FTN - Judge Philosophies

Judge Philosophies

Aaron Fullman - UNO

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Amanda Goodrich - UNO

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Amy Arellano - UNL

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Caitlynn Schwehn - CUNE

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Christina Ivey - UNL

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Ethan Richardson - HC

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Jacob Williams - York

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Jennifer Torres - Doane College

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Jessica Samens - Bethel Univ

Jessica Samens, ADOF - Bethel University Debate Judging Philosophy <hr /> Years judging Debate – 6 Number of Rounds judged – 50 + Tournaments judged – 25 Average Speaker points - 27 <hr /> While I am a relatively new Parli judge, I have a strong grasp on what I like and dislike in a debate round.  I have worked hard to become a respected judge on the circuit and have proven myself to be such. Overall, I want this to be a good learning experience for all involved, which translates into what I like and dislike. <hr /> I like a round that is civil, well set up, and easy to understand. While I expect students to stand firm in their arguments, I do not tolerate being rude to the other team. Sarcasm, being disrespectful, and bullying do not make me happy. I also like a debate that is well presented and follows an organized fashion set out by the Gov. This way I don’t have to make the decision if you dropped arguments or not, plus it makes it easier for everyone to follow (especially the judge who will be making the ultimate decision).  A messy debate forces all involved to make a lot of assumptions. I also like a round that is easy to understand – I fully admit to not always following the news as well as I should.  Please explain arguments for the sake of the judge and the other team. <hr /> Speaking of Topicality, I am fine with you running this as long as it is justified.  However, don’t spend precious time arguing it hurts the education system and is abusive.  I know what the grounds are and do not want you to waste time you could be spending on the case.  I am accepting of counter plans as long as they are not just the gov plan modified – I also need to see they are justified by the opp.  I feel the same out K’s, etc – impress me with your debate skills. <hr /> In order to win my round, I want to see that you have learned something about debate and fought a clean round. When teams are equally paired, I am fine with a little humor and sarcasm to each other (while this may seem to go against my earlier claim, I do appreciate the spirit of debate when done fairly),  but not when you are the stronger team – you take away from the other team's ability to learn. Also, be sure to tell me why you win – I appreciate voters in the rebuttals to tell me why you are the winning team. Never leave the debate in the judge’s hand, there is a lot of information going back and forth and you don’t want me to miss the main arguments you have provided. <hr /> Happy Debating!

Jon Loging - Bethany

<h2>Jon Loging - Bethany Lutheran College</h2> Question 1 : Please provide significant details on how your approach and evaluate debate rounds. Especially helpful are details about approaches or arguments that you either enjoy or dislike. Years of competition in Parliamentary Debate - 4 Number of years coaching/judging Parliamentary Debate - 14   I firmly believe Parliamentary debate is an excellent Communication activity and should be carried out with that intention.  I like to observe all the formalities that go along with Parli.  Delivery should be clear, well paced, and organized.  Debaters should use logic, wit, examples, and style to convince a person that their perspective of a resolution is the correct one.  Overall, I want you to persuade me on the issue presented in the resolution.  I don't want you to stand up there and tell me the other team is stupid.  Stand up there and tell me why I should vote for you.  Persuade me!  Don't simply bash the other team. Technical debating does not impress me.  I don't care how many levels you have for your topicality argument if the Government team was topical.  If the Government team goes way off base with their case, then a simple explanation of why they are not topical is called for.  DON'T tell me that they are decreasing the educational value of the debate.  Using the same old, tired arguments is what is decreasing the educational value of debate.  Meta-debate is a fun activity, but when we are talking about cutting taxes, I don’t want to hear argumentation theory; I want to hear why we should or should not cut taxes. I dislike "road maps".  In normal public speaking, a preview is incorporated into an introduction.  When you start speaking, I start timing.  When my timer says you are done, I stop listening.   I judge a round based on the quality of debate, not quantity.  Some arguments might be dropped by the other team.  That is not a reason that they should lose.  It might be they spent time on the arguments that mattered and not the 12 disads you sped through in 1 minute.   Other idiosyncrasies:  I don’t flow rebuttals.  Anything you bring up in a rebuttal should have been talked about in the constructives.  Anything brought up in a constructive is fair game in the rebuttals.  I don’t care if it wasn’t touched by their partner.  (Read the rules of debating, I have!)  I dislike “conversational” debates when everyone decides to speak.  The person at the podium has the floor and should be the only one speaking unless a point of information is raised.  (By the way, points of information can be a question or a statement.) At the end of the round I ask the question:  Who did the better debating on the resolution at hand?  That is the team that will get the win.

Jon Carter - UNL

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Josh House - Cypress

I have tendencies but I'm not entirely robotic and my views are not perfectly static across time and space. If I change in a major way I’ll let you know. I tend to prioritize substance over style. That's not to say that I discount style entirely, and your delivery can certainly influence my understanding of what you have to say, but I'm not ever voting based on what you're wearing or just based on who sounded more polished. I tend to prefer structure in your delivery, and I prefer it if you watch my nonverbal reactions and adjust accordingly when appropriate. That is to say, if I’m confused or lost I try not to keep that to myself, and I’d appreciate it if you make some attempt to un-confuse me sooner rather than later. I tend to want to vote in debates based on how the debaters tell me I should vote and to try to keep my personal feelings about a topic out of my decision. That is, I try to stick to the flow and I try not to intervene. I tend to view voting on Topicality (and procedural issues more generally) in Parli as something that is in opposition with that last tendency. The Gov team gets about 20 minutes to figure out what a topic means and what they’re going to say. As long as their interpretation of what the topic means makes sense I tend to think that the Opposition team should debate them on that interpretation. To be clear(er), I will vote on Topicality but I am very sympathetic to “we meet” arguments and I absolutely require articulated in round abuse (not potential abuse and not prep-time abuse). In LD or other activities where the topic stays the same over time I’m much more likely to vote on Topicality and to listen to reasons why I should choose the “best” interpretation of the topic. I would love to talk to you more about this if you’re interested. Oh yeah, I tend to want you to run a policy because I think it usually makes for better, more educational debate. I tend to think that if the alternative on your K has to include the words “Vote Opp to…” it’s a good sign that I don’t really need to vote Opp to accomplish what you’re after. If your Alt solvency rests on changing the minds/actions of people in the real world (not via fiat) then I expect an explanation of how it works starting with the people in the room and extending as far as our influence reaches. Otherwise don’t tell me that my voting Opp will end capitalism or the patriarchy and expect me to fill in the gaps on how that happens. I tend to forget to give time signals because I’m busy writing things down. I will usually at least have a timer, it’s just that I forget to look at it as you go, so if you time yourselves or have somebody in the audience help out that’s usually to your advantage. I tend to want people to enjoy this activity, to seem like they’re enjoying this activity, and to help others to enjoy this activity. I tend to react pretty negatively to behavior that is exclusionary, rude, or mean. I would be happy to add clarification on items of interest on request.

Kari Fisk - UNK

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Melanie Hiatt - HC

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Michael Dreher - Bethel Univ

Michael Dreher Director of Forensics, Professor and Director, M.A. in Communication, Bethel University Number of debates judged             (2013-2014): 6                (2014-2015): 10 Number of parli debates judged      (2013-2014): 5                (2014-2015): 10   Speaker point average - 2013-2014 NCCFI: 26.63, sd = 1.40 No. of years judging parli: 21; 32 years of being active in debate in one form or another (that makes me feel really old). In 2013-2014, I only judged parli at two tournaments because I was in tab a lot (15 out of 18 tournaments last year). Please don’t confuse my lack of rounds as a lack of interest/being around debate (as witnessed by this really long philosophy). I’ve judged quite a number of parli, LD and policy debates, but only 1 IPDA debate, so if I’m somehow in the pool for IPDA, then know that I’m not as familiar with the format. When I judged it at the 2014 NCCFI, I didn’t have any idea of the rules – so while I may be slightly more familiar with the rules now, as we all know, there’s a difference between knowing rules and being familiar with how those rules are practiced and interpreted. We simply don’t do IPDA in our part of the country. Know that I’m more likely to follow the letter of the rules rather than actual practice when those two concepts are in conflict. I assume that the IPDA ballot style is the way in which I’m supposed to vote. I’m not sure how much of what I write below applies to IPDA (it’s more so for parli/LD), but it’ll give you a sense of how I process arguments. Specifically, when it comes to quantity vs. quality of arguments: Yes, I do flow. You’ll recognize me - I’m the one who uses the really giant sketch pad. I’ve used large sketch pads for 32 years. I write big – it’s Biblical (see Galatians 6:11). I use the flow as a guide to help me remember; that doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily drop the round if you miss the 8th point off the third subpoint on the impact scenario. What it does mean is that I look to the reasonability of both positions before determining whether that matters. “Lump and dump” done well is just fine with me. If you can cover everything by grouping, go for it. There is a need to strike logical, structured argument along with persuasive abilities. Many people come into parli with a policy background, which is fine.  What separates the top parli (and for that matter, NFA-LD) debaters is their ability to adapt to whatever kind of audience they have. You’ll find that I tend to default to a policymaking paradigm unless the debaters argue otherwise. I’ll listen to other kinds of debates (fact, value, etc.), but I’ve heard quite a few teams that have terrible criteria when it comes to weighing value or fact rounds. If you’re going to run fact or value – give me very clear criteria as to how to weigh the arguments – I’ll filter all the arguments through whatever becomes the criterion. And please (for all that is good and holy) don’t run preponderance of evidence as a fact criterion. Those rounds just lead to unwarranted speed and bad, blippy arguments. Opp in fact/value rounds shouldn’t be afraid to bring up countervalue/countercriterion, but opps can still win even through the gov criterion. If you’re a big fan of tiny brink, large impact DA’s, I’m probably not your type of judge.  I’m not likely to buy that a $10 million increase in the budget deficit will lead to nuke war. Remember the trinity: probability, timeframe and magnitude; I tend to look at the three in that particular order. Speed: I tend to prefer moderate speed in large part because I’m a “deep flow” judge. I don’t flow only taglines; I flow the underlying warrants and backing underneath the taglines. So, the more I hear (not in a speed sense, but rather a “what I understand” sense), the better I understand your arguments, and that means more that you give me to think about for your side at the end of the round. Accordingly, I tend to take a long time in terms of rendering the decision. I’m likely not to tell you my decision right away not because I am anti-disclosure, but I find that writing my way through the arguments in the round helps me to clearly articulate why I end up voting a certain way. I’ll be happy to chat about the round right away and give you some helpful advice, but it does take me a few minutes to work through your arguments. You can find me later and I can talk about round specifics in more detail. Know, though, that your ballots won’t just have “see oral disclosure,” and your ballots will have a strong sense of how I understood and weighed your arguments. Case side vs. DA’s/Kritiks: I think case side debates are underutilized, and dissecting a gov case can be a thing of beauty. I still vividly remember a Creighton-Grove City round from NPDA several years back where Creighton basically tore apart the entire case without a single DA or T argument – because they could. K’s need impact, and a clear story of how they apply to the gov case, which includes the alternative and a sense of whether the K is pre or post-fiat. Many teams forget to weigh out their DA’s adequately – make sure that you tell me why your DA is more important than any accrued or potentially accrued gov’t advantage. Don’t just rely on “cross-apply the DA to case” – really show me how the DA’s intrinsic analysis outweighs the government’s specific case side analysis. Topicality: I’ll vote on it. My quirk is that you don’t need to give me a long abuse block. Tell me the violation(s), and why they’re violations, and move on! Either I’ll vote on the violation or I won’t. I’ve never seen a round won on “Gov decreases education.” If I’m a one-judge panel and I hear a huge abuse block, I’ll probably stop flowing and start to get annoyed. If I’m on a 3-judge panel, I’ll live with it, but don’t be surprised if I stop flowing. As far as citation of evidence in round is concerned, I'm not the world's biggest fan. However, if someone does ask you where you found some information, I'd hope you would have an answer. I’ve already had to adjudicate one evidence challenge this year; as a result, I'm a bit more sensitive to made-up arguments/sources.  Plan text: I don’t need a copy unless you’re really fast, and in that case, I’m probably having other problems keeping a deep flow. Do make sure that we all understand the plan text though. Give the opp a chance to clarify plan and you won’t bite into a spec argument. I have been known to pull the trigger on spec a time or two, but that comes from my policymaking paradigm – if I don’t know whose job it is to deal with plan, then I’m not sure why I should accept that policy. I don’t have to know every specific, but I do need to have a general sense of how the plan functions. Not answering a legitimate question about plan only increases the propensity of a spec argument. Performance arguments: The reason I tend to have problems with them is that they essentially run as privileged narratives, which makes it really hard for the opp because the ground is so skewed. Arguments based on personal history violate Section 4B of the NPDA Rules of Debating, so for me, there's even a higher threshhold in terms of why someone would break rules everyone has agreed to by entering the tournament.  New arguments/points of order: I do protect teams from new arguments in the rebuttals. So POO’s aren’t necessary. Run 'em if you want or if you’re afraid I’ve missed something. Offense/Defense: Defense is underrated. If a team can mitigate the effect of an argument, that can often be the most time-efficient strategy available, particularly if the other team’s argument didn’t have much of an impact scenario anyway. Tag-team debate: I’ve accepted that it’s now part of the activity. That said, one of my roles is to evaluate you as a speaker. If your partner keeps answering all your POI’s for you, or becomes a significant part of the speech, then I have no choice than to give the speaker points to your partner. NFA-LD rules: I follow the 2014 rules. In particular, they do tend to limit study counterplans. One last thing – NCCFI is a special tournament. While not all of us share the same Christian commitment, I would hope that we can agree on a few common beliefs: a) civility, b) respecting other’s interpretations of faith, even if we don’t necessarily agree with those interpretations ourselves, and c) helping to keep the NCCFI a special place. I’ve been here since the beginning (when NCCFI didn’t conflict with Novice Nats, which I directed for a few years).  I worry that over time, I’ve seen less and less difference between NCCFI and other tournaments. Debate is one of the best places to show that, while we can use debate to “sharpen iron,” as it were, we can do it in a way that is ultimately a blessing and an honor to God and each other. The 2014 tournament brought me a bit of hope in this area. I hope that the 2015 tournament will continue to expand on that hope.

Najla Amundson - NDSU

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Nathaniel Wilson - Doane College

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Shannon Leinen - York

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2015 Sleet and Snow: Part 1--Sleet