Judge Philosophies
Dana Golden - Georgia Tech
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Fernando Gonzalez - UNG
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Hannah Tremble - TMU
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James Roland - UNG
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Jonathan Bridenbaker - VSU
Joseph Boone - VSU
Keven Rudrow - VSU
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Lindsey Warden - Mercer
She/her/hers. I am returning to assistant coach for Mercer this year having previously competed as our program was making its transition from small, Southern tournaments to large NPDA tournaments. I have been out of college debate for about six years - my background is in K-12 education, and I have coached some middle and high school programs, mostly public forum debate and a little policy. I am not super technical, but I enjoy hearing all kinds of arguments and I like it when I can learn something new in-round. I am good with most kinds of arguments, strategies, and approaches to debate. I like good organization, lots of signposting, and rebuttals that group and collapse arguments intelligently so that I can discern exactly where you want me to vote. Overall I believe the debate space is yours. I want you to be able to debate about the things you like to debate about, in the way that you like to debate about them, but I think there are a few things that are fair for you to know about me, so here they are.
(1) I am convinced that spreading can be problematic for the activity, and is potentially ill-suited to a debate format where the topic changes from round to round and there are no text files we can share to help people follow along. To be honest top speeds and lack of clarity trigger a migraine for me nine times out of ten and I want to listen to debates at conversational to slightly faster than conversational rates. On your end, it is probably important to you that I can hear and follow all of your arguments.
(2) My threshold for voting on T is pretty high. If their interpretation is actually abusive and causing ground loss/education loss/etc, run it, but I don't necessarily enjoy t debates that are introduced just because you can. I won't drop folks if they run a topicality arg that I don't like of course, I just think your time might be better spent on something else with me in the back of the room. If you love T and you run it every round and it doesn't feel like debating for you without it, then please carry on.
(3) I am interested in critical debates, but I have been out of the debate world for a minute, teaching middle school social studies and being a mom, so you are going to want to explain your argument in pretty fine detail. Unlike some of your judges, I am usually not devoting a bunch of my free time to reading and cutting literature exclusively for debate. I think you should always be detailed as a rule, but I just want to be clear that I am probably not the best judge for blippy and/or very generic kritiks. Explaining your story on the link level is very important, I want to hear explicitly how you're jumping from point A to point B.
(4) I don't think that debate is just a game. I don't necessarily mind judging traditional policy-oriented rounds, but it's always important to keep in mind that the statistics and literature and news headlines that are just a means to a ballot for some are real life for many others, both within and without the debate space. Be thoughtful. Be measured. Be kind.
Rishabh Jain - Georgia Tech
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Robert Brown - Spelman
I debated in HS (LD) and in College (CEDA now NDT) and have coached for the past four years with teams that do BP, NPDA, IPDA and Civic Debate. I have also taught Arg & Debate.
I am a tabby judge: which means that I do not come to the round with any prior knowledge. As a result, I will not finish arguments for debaters.
Debaters should be prepared to match claims with warrants and have well-thought out link stories. They should also be prepared to explain why their harms outweigh their opponents, if the debate is a policy/value one.
But I firmly believe that the debate space is created by the debaters and the easiest way to judge a round is if there is appropriate clash of ideas where the debaters explain why their ideas, on the whole, win out.
Shawn Greiner - Georgia Tech
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Stephania Ortez - VSU
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Teri Thompson - Spelman
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Tom Preston - UNG
Although I keep an open mind in listening and considering all arguments--so please don't change radically what you run on my behalf--I believe that tabula rasa is a myth, as we all bring a lifetime full of life experiences (on March 5, I will have 65 years of those), and background in debate (2022 marks my 50th year in debate, as I joined the Paisley 9th and 10th grade debate team back in 1972), and went on to debate for RJ Reynolds High School, in Winston-Salem, until I graduated in 1975. Atlhough I judged some high school debates while at the Unviersity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I mainly competed inindividual events, and judged many college and high school tournament in graduate school at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Policy was fairly much the only debate type around then.
Much has changed since the days of cards literally being cards, when the long file replacing the kitchen recipe box meant that you had arrived as a varsity debater. In my first permanent gig at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, my first teams were policy teams, so that is what I learned. We then moved on to CEDA, and finally to NPDA debating. That lasted from 1984-2001. Even since 2001, neither CEDA nor NPDA are recognizable from what they were then.
I was interim NPDA coach at Rocky Mountain College in Billings, MT in 2001-2002, then took a hiatus from coaching or advising but judged many debates of various sorts on the high school and college level.
After a moved to a non-DOF position as full Professor at UNG (my home campus then was Gainesville State College, but UNG claims the history of both that institution and the former North Georgia College and State Unversity before 2013), a group of students asked me why UNG didn't have a debate team in 2005 and I told them that if they formed a club, I would be its adviser. Since 2007, I have voluntarily advised a student run club, although from that club sprang a debate practicum, two new debate program, and a full fledged traveling squad and service learning program run out of my debate curriculum. You could call it a bit of mission creep. That makes me a generalist in the field of debate and speech, and I often quote Forrest Gump when descripting the UNG Debate and Speech Club, which has won campus-wide awards for 15 years running: "UNG Debate and Speech is like a box of chocolates--you never know what you are going to get." But I have been blessed with great students everywhere that I have been.
Having both sponsored and been involved in international travel, Spanish language debate and speech in which UNG annually fields some contestants, and continue to be involved in the Atlanta Urban Debate league as part of UNG's service learning program, I place a strong emphasis in diversity, equity and service, and strive to reflect the values of the University of North Georgia. This was instilled in my experience at UNC-Chapel hill, all of those years ago.
In policy debate, here are some things to know about me other than the background noted above:
1. Performance--love it--but make sure the links are clear. Performance I know conceived at Louisville had evolved considerably by the time I visited a debate camp as an observer at Coppin State University a few years back. But as in kritiks--by now an old strategy--make sure the links are clear to what you are dramatizing.
2. Topicality--rarely vote on it, although will listen to it. You are asking me to vote on one issue and accusing the other team of an ethical violation, which I take seriously. You must specify standards, the violation, (importantly) a synergistic model for what would be topical, and what topicality is an a priory voting issue to have a chance to win it. Unless you win all four, I won't vote on topicality. Using it to exclude impacts on race, gender, and ethnicity won't fly with me.
3. Refutation--a good thing. Follow the four step model (this applies to any format of debate I hear--let me know by number what argument you are on (if the other team doesn't give you a structure, jump for joy as that allows you to impose your own structure to your advantage; give your counter-argument--give your evidence for the counter argument--and follow through with the oft forgotten fourth argument--tell me why your winning that position is worth it.
4. Delivery-will take care of itself if CX and rebuttals reveal that you undestand rather than can merely read your case.
5. Speed--you're going to have it as long as we have time limits. The debate over it is pointless will never be solved. Maintaining structure, pack in whatever you can get it--I'll ask you to adjust if I can't understand the argument. That though only happens once in over 1000 debates.
6. Counterplans--I'm old school that they give up presumption, but if you have one that is unique and can't be permed--and is air tight and you can prove that it is better than the affirmative policy advocated--go for it! Not a fan of topical counterplans, but am open enough to listen to and vote for them of they are explained properly and withstand refutation.
Structure and signposting are key to enable the judges to know what argument you are on, and voting issues are so essential for the structure of the second rebuttal speeches.
Although UNG rarely fields policy debate team, I have been involved in some form of judging policy debates since 1972. And, our service learning program involves training in and practice for policy debate as many secondary members of the UNG Debate and Speech Team judges with the Atlanta Urban Debate League.
NPDA--This event too has changed since I first got involved in fielding teams somewhere around 30 years ago, and since my then brain trust used ran an NPDA event that got up to 52 schools by the mid-1990s. After the UNG team formed a team on January 26, 2007 the then formed a team that "majored" in NPDA, and UNG was one of the founders of GPDA in 2009.
Here are some of my ideas with NPDA:
1) Points of Information--speakers should be willing to take at least two per speech, but not take them to the point that the speeches lose their structure.
2) Speed--again, when we have time limits and published debate theory begins to be quoted--and many topics are worded policy--it is inevitable. Prefer structure, however--number your points.
3) Topicality arguments, kritiks, and performance--as NPDA has evolved more to resumble CEDA/NDT debates, see how I view them in policy debates above. It is very difficult to win a debate on topicality, though maybe out of 1,000 rounds I may vote on it. In kritik and performance oriented debate, it can become a link war. Again, kritiks were round when I was last assistant professor (in 1992), and performance evolves daily.
4) Structure--love it. In Govt. rebuttal, after refuting, give me NUMBERED voters; and in Opp Rebuttal, give me ONLY numbered voters. Make it easy for me to flow.
5) Explanations and impacts are good--when presenting an argument, follow CEI--claim, evidence, and impact. In refutation, again, follow the four step refutation model as I described for policy debate.
6) "This house believes that something should happen"--regardless of the wording of this house believes, I always treat such topics as policy. Negative is silly to argue them as other than policy based on presumption, and affirmative won't get out of having to prove solvency if they argue anything other than policy. But negative, though, must point that out--as strongly as I believe this, negative still needs to make that point.
7)Points of order, which in practice were of the "new argument in rebuttal nature"--at most, limit it to one POO--mostly, trust me to discount new arguments introduced into rebuttals as if they were never said.
8)Heckling and banging on the table--How I missed those--the reactions of the room were one of the things that made NPDA so fun in its heyday. So if I'm judging you, I don't mind the occasional "here, here," "for shame", or parli language applause (rapping the table). So if you are in a room with me as the only judge, heckle and rap away! If I'm one of three judges, discernment says that the others may not remember the olden days, and may not understand or appreciate the heckling or banging.
For IPDA:
The speeches are shorter, and I view this more as a fun, recreational sort of debate. Atlhough not obsessed with delivery, as the event implies, whoever has developed a gift of gab gets more of the nod than in other formats, although the substance remains important. IPDA encourages lay and student judging, and I adapt my own judging to the philosphies of that organization when judging. Thus, a bit less technical jargon may help in this format though they are commonly practiced in NPDA, CEDA, and NDT debate.
Generally, the details of a plan are less important, though there seems to be an emphasis put on defining terms clearly in the beginning.
I do try to be especially open to arguments, but recognize that explanation in terms of what would be expected as a lay person may be considered more important than in other forms of debate.
I note a trend to avoid complex theoretical arguments here, as the speeches are much shorter.
Again, the CEI model for introducing arguments, and the four step refutation model are the fundamental building blocks to sound debating. Don't forget to address the "Why is this important?" question at the end of each and every argument--and explicitly address your impacts.
I do expect numbered voters in the last two speeches in this debate format.
Also, a little bit about the odd format that gives negative such a long rebuttal vs. two shorter affirmative rebuttals--I don't expect 2AR to refute everything--just summarizing the voters. I believe that imposing a strict subpoint by subpoint refutation requirement is very unfair to the affirmative in this format. Just get to the main issues and if neg, remember to site substantive issues only as voters--for example, "dropped arguments" is not an voting issue in this format, lest negatives win about 90 per cent of the rounds in IPDA.
Most of all, I want debaters to enjoy the rounds and hopefully learn from a wide variety of oral critiques in most formats--and written comments in IPDA though IPDA has the peculiar norm of no oral critiques after the debate.
Do realize that in whatever format, I can only give one win. At the same time, feel free to question and even challenge.
Best wishes to all at any tournament to make for good debates based on your hard work and skill. I am glad that each and every one of you is here regardless of your experience, and hope that this experience will spur you to seek out many more debate opportunities.