judge.

The other thing I have to decide is Speaker points. An average debater at the national circuit level should expect 28 points, leaving me room to reward really excellent speakers. Things that cause me to deduct speaker points are ineffective or obnoxious CX, extreme disorganization, and general unfamiliarity with the norms and practices of LD.

I won't list my defaults for such things as whether I favor competing interps versus reasonability, because if I am deciding based on my defaults neither debater has grounds to be upset at the results.