Last changed on
Fri August 25, 2023 at 9:00 AM EDT
Hi I'm Ben
I participated in Public Forum Debate at Hackley for 4 years. I am now a junior at the University of Chicago. In general, I am a flow judge and you should treat me as one. If any of this is unclear or if you have any other questions, please ask me. I am happy to answer any specific questions about my preferences. Please read my paradigm so you can ask me specific questions though.
Above all, have fun. Debate is supposed to be fun. Make me enjoy watching the round. Make jokes. Put a smile on. I promise whether you do well or poorly you will still be happy if you genuinely enjoy debate, so enjoy debate.
For those of you who don't have much time or want a simple version of my paradigm the most important things know are:
-don't misrepresent evidence
-implicate your responses to your opponent's case
-defense is sticky (so you don't need to extend defense they don't respond to)
-Summary and Final Focus must be about the same content
-tell me where you want me to flow your responses (signpost)
-Weigh!!!! Weigh in comparison to your opponents weighing
-Collapse on one argument
Specific Preferences:
1. In second rebuttal, ideally all offense from the other side in the round should be covered. This means you should respond to their case, and any turns and disadvantages they put on your case in first rebuttal.
2. I like to hear weighing in rebuttal, it makes my life easier and the quality of debate higher.
3. I can handle speed, but a disclaimer: the faster you go, the higher the chance that I misunderstand what you are saying. Be reasonable with speed.
4. Please read the dates on any evidence you read.
5. If you misrepresent your evidence with paraphrasing intentionally, your speaks will suffer. Be warned.
6. I'll evaluate theory and k's but I won't like it. They don't really belong in Public Forum, but if you win them, I'll vote off of them.
7. Card dumping is great, but if you don't implicate your cards to their case I'm not going to evaluate them. This also means you have to warrant your cards.
8. Defense is sticky. If defense isn't responded to, you don't need to extend it.
9. Offense is not sticky. If you want me to evaluate offense, it must be in summary and final focus, and if you speak 2nd, in one of your first two speeches.
10. I will put my pen on the table during cross. If you think I am not paying attention during cross, it is because I am not paying attention. Cross is for the debaters to clarify stuff with each other, not to bring up new points or to grandstand for the judge.
11. That being said, don't be super rude or you will lose speaks. I am okay with wittiness/humor, I even appreciate it, but make sure you don't yell at your opponents or explicitly make fun of them, it is bad for the activity of debate and I will take away speaks.
12. Please signpost. If you don't tell me where on the flow you want me to write what you are saying, I will decide, and you might not like that. Even worse, if I can't figure out where to put it, I will just ignore it. You definitely won't like that.
13. Tech>Truth. I will evaluate the round entirely based on what's on my flow. I am not going to intervene. You tell me how to vote and why that means I vote for you, and I will evaluate the round.
14. Please weigh in summary and final focus. Not only that, comparatively weigh. This means you take your weighing and your opponents weighing and you explain why I should prefer your weighing in comparison with their weighing.
15. Collapse. If you go for your whole case, I am going to be really sad and the quality of the debate is just going to be worse. It also will make your weighing and extensions less clear.
16. Speaks: I think speaks are stupid and subjective and they don't promote the activity of debate, they promote the activity of public speaking. Thus, most of the way I am going to evaluate speaks is round strategy, vision, and cohesiveness in a team. Here is how that looks:
30- You collapsed on the right thing, and you weighed it with your opponent's case innovatively. All of the opponent's offense was responded to completely. You frontlined everything you went for. Final Focus built on, but was about the same content as summary. Both partners were on the same page the whole round.
29- You collapsed on the right thing, and you weighed it adequately with your opponent's case. You responded all of your opponent's offense, but you may have mishandled it somewhat. You frontlined everything you went for, but maybe it was a little rushed or done not well enough. Final Focus and Summary were about the same content. Both partners seemed pretty cohesive throughout the round.
28- You collapsed, but perhaps not on the right thing, and your weighing was not comparative. You may have dropped a turn, or a part of your opponent's case, but you at least weighed. You did not necessarily frontline all of your opponent's defense on what you went for, but the frontlining done was good. Final Focus felt a little bit disjointed from Summary, but they still were in the big picture covering the same thing. The partners seemed to be presenting slightly different worldviews at least, and may have interrupted each other in Grand Cross.
27-You probably went for everything, and your weighing was poor or nonexistent. Your defense was mishandled and you didn't respond to significant parts of your opponent's offense. There was nearly no frontlining even attempted, and the frontlining attempted was poor and didn't apply. Final Focus brought up new stuff and felt completely different than what was going on in Summary. The partners seemed very disjointed and probably interrupted each other in grand cross.
26 (This is nearly impossible to do)-You didn't even try to extend any offense and your speeches turned into just yelling nonsense at the wall. Defense? What's that? We don't need to talk about what our opponents said. Partners seemed to be close to a fistfight during prep time.
auto 26 (If you got a 26 this probably happened)- intentional misrepresentation of evidence or complete disrespect for the other team is a one way trip to a 26.
17. If you ask me to call for evidence, I will call for it after the round if my decision is contingent on it.
18. Extensions need to extend the warrant, link, and impact of an argument, and also frontline after you extend.
19. Oh yeah pls don't be racist, sexist, homophobic or any one of those kinda things i will give you lowest speaks possible!!! Don't be that guy or gal pls!
20. Trigger warnings and content warnings seem ideal when appropriate