Last changed on
Fri January 26, 2024 at 8:55 PM PDT
-Debated 4 years LD, graduating in 2013; qualified to TOC twice and reached Quarterfinals my senior year.
-Have coached for 10 years; am currently the Head Debate Coach at Lynbrook High School.
1.Signpostduring rebuttals and label your arguments. Each response should be numbered and tagged with its function.
2. I keep track of arguments in the debatebased on their function and not as much on their content,i.e. if a turn is dropped, I'll usually vote on it without thinking too much about what the turn says. This is because I try to adhere to a tabula rasa judging philosophy (i.e. a blank slate).
3.My preference is for arguments about philosophyand not policy arguments. I am not a good judge for policy debates because I am not as familiar with the content. If you do read policy arguments in front of me, please do excessive line-by-line work and compare the warrants of your arguments. Many policy debates to me look like wars of competing assertions.
4.I am not the type to spend lots of time reading cardsafter the debate. If there's something important about your evidence or your opponent's evidence, it's your job to point that out to me.
5. Final speeches ideally begin with an overview that tells me as directly as possible why you win. It shouldn't be prewritten. It should go something like:'I'm winning X argument because Y, and it comes first because Z.'
6. My default understanding of how the standard works in LD is thatif an argument doesn’t link back to the winning standard, it becomes irrelevantand gets crossed off the flow. I do NOT default to a model of epistemic modesty.
7. I’d recommend comparing clashing arguments as soon as possible, i.e. even as early in the NC/1AR. Weighing is not just for impacts: any time there are two arguments that contradict, some form of resolution between them needs to be offered by the debaters or else there’s no objective way to break the tie and the arguments can be thought of as canceling each other out.If you save all your argument comparison/analysis for the last speech, I might disagree with your assessments and ignore them.Whereas if you introduce comparison earlier, and you extend and win it in the last speech, then you have a much higher chance of being ahead. In my view, it is a mistake to compete in LD as if it were the exact same thing as policy – the event is half as long and you need to account for that by clearing things up much earlier.
8.Cards are only tools to win an argument, they do not win you that argument.You could read 30 cards about something and it doesn’t make you right. I always value spin, analysis, and explanation over the mere fact of reading a piece of evidence.I also very much value smart analytics: my favorite form of responding to an argument is when a debater analytically deconstructs it, explaining in their own words what is wrong with the argument, what it’s missing, listing counter-examples to it or reasons its opposite is more likely true, etc. My least favorite means of responding to an argument is when someone just reads a bunch of cards against it without offering any of their own analysis/without explaining why the cards they’re reading actually win them the argument.
9. I like theory, but NOT when it's extra ridiculous (i.e. shoe theory).I also don’t vote on disclosure theory.To me it feels like bullying to demand that your opponent tell you their strategy before the round. I also much preferred the old style in which a debater’s first exposure to a case was during the actual debate itself, and when they were expected to use their own brain to generate responses to their opponent’s arguments during in-round prep time. I don’t like the new style in which the debaters basically write out their entire NC/1AR before the debate has even started. When I competed, everyone chilled out before their debates, they weren’t frantically compiling blocks the whole time.
PF PARADIGM
-The amount of time it takes PF teams to share evidence in round is a massive problem.
-I feel like PFers often assume a far greater familiarity with the topic, current events, and economic theory than I actually have. (Actually that holds true for all events.)
