Last changed on
Sat October 24, 2020 at 5:00 AM EDT
** For Policy Debaters, 2020-2021. My graduate academic background is in comparative criminal justice, meaning that I probably have a lot more content familiarity than a typical judge, albeit not necessarily the debate world version of the literature. I will probably have opinions about some of your sources. Ask if you think this may help or hurt you **
I am a former policy debater and have coached and judged (at least 100 rounds of each) policy, public forum and LD debate. I flow and can whatever speed you want to throw at me, but I'm not impressed by it. I am old enough to remember LD and Public Forum debate in their infancy and what traditional policy debate was.
There are no formal rules in debate; please do not assert so in the round. There are rules about evidence that you should adhere to . . .
Debate is both a competition and an educational activity, and as a judge, I try my best to be fair and to promote debate as much as possible as a learning activity. I know debaters work hard and I try not to spoil that work by inserting myself into the round. As a result, I try as much as possible to let the round be decided by you, the debaters, and not my preferences, knowledge or values as a judge. Concretely this means:
I will not vote based on whether I like or dislike you, notions of debate etiquette or style of debate. If you behave in a way that would be a concern for a good Human Resources director, I will assess it in your speaker points, not the decision for the round.
All debaters have to argue both sides of any topic or resolution; I generally do not like arguments that systematically favor one side (pro or con; aff or neg) over the other.
I think evidence is important, not because evidence makes things magically true, but because it allows me to anchor your claims to some empirical reality. Emphasizing evidence allows me to reward you for doing the learning and work before the round. Both sides have access to the same evidence. This is the easiest way for me to be fair and promote learning as a judge. You should be able to produce any evidence read in your opening speeches within 30 seconds, WIFI willing, and you should be able to produce any source read in any speech within a few minutes.
Evidence is not necessary; you can assume that I am a fairly well-read and knowledgeable person who cares about public policy and public affairs. However, I do not agree with those who think their analytical arguments somehow trump expert analysis and sources. I have watched a lot of debate rounds over a long time in a variety of frameworks, I have yet to see Ciceronian rhetoric or Socratic logic appear. I find that what most take for "analysis" is bowlderized ECON 101 on domestic topics and IR Realism for foreign policy topics; the world is much more complex than this. Policy analysis is operationalized common sense, but there is more than one common sense out there.
I try to decide the round by evaluating two competing RFD presented in the FF or 2AR/2NR. I then use my flow of the round to hypothesis-test the RFD presented to me.
During the round, if one team clearly seems to be winning, what I am thinking about is: "what would the team that is currently losing need to do to win this round?" As a result, I tend to be a squirrel on most elimination round panels.
While I think that there
MAGIC: another way to weigh arguments (Adapted from Yale Psychologist, Robert Abelson, Statistics as Principled Argument), substitute the words "arguments" or "evidence" for "effects" and I think this is a good framework to weigh.
- Magnitude - How big is the effect? Large effects are more compelling than small ones.
- Articulation - How specific is it? Precise arguments are more compelling than imprecise ones.
- Generality - How generally does it apply? More general evidence and arguments are more compelling than less general ones. Claims that would interest a more general audience are more compelling.
- Interestingness - interesting arguments/evidence are those that "have the potential, through empirical analysis, to change what people believe about an important issue". More interesting arguments are more compelling than less interesting ones.
- Credibility - Credible claims are more compelling than incredible ones. Debaters must show that the claims made are credible. Claims that contradict previously established ones are less credible
A good summary of common logical errors made in arguments
Rhetological Fallacies:
https://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/rhetological-fallacies/