Theresa Perry -- Cal. State Chico
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Judging philosophy:
General - I think that debate is a game and you should be able to use the arguments you want to win the round. With that said I believe that the Aff should defend the political ramifications of their plan and that plan should probably involve the USFG. Critical affs should not discount (ignore) the DA, if your plan, advocacy, goal, whatever would be bad for the world if implemented I don’t want to support it with my ballot. K stuff – The k is part of a stagey to win debate rounds and even one that I used as a debater. But not one that I am a big fan of the K namely because I don’t think the links are specific enough and I often find that teams just assume that I know what they are talking about…both of those things are bad and will likely mean that you will lose the debate round. If I have to hear another debate between two "K" teams that both avoid doing anything so they do not link to the K I might have to scream. With that said always assume I have not read the same critical literature that you are reading. Explain it to me. 2007 – 2008 add-on: I have taken the following from Sue Peterson’s judging philosophy “Explicit material in debate - Although I am for free speech, I am also a strong advocate for creating non-hostile environments in educational settings. I believe debate is an academic activity that uses the classroom as a laboratory, but it is still a classroom and I am still an educator. Therefore, I am inclined to disallow material in debate that I would disallow in my classroom experiences. I believe that you can discuss certain things without using explicit sexual descriptors and/or explicit language. Although this has not been widespread in debate, I feel its important to let people know that I will consider a request from the opposing team (or from me) to stop the use of explicit material/language to be a signal of discomfort on their (or my) part, and deserving of respect. In the end, if you are going to make such arguments, it is probably a good idea not to prefer me. And if you have me as a judge, I consider this a statement of my discomfort with this material and hope that you would respect that and change your approach.” Speed - I don't care if you go fast or slow but I will tell you to slow down if you are going to fast. Theory: if you want me to vote on it you might want to slow down so I can get it all down. Evidence - I called for cards more on last year’s topic than I have been this year, this might be because I have been judging mainly regional novice/JV tournaments or because this topic sucks. I will not call for cards unless they are clearly extended in the last speeches and not as just a block (extend the link, extend the science diplomacy advantage) I will also evaluate source qualifications. Theory - It’s just like any other argument, make smart arguments. To be honest I am not a big fan of potential abuse and I think T is about competing interpretations. You should have some kind of offence against theory arguments, not impact turns like T is genocide, but counter interpretations, counter standards and so on. I love when teams put theory on the rest of the pages in the debate round ie. Perm theory, C/P theory, and so on but I often find the reject the argument not the team compelling. RVIs are dumb arguments that novices and new JVers like to make. Rebuttals – If you have deployed a good strategy and have executed it the debate should come down to the last two speeches. Make sure you are really explaining your arguments in these speeches, tell me why you won and the other team lost. If you are going to go for theory I think that you should either be going for something you can win in under a minute or you should be spending all six minutes on it. Too often in D1 debaters fail to have a rebuttal strategy…don’t be that debater…its all about big picture debate, making smart choices, seeing the connections between different flows and explaining your arguments. Last thing - Don't be mean to the other team, there is a big difference between making someone look dumb and making someone feel dumb. If you have a habit of doing this you will lose speaker points. D1 specific: it’s a reality in our district that JV and open will often be collapsed and too often open debaters just run over the new JV teams. I get it you want to win, you have the next round on your mind but that is not excuse for beating up on those who are new to JV. Win, I am not saying that you should not try or have a good debate round just try to remember what it was like when you made the jump…lets encourage new debaters to stay in the activity and not push them away by bring rude in and out of debates. Just make smart arguments, tell me why you won and tell me why they should lose
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