Is it because debate has ultimately shaped who we are, as people? Is it because we are perpetually drawn to the rush of competition, in an oddly addictive sort of sense, like moths to lamps? Or is it just because over the past four years, we’ve come to feel like we are part of a community, and that is a community that we can never truly walk away from?

In a sense, maybe all of these things are true, to some extent. I could never hope to generalize the reasons everyone and anyone debates—but I can maybe at least speak for myself and safely assume that some of this resonates with some of you, too.

So, after thinking about it, here are my “Top Five Reasons We Still Keep Coming Back (and if you haven’t figured it out yet, the Top Five Ways You Know You Are a True Debate Dork)”:

5. We really, really can’t resist making fun of Layne Kirshon and his silly limericks. It’s just too amusing. In fact, this pretty much goes for making fun of things he does, in general.

4. Something in us is hard-wired now to want to do debate work. In some strange sense, we really did enjoy those nights when we had to stay up late, subsisting on caffeine, cutting cards into the early hours of the morning. While it’s true that we’re all enjoying just relaxing, hanging out with our other friends now, and eagerly awaiting graduation…we do sort of miss the hard work. It gave us something we felt like we wanted to fight for.

3. Debaters, in some sense, resemble Rachel Berry from “Glee” (only not quite as psycho…most of the time). We are, at heart, performers. We may not feel like performers when we read at hyperspeed, but we still enjoy the limelight, nonetheless. We love the feeling of giving the 2NR or the 2AR, feeling like we’re right about what we’re saying—it’s kind of a rush, for us. That’s why we enjoy cross-ex—it’s a performance, and we like putting on a show. So, what is a performer without a stage?

2. We really will miss each other. Over the last four years, we’ve made up a community, and it’s one that’s hard for us to forget. The Class of 2010 has been a pretty fantastic one, on the whole. There are many of you to whom it will be difficult to say goodbye.

1. We are, at heart, debaters—in literally everything we do. Whether we continue participating in this activity in college or not, we really are debaters. I’m almost positive I’m not the only one who still likes playing devil’s advocate, just because I can. We like arguing. It wouldn’t matter whether we actually quit debate or not—this would still be true. We can’t turn on the news without thinking about how the story relates to debate (you know you watched all of those CNN stories about healthcare, thinking about whether the politics DA would be viable that weekend). When we start a research project for school, we not only try our hardest to pick topics that relate to debate, but we feel awesome about the fact that we have access to a zillion databases that most of our classmates don’t (yes, I have, on occasion, used Project Muse for AP Lang/Lit). There really isn’t anything we do in the world that doesn’t somehow tie itself back to debate, in our minds. We are, really and truly, debaters—in every sense of the word.

To those of you who aren’t debating in college—it’s been a great four years, it really has. Congratulations on everything you’ve achieved.

To those of you who are…well, it’s not over…we’ll meet again. ☺

• What constitutes a “new affirmative” for the purposes of pre-round disclosure? In what situations should the affirmative disclose that they are reading a new version of an existing case as opposed to an entirely new case?

• What constitutes a “new plan” for the purposes of disclosure? Should minor modifications be disclosed before the round even if the exact text of the plan has not been read before? Is it legitimate for teams to make minor changes to their plan in order to avoid pre-round disclosure?

• What constitutes a “new advantage” for the purposes of disclosure? Must the thesis of the advantage change or is it enough that the impact or internal link is changed?

• Why do we care so much? Has pre-round disclosure moved beyond “courtesy” to “obligation”? Or should it? Are we right or wrong to exempt new affirmatives (and/or new plans and advantages) from our typical expectations regarding pre-round disclosure? What can be done to minimize the frequency of misunderstandings and disagreements regarding the best practices for pre-round disclosure?

The following hypotheticals may provide helpful “test cases” to guide the discussion; they are not intended to be specific to any particular team, so please don’t be offended if I mentioned a case you or your team has been reading.

Hypothetical A: What Constitutes A New Affirmative?

1. A team has been reading a Food Stamps affirmative that has the United States federal government increase funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program; it claims a hegemony advantage and an economy advantage. The team decides to read an affirmative that removes the quality assurance requirements from SNAP and claims a racism/inequality advantage. Should the affirmative disclose that they are reading a “new aff”? If not, what should they disclose? Should they mention that it is a “new aff” but that it is about SNAP? Would “new aff—including a new plan and new advantage(s), but it’s still about SNAP” be appropriate?

2. Same scenario, but the affirmative decides to read only an economy advantage. The internal link, however, is different than the previous version: instead of arguing that increasing funding for SNAP provides an economic stimulus, they now plan to argue that removing the quality assurance requirements shores up state budgets and spurs investment in urban, minority neighborhoods. Should the affirmative disclose that they are reading a “new aff”? If not, what should they disclose?

3. A team has been reading an unemployment insurance affirmative that has the United States federal government extend and expand unemployment benefits for workers that have been laid off during the past two years; it claims a free trade advantage and an economy advantage. The team decides to read an affirmative that provides health insurance for unemployed workers instead of extending/expanding unemployment benefits but still claims a free trade advantage and an economy advantage; the thesis of both advantages remains the same but the solvency cards are changed to reflect the new plan. Should the affirmative disclose that they are reading a “new aff”? Should they mention that it is a “new aff” but that it claims the same free trade and economy advantages?

4. Same situation, but the team decides to read a plan that provides “all necessary social services” to unemployed workers and claims a critical globalization advantage. The thesis of the advantage is similar to the existing free trade advantage: both argue that the plan deters protectionist populism from gaining traction, thereby ensuring the continuation of free trade, but the impact to the globalization advantage focuses on third world poverty whereas the free trade advantage focused on the possibility of trade wars sparking great power conflict. Should the affirmative disclose that they are reading a new affirmative? If not, what should they disclose? Is this the “same aff” with a “new plan” and the free trade advantage with “a new impact”?

Hypothetical B: What Constitutes A New Plan?

1. A team has been reading an abortion affirmative that has the Supreme Court rule on equal protection grounds that restrictions on Medicaid funding of abortions is unconstitutional; it claims a patriarchy advantage. The team decides to alter their plan text to no longer specify equal protection grounds. Should the new, modified plan be disclosed before the round? If not, what should the affirmative disclose? Is it appropriate to say “it will be our abortion affirmative with the existing patriarchy advantage, but we have changed the plan text”?

2. Same situation, but this time the affirmative changes the plan to say “topical portions of Medicaid” instead of just “Medicaid”—nothing else in the 1AC is changed. Should the new, modified plan be disclosed before the round? If not, what should the affirmative disclose?

3. Same situation, but this time the affirmative changes the plan to say “The judicial branch” instead of “The Supreme Court”—nothing else in the 1AC is changed. Should the new, modified plan be disclosed before the round? If not, what should the affirmative disclose?

Hypothetical C: What Constitutes A New Advantage?

1. A team has been reading an immigration Medicaid affirmative that has the Supreme Court rule that Medicaid eligibility restrictions based on citizenship status are unconstitutional; it claims a judicial independence advantage and a bioterrorism advantage. The team decides to change the impact to their judicial independence advantage: instead of arguing that U.S. judicial independence is modeled by Iraq and that Iraqi judicial independence prevents a Middle East war, they plan to argue that U.S. judicial independence is modeled by South Korea and that South Korean judicial independence prevents a Korean war. Should they disclose that they are reading the bioterrorism advantage and a new advantage? Or should they disclose that they are reading the bioterrorism advantage and the judicial independence advantage, but with a different impact scenario?

2. Same situation, but this time the affirmative plans to read a soft power advantage instead of their bioterrorism advantage. There are two impacts to soft power: bioterrorism and hegemony. Should the affirmative disclose that they are reading the judicial independence advantage and a new advantage? Are they obligated to mention that they are still reading a bioterrorism impact, even though the internal link has been changed?

Feel free to respond to one or more hypotheticals or to pose additional ones.

For high school debaters with aspirations of competing in college, qualifying for the NDT is a frequent goal. But is it realistic? The popular perception is that debaters who qualify for the NDT are largely products of strong high school debate programs and expensive summer institutes that are afforded the opportunity to compete regularly at national circuit tournaments. But is that really the case?

In order to investigate whether this common wisdom is correct—and to find out more about the demographic makeup of the NDT field—the 156 debaters that have qualified for this year’s NDT were categorized by the high school from which they graduated, the state in which they attended high school, and the year that they graduated high school. This data was obtained for all but seven students. Debaters were also separated into four categories to reflect their competitive experience in high school:

1. Exceptional national circuit high school policy debaters—these students reached the elimination rounds of the Tournament of Champions and/or were consistently in the elimination rounds of major national invitationals.

2. High school policy debaters with national circuit experience—these students competed regularly at national circuit tournaments but did not typically reach the late elimination rounds.

3. High school policy debaters who competed only on local and regional circuits—these students may have attended a few national circuit tournaments but the vast majority of their competitive experiences were at the local or regional level.

4. No high school policy debate experience—these students may have competed in Public Forum or Lincoln-Douglas debate (including on the national circuit) in high school, but they did not compete in policy debate.

Assignments to these categories were subjective but hopefully provide an accurate picture of the overall composition of the NDT field in terms of the debaters’ high school backgrounds.

Debaters from 31 states have qualified for this year’s NDT. Kansas—a state that places limits on the distance and frequency of travel to tournaments outside of its borders—leads the list with 19 alums. Traditional high school debate hotbeds Texas (18), Georgia (16), California (14), and Illinois (10) round out the top five.

1. 19—Kansas
2. 18—Texas
3. 16—Georgia
4. 14—California
5. 10—Illinois
6. 6—Florida, Missouri
7. 5—Minnesota
8. 4—Idaho, Maryland, Michigan, Virginia, Washington
9. 3—Colorado, District of Columbia, Iowa, Massachusetts, Ohio, Oklahoma
10. 2—Louisiana, New Hampshire, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Utah, Wisconsin
11. 1—Arkansas, Mississippi, New York, South Carolina, Tennessee, Wyoming

Only seven high schools can claim three or more alums at this year’s NDT; another 20 have two alums apiece. Georgia’s Chattahoochee High School is the runaway leader with six students (from five graduating classes and competing for five different universities) attending the NDT.

1. 6—Chattahoochee (GA)
2. 4—Damien (CA), Glenbrook South (IL)
3. 3—Georgetown Day School (DC), Glenbrook North (IL), Shawnee Mission East (KS), Westwood (TX)
4. 2—Blacksburg (VA), Caddo Magnet (LA), Cathedral Prep (PA), Cedar Rapids Washington (IA), Celebration (FL), Centennial (ID), Digital Harbor (MD), Lexington (MA), Milton Academy (GA), Okemos (MI), Pace Academy (GA), Pueblo South (CO), Round Rock (TX), Shawnee Mission West (KS), Kinkaid (TX), Greenhill (TX), Westminster (GA), Woodlands (TX), Wayzata (MN), Wichita East (KS)

Students from nine high school graduating classes have qualified for this year’s NDT. The class of 2006 (mostly traditional fourth-year seniors) is represented by the highest number of students with the class of 2005 coming in second.

Of the 156 students that have qualified for the NDT, only 34 had extensive national circuit success while in high school and only 39 more had significant national circuit experience. In fact, the number of debaters whose high school experience was focused mostly on local and regional competition (75) is slightly more than the number who traveled extensively on the national circuit (73). The remaining eight students that have qualified for this year’s NDT had no high school policy debate experience.

What does this demographic analysis mean for current high school debaters hoping to one day qualify for the National Debate Tournament? National circuit success is certainly helpful, but it is not determinate: many debaters at this year’s NDT graduated from high school programs that did not provide them with extensive national circuit experience. While debaters from certain regions and with certain experiences undoubtedly have an easier path, the significant number of students that have reached the upper echelon of intercollegiate policy debate after competing at local and regional levels during high school provides ample precedent for those in similar positions who wish to make it to the top.

Modeled to some extent after college debate’s Copeland Award, the Baker is calculated based on a mathematical formula rather than on a poll of coaches or voters. This basic statistical approach to evaluating a debate team’s performance over the course of a season has been criticized by some participants and coaches who have advanced several critiques of the formula.

This article is an attempt to first explain the way that the Baker Award is calculated and then to highlight the major complaints that have been levied against it.

How The Baker Award Is Calculated

The Baker Award is calculated based on the same formula that determines admission into the NDCA Championship Tournament. Points are calculated for each tournament that a team attends during the regular season; the five highest point values count toward the team’s overall total.

The formula for the Baker Award is unique in that it does not subjectively assess the quality of a given tournament (in the way that the Tournament of Champions does by awarding bid levels based on expected tournament quality). Instead, the formula includes only four basic variables:

1. The number of entries at the tournament. This number can be no greater than 100 (so tournaments with 100 entries or 300 entries count the same for this variable).

2. The Diversity of Tournament Multiplier (DTM). This number reflects the number of states that are represented at the tournament. The number of entries at the tournament is multiplied by the DTM on the following scale: 1-2 states = 1, 3-5 = 1.2, 6-8 = 1.4, 9-12 = 1.6, 13-15 = 1.8, and 16+ = 2.0.

3. The team’s preliminary round winning percentage. If a team’s record is 5-0, 6-0, or 7-0, their total is 1.0; if their record is 4-2, it is .667 (and so on).

4. The Elimination Success Multiplier (ESM). The team’s winning percentage in the preliminary rounds is multiplied by the ESM on the following scale: didn’t clear = 1, clear but don’t win an elim debate = 1.1, octafinals = 1.2, quarterfinals = 1.4, semifinals = 1.6, finals = 1.8, and winning finals = 2.3.

The four numbers are multiplied together to establish a point total for a given tournament. For example, Glenbrook South’s victory at the Barkley Forum earned Richard Day and Will Thibeau the maximum point total available under the system: 460 points (100 (teams) x 2.0 (16+ states) x 1.0 (6-0 prelims) x 2.3 (winning finals) = 460).

A team that accumulates five maximum-value tournaments would finish with 2,300 total points (last year’s winner from Westminster finished with 1,956.7 points).

Criticisms Of The Baker Award Formula

Individuals have levied several criticisms of the formula used to determine the Baker Award. I will attempt to outline a few of the most common criticisms in hopes of spurring a discussion of the system and ways to improve it.

Criticism #1: It Undervalues Tough Tournaments

The formula determines the quality of competition at a given tournament only indirectly by multiplying the number of teams (no greater than 100) by the DTM (to account for tournaments attended by schools from multiple states). In reality, however, the size of the tournament and the number of states that are represented does not by itself determine the quality of the competition.

This criticism is probably best noted as The MBA Critique—the Southern Bell Forum, because it caps its entries at around 70 teams, counts for far less points than a tournament like Wake Forest or the University of Michigan. In reality, the competition at MBA is much more intense and reaching the elimination rounds (much less the late elimination rounds) at MBA is far more impressive than reaching the equivalent round at Wake or Michigan.

Criticism #2: It Overvalues Preliminary Round Records

The formula includes a multiplier for preliminary round winning percentage, severely penalizing teams that lose prelim debates even if they eventually go on to win the tournament.

For example, if Glenbrook South had accumulated a 4-2 record in the prelims of the Barkley Forum (instead of the 6-0 record they racked up in reality), their total points for the tournament would have fallen from 460 to 307. Westminster’s total—400 (6-0 record and losing in finals)—would have actually been greater than Glenbrook South’s even though GBS emerged with the championship.

Criticism #3: It Doesn’t Include Round Robins

The formula was created to encourage the creation and maintenance of strong regional and local circuits. As a result, it was explicitly designed not to include teams’ performances at round robins. Some have argued that it is impossible to fairly judge the relative records of the country’s best teams without factoring in all of their debates against one another—many of which occur at round robins.

Criticism #4: It Removes The Human Element

The formula is statistical: it establishes a system to value certain aspects of debate performance and then objectively calculates the results. The formula itself, however, is not “objective”—it is value-laden in its construction. Many have argued that a superior system would replace this statistical formula with a subjective one that polls coaches or is determined by a committee of voters (as is done with college debate’s Copeland Award).

What are your thoughts about the Baker Award and the formula that is used to determine it? Is the system a good one? Can it be improved? Should it be replaced? Please share your thoughts by posting a comment.

In the status quo, the vast majority of high school policy debate judges (at least those at “national circuit” tournaments) do not provide written comments on their ballots. A very small subset of judges—approximately ten percent based on an unscientific assessment of the publicly-posted ballots from the St. Mark’s and Blake tournaments—provide any written content at all. Of that subset, an even smaller group of judges provides “substantial” written commentary (defined as more than a short, one or two sentence reason for decision). Some tournaments have responded to this norm by eliminating ballots entirely—The Glenbrooks, for example, only provides small judge cards that are not copied or scanned for the competitors.

Thus The Plan:

High school policy debate judges should provide written comments on their ballots. This commentary should supplement—not replace—post-round oral disclosure and discussion of the debate.

Contention Two: The Advantage

The plan is superior to the status quo for all three relevant constituencies: debaters, coaches, and judges.

Subpoint A: Debaters

In order to improve, debaters require feedback from their judges. Currently, this feedback is provided almost exclusively in post-round discussions that center around the judge’s reason for decision. Most often, this discussion focuses on the losing team: the judge explains why they voted the way that they did and then proceeds to explain to the losing side why their arguments were not successful and what they could have done differently to emerge victorious. Some judges, at least some of the time, also provide helpful comments for the winning side. But for the most part, post-round discussions center around the judge’s decision—and that is as it should be.

While the decision is obviously important, however, it does not exhaust the feedback that students need in order to improve. In many cases, significant opportunities for improvement are not addressed because they did not proximately cause the win or loss. In order to help students identify and correct shortcomings in their debating, it is vital that judges communicate more thoughtfully regarding aspects of a given round that were not decisive —at least not directly—in determining the outcome.

The following is a list of areas that judges can briefly discuss via their written commentary on the ballot.

1. Feedback Regarding Constructive Speeches

Most post-round discussions hinge on the argumentation and execution of the final two (and sometimes three) rebuttal speeches. When constructives are discussed, it is usually only to the extent that they effected the way the final rebuttals were debated. Other aspects of the constructive speeches are typically left unaddressed—only the opaque judgment provided by speaker points signals to debaters the judge’s impression of their performance.

Smart debaters often ask questions to solicit feedback from their judges—”how was my time allocation in the 2AC?”, “how was my politics speech in the 1NR?”, and other similar questions are commonly advanced. But unless the judge has written notes during the debate, it can be difficult to provide specific, meaningful answers. By providing written comments on the ballot as the round progresses, judges can better convey their opinions of each debater’s performance.

2. Feedback Regarding Cross-Examinations

In the vast majority of high school debates, the cross-examinations are not instrumental in determining the winner. Most post-round discussions reference the cross-examinations only if an important concession was made or if an important issue was unclear and should have been clarified. It is even rarer for debaters to inquire about their cross-examinations, further pushing these vital components of the debate into the background.

Instead of complaining about the poor quality of most cross-examination periods—a frequent occurrence in judges’ lounges—judges should write comments that highlight things that debaters did well during CX as well as things that debaters could improve. “The cross-ex of the 1AC lacked focus and wasn’t helpful in setting up any of the 1NC positions,” for example, would be a helpful comment. So would “the cross-ex of the 2NC did a good job of attacking the solvency of the counterplan, but you should explicitly reference the 1AC cards by cite that you are relying on to establish your claims.”

Even if the cross-examinations are not discussed in the post-round, the fact that students have an opportunity to reflect on the judges’ written comments after a tournament can help them improve their CX strategy and tactics.

3. Feedback Regarding Arguments Not Central To The Debate

Judges sometimes comment on the overall strategy of a given team, but they typically do so only after having seen a debate unfold. Common post-round comments include:

• “The negative should have gone for politics and the counterplan instead of the critique—I thought you were much farther ahead on those arguments.”
• “The 2AC needed more offense on the disadvantage—you spent way too much time on the critique and didn’t get to the DA with enough time.”
• “The 1NC wasn’t very strategic—without better case defense, you couldn’t really win the DA, leaving you only with T and the K.”

These can be helpful comments, but the details of a judge’s reaction to the initial presentation and development of arguments that are not ultimately extended in the final rebuttals is often forgotten by the time the post-round discussion rolls around. Did the 2AC’s topicality frontline leave something to be desired? Did the 2NC’s extension of the counterplan miss a golden opportunity to exploit a hole in the affirmative case? Could the 1NC have read better evidence to support their case hit? By writing comments on the ballot as the debate progresses, judges can provide debaters with important feedback that would otherwise never be communicated.

4. Feedback Regarding Stylistic Practices, In-Round Presence, and Ethos

Many debaters speak in a way that can only be honestly described as awful: they are too loud or too quiet, they fall into annoying cadences, they distract everyone by banging on tubs or stomping their feet, and most of all they are incomprehensible. While judges will often comment on debaters whose speaking represents an extreme instance of “needs improvement,” they typically let most borderline offenders slide without explicit criticism. The result, of course, is that many students continue their bad habits under the assumption that if they were doing something bad enough, their judges would say something.

Other stylistic practices and “ethos issues” deserve comment, too. Is a debater being too aggressive or too passive in cross-ex? Does a debater throw their blocks on the floor after reading them? Does a debater rely on certain “crutch” words like “at the point at which” or “we’ll always win that”? Does a debater wander around the room during their opponents’ speeches instead of sitting down and flowing? Judges should communicate these criticisms to debaters on the ballot so that they can work to make improvements.

Subpoint B: Coaches

Better feedback for debaters means better feedback for coaches and more opportunities to teach—that much should be obvious. But in addition to the kinds of comments that debaters would find helpful, judges can provide feedback specifically aimed at a team’s coach. Instead of relying exclusively on their debaters to inform them about a judges’ comments after a debate, written ballots can provide coaches with an objective source of documentation that can be used to guide their conversations with students after a tournament—improving the quality of these “debriefings” exponentially.

What kinds of comments can be especially helpful for coaches?

1. Comments about interpersonal relations. This can involve a student’s relationship with their partner—Is one partner dominating the other? Does one partner jump in at the first opportunity to take over a cross-ex? Do the debaters visibly argue with one another during the round?—or their relationship with their opponents. This kind of feedback is rarely communicated in post-round discussions and when it is, it is not something that debaters often share with their coaches.

2. Comments about the allocation of preparation time. Did the 1NC take two minutes of preparation time despite having a strategy developed before the round? Did the 1AR take six minutes of prep while the 2A attempted to pre-script large parts of their speech? These tactical errors can be rectified—but only if coaches know about them.

3. Comments about knowledge of content areas. Did the 2NC seem to struggle with their explanation of the case arguments? Did the 1AC demonstrate their expertise of the case when cross-examining the 1NC about the counterplan? Was it clear that one or both teams did not have a strong understanding of a central argument or concept? Informing coaches about deficits in familiarity with specific content areas ensures that these shortcomings are remedied.

In addition to their utility as a tool to teach students, written ballots can also provide coaches with important insights into a judge’s philosophy and tendencies. While nothing can replace a post-round oral critique when it comes to gaining perspective on the way a judge views debate, written comments are probably the next best thing. Does a judge frequently comment about the debaters being unclear? Coach your students to slow down. Does a judge find a certain disadvantage unpersuasive? Coach your students to defend a different position. The opportunity to read the comments that a judge has provided as they were experiencing the debate can help coaches better prepare their students to debate in front of that individual in the future.

Subpoint C: Judges

Writing comments on the ballot during a debate obviously requires a bit of effort on the part of judges. And equally obviously, the vast majority of judges have determined that it isn’t worth it. But if the benefits previously described are valid, this norm should be changed.

Most directly, judges have an important educational role to fulfill and written commentary can help improve the quality of their service to the students that are debating in front of them. By improving the feedback that they provide to debaters, judges can directly improve the caliber of future debates. At a minimum, written comments can help debaters better adapt to a given judge in future rounds—resulting, hopefully, in a more enjoyable experience for everyone involved.

Written comments also have immediate benefits for judges themselves. By outlining one’s thoughts about the round as it is unfolding, judges can construct better oral critiques and ensure that post-round discussions are as targeted as possible. Because issues not central to the debate are communicated on the ballot, judges can focus their oral commentary on the major issues while still ensuring that debaters and coaches receive feedback regarding the range of other issues that arose in the debate.

I’m now open to cross-examination.

[T]o say that representations matter—insofar as [they] determine/influence policy outcomes—says little or nothing about which justifications should be used for policymaking. The representations presented by the 1AC that are justifications for action, instead of outcomes of the plan are neither mandatory nor inevitable outcomes of voting Aff.

Thus, the judge, at the end of the debate, should be able to choose (for themselves) why to vote Aff or Neg. Logically, one can choose the best arguments from the set of available reasons presented in the debate. Not every 1AC justification needs to be part of the final “package” of voting Aff. If one or more representations for voting for the plan is undesirable, they should not be used. If, at the end of the debate, positive/beneficial justifications for acting remain, the plan is desirable and the Aff should win.

With that, University of Georgia Debate Coach Casey Harrigan has levied a fundamental challenge to the theoretical viability of representational critique as currently conceptualized in academic policy debate. This article will defend Harrigan’s “judge choice” theory against the attacks of its critics and thereby contribute to the developing theoretical literature about representational critique.

Before examining “judge choice” and the criticisms that have been wrested upon it by critics, it is important to first clarify the target of Harrigan’s theory. In his initial article, Harrigan defines “representational critique” as “any argument that takes issue with justification for action that is not necessarily tied to outcome of action.” In other words, a critique of representations contests the accuracy, desirability, or ethics of one or more of the reasons that the affirmative has advanced to support a policy proposal but not the policy proposal itself.

Popular examples of this genre of argument (“Reps Ks”) include critiques of the way that a team or its authors describe terrorism, proliferation, nuclear weapons, global warming, or the environment. Indeed, the list of possible targets of representational critique is as long as the list of arguments that the affirmative can advance as justifications for the adoption of their plan.

Harrigan is critical of the way in which these representational critiques are currently debated. In practice, debates involving these arguments typically occur as follows:

The affirmative proposes a change in policy by the United States federal government. To support the necessity and desirability of this change, the first affirmative constructive outlines several reasons that the course of action they have proposed would avoid catastrophic consequences or accrue beneficial advantages.

In response, the negative criticizes one or more of the reasons that the affirmative has advanced to support the adoption of their plan. Even if the plan is desirable when compared with the status quo, the negative will argue, one or more of the ways that the affirmative chose to justify the plan has harmful consequences that ought to be rejected by the judge-critic.

The affirmative, faced with this objection to one or more of their representations, will respond with three basic strategies:

1. Defend the representation that the negative has criticized. This is the most straight-forward and least controversial of the possible affirmative responses to a representational critique.

2. Offer a permutation that calls for the passage of the plan but the rejection of the undesirable/harmful representation(s).

3. Contend that the plan should be the focus of the debate, not the representations used to support its enactment.

These latter two affirmative responses are met with a predictable negative rejoinder centered around the importance of representations to the process of policymaking and the outcome of policy change. Moreover, the negative will assert that the affirmative must defend all of the representations they have advanced in support of their plan because their failure to do so constitutes “severance”.

It is here that Harrigan’s “judge choice” theory contests the orthodoxy surrounding the practice of representational critique.

The judging community, unfortunately, has imported the logic of counterplan competition and ascribed to the dogma that every representation forwarded by the 1AC must be featured in a final evaluation of the plan – with little attendant reasoning for why this must be the case. … [I]mporting the theory of CP competition into these debates is a clear misapplication of the term. “Severance” implies an initial attachment—that the plan initially required that certain justifications be used for acting. In other words, the Neg assumes that the Aff had said that voting for the plan mandates that certain representations be used. … This is false. … [J]ustifications for action are frequently disconnected from outcome. … In this way, representations are different than, say, a policy advantage to the plan.

Elevating the representational critique to the status of a voting issue relies on a decision-making methodology that is inconsistent with that used by judges to evaluate other types of arguments. Critics of “judge choice” have argued that it is illegitimate for a judge to decide for themselves whether or not to consider one or more of the justifications presented by the affirmative to support their plan. While this discomfort with perceived “intervention” is well intentioned, it does not comport with the way in which judges resolve other types of debates.

For example, the affirmative may extend four responses to a disadvantage in their final rebuttal: it is not intrinsic, it does not link to the plan, the case outweighs the impact, and it is empirically denied. When evaluating this debate, the judge should consider each of these responses and determine whether they are sufficient to defeat the disadvantage. If the judge determines that the affirmative’s intrinsicness response is theoretically illegitimate, for example, s/he moves on to consider the affirmative’s contestation of the link. The intrinsicness response, because it has been defeated by the negative, is no longer a relevant argument for the judge to act upon when making their decision.

In the same way, the representational critique functions to persuade the judge that one or more of the justifications that the affirmative has presented ought not be considered as a reason to enact the plan.

In response, critics will appeal to the harm that has been done by the initial presentation itself of the affirmative’s contested justification. If the negative wins that the way the affirmative represented terrorism is racist, for example, ought not the affirmative lose for adopting a racist stance?

It is here that critics wrongly equate the theory of “judge choice” with the theory of “plan focus”. The latter theory requires that judges exclude consideration of the representations that have been offered to support the adoption of a policy proposal from their evaluation of the debate. “Judge choice,” on the other hand, accepts the necessity of representational critique but prescribes a mechanism for determining its relevance from the perspective of a logical decision-maker.

The crucial distinction, then, is between plan focus and policy relevance. When presented with multiple justifications for a policy change, a logical decision-maker can choose which of these justifications compels them to support or oppose the advocate’s proposal. If the decision-maker concludes that a policy change is warranted because of justification A, the undesirability or even harmfulness of justifications B and C ought not dissuade him or her from endorsing the change. The degree to which justifications B and C are bad ought not factor into the evaluation of justification A unless justifications B and/or C are intrinsic to the policy proposal.

This logic can be clearly applied to representational critiques. If the judge concludes at the end of the debate that the policy proposed by the affirmative ought to be enacted based on justification A, s/he should choose to endorse it based exclusively on justification A—justifications B and C are not part of the judge’s reasoning for voting affirmative. As such, the harmfulness of justifications B and C is not relevant to the judge’s endorsement of the plan.

Again, this view of the judge’s decision is consistent with the way that decisions are viewed in other circumstances. Returning the disadvantage example above, the undesirability of the affirmative’s intrinsicness response is not part of the judge’s reasoning when s/he decides to reject the disadvantage because the affirmative has won that it is empirically denied. When the judge articulates his or her decision, s/he does not reference the intrinsicness response: “I voted affirmative because the disadvantage is empirically denied”. Disputing this decision because the affirmative’s intrinsicness response is undesirable does not make sense.

In the same way, a judge evaluating a debate involving a representational critique can (and would) explain their decision in a way that is not reliant on the flawed justifications that the negative has indicted. “I voted affirmative because the plan is justified for reason A” cannot be logically disputed by arguing that reasons B and C are incorrect, undesirable, or unethical.

In order for the representational critique to become a reason to vote negative, the critics of “judge choice” need to establish the veracity of f two underlying decision-making assumptions:

1. The judge’s decision must account for every justification advanced by the affirmative. In other words, once an utterance is made, it cannot be discarded from the judge’s deliberation.

2. The harm done by the voicing of the objectionable representation is sufficient to disregard consideration of the plan’s desirability.

The first assumption results in illogical decision-making. Harrigan explains:

The debate judge should be treated like an intelligent and dynamic policy-maker. The affirmative should forward a proposal with a set of justifications. The Neg can criticize (via DAs, a counterplan, a K, etc.) the plan or the justifications. If the Neg wins that the plan is a bad idea, they win. If the Neg wins that the justification is bad, then the judge should reject that justification and determine whether the plan is a good idea for any other potential reason.

It is not logical to reject a policy proposal on the grounds that it could be supported by an inaccurate or undesirable justification. This model of decision-making does not comport with the way that individuals make everyday decisions.

For example, a friend could propose that you attend a baseball game with him. To convince you that this is a good idea, he could argue that attending the game will accrue three benefits: (1) it will be fun, (2) it will allow you to get enjoy delicious ballpark fare, and (3) it will allow you to throw batteries at the opposing team’s right-fielder.

Being a reasonable, law-abiding, and non-violent person, you take issue with the third justification that your friend has offered to convince you to attend the game: you have no desire to throw batteries at the opposing team’s right fielder (Sammy Sosa has retired, after all) and indeed you think that this very idea is morally heinous.

Nonetheless, you agree with your friend’s first and second arguments (it will be fun and there will be good food), so you decide to agree to attend the game with him for those reasons but not for the third reason (throwing batteries).

In order for the very presentation of the third reason to become a reason not to attend the game, it must be the case that throwing batteries at the opposing right-fielder is intrinsic to attendance at the game. If it is, then the benefits of attending the game might be outweighed by the disadvantages of attending and you might decide not to take your friend up on his offer.

Most representational critiques do not raise objections that are intrinsic to the plan’s adoption. To use one of Harrigan’s examples, the affirmative might propose to disarm the United States’ nuclear arsenal in order to accrue two advantages: proliferation and biodiversity. If the negative critiques the way the affirmative represents the environment within their biodiversity advantage, they have not advanced a criticism that is intrinsic to U.S. disarmament. If the negative wins their argument—that the way the affirmative represents environmental harms is undesirable/harmful—then the judge should not consider the biodiversity advantage as a reason to endorse the plan. The judge could still choose to endorse the plan, however, because it would accrue the benefit outlined by the proliferation advantage.

It is illogical, then, to consider a representational critique as a reason to reject the plan if other reasons to endorse the plan have been presented.

This, then, requires the advocate of the “judge choice” theory to address the second underlying assumption of critics: that the harm done by the voicing of the objectionable representation is sufficient to disregard consideration of the plan’s desirability.

Harrigan addresses this argument by framing it as a reactionary move:

Interestingly, the contrary position—that you should hold speakers to every reason they cite as justification and use it to assess their policy—is one of the most reactionary and anti-critical stances one could take. It prioritizes who speaks over what is spoken about. It ignores content for form. It punishes instead of compromises. And, fundamentally, it is a tactic used by conservative political forces to crush progressivism. Do the critique folk really want to be in this company?

This argument can be clarified with an example. Imagine that during the years before the Civil War a bill to outlaw slavery is under consideration by the U.S. Senate. Advocates of the bill advance a variety of arguments: they insist that slavery violates the fundamental human dignity of slaves and they argue that the abolition of slavery is necessary to maintain the competitiveness of industry in the Northern states. Those that believe the first justification find the second justification objectionable and indeed immoral: it relies on the assumption that slavery can be justified by economic calculations and therefore fails to acknowledge the inherent dignity of all human beings.

Pretend that you are a neutral Senator deliberating over the bill—you are not certain which way to vote and are willing to listen to all arguments made by each side. After giving each side a fair hearing, you determine that both the “fundamental human dignity” justification for endorsing the bill and the criticism of the “Northern competitiveness” justification are true. What should you do?

The “judge choice” theory would argue that you should vote in favor of the bill on the basis of the “fundamental human dignity” justification. Even though one of the justifications for the bill (“Northern competitiveness”) was objectionable, it is not the reason that you are endorsing it—your vote reflects the first justification, not the second.

On the other hand, the decision-making model advanced by the critics of the “judge choice” theory would require the advocates of the bill to defend both the “fundamental human dignity” justification and the “Northern competitiveness” justification. A neutral Senator evaluating these justifications would therefore be put in a difficult position: should they endorse the bill and thereby support the second, objectionable justification? Or should they reject the bill because one of the justifications offered in its support was objectionable?

Negative teams defending representational critiques often advance arguments that would require resolving this conundrum in the latter fashion. Arguing that “the damage has already been done,” for example, deprives the judge of the logical opportunity to reject some justifications for a proposed course of action while approving of others.

It is here that an important distinction needs to be made: judges should evaluate each of the justifications offered for and against a proposed course of action, but that does not mean that they need to act upon them. The “judge choice” theory does not allow the affirmative to “take back” a justification that they have advanced in support of their plan. Instead, it simply acknowledges that the loss of one justification does not in itself prove that there is no justification for the plan’s adoption.

Importing the concept of “severance” from counterplan theory, therefore, is inappropriate. In the context of a counterplan, “severance” means that the affirmative’s permutation does not include the entirety of the plan and therefore alters the object of the judge’s decision-making. This is categorically distinct from “severance” in the context of representational critiques. Instead of altering the object of the judge’s decision-making, “severance” in this latter context alters only the criteria upon which the judge makes their decision. And in contrast to a severance permutation advanced against a counterplan, “severance” in the context of the critique does not really “sever” at all—the affirmative still presented an objectionable justification for the plan’s adoption, but it is the judge that subsequently eliminates this justification from their tally of “reasons to do the plan”.

As Harrigan explains, the “judge choice” theory alters the function of representation critiques but does not sap them of their strategic utility.

There isn’t “no cost” to presenting poor justifications for action on the Aff. In all likelihood, you’d lose your entire advantage. … The K still has value—but it’s meaning changes to a “reason not to use such representation” instead of a DA to the plan. … The Reps K isn’t a DA to the plan. It can never be “[Objectionable] Reps cause extinction – outweighs the case”, because the conclusion of that statement is that those justifications should never be used for acting in the first place. Translation: “No Link, Judge”.

Again, critics of the “judge choice” theory assume that the damaging effects of an inaccurate, undesirable, or unethical justification are accrued regardless of whether the judge chooses to act based on that justification. Returning to the disarmament example, a judge that votes affirmative based on the proliferation advantage but not the environment advantage is not supporting the justification that the negative has critiqued. This is a critical distinction because it explains why the negative’s insistence that representations shape policy enactment miss the point: only those representations that are acted upon shape the enactment of a policy. If the judge chooses to enact the plan based on a second justification, the disadvantages to the first justification are not relevant even if representations have policy relevance.

Harrigan explains:

Finally, what about the Doty card and other “reps matter” style arguments that I mentioned before? Well, representations matter—but those arguments presume that the reps actually used influence policy. My position is that the judge can choose which representations to use for policy enactment, so Doty et al. applies to the 1AC but not the final position chosen by the judge that is a reason to vote Aff because it affirms the plan.

Roger Solt, perhaps the most influential debate theorist of recent decades, agrees with Harrigan’s view:

A focus on the “representations” employed in debates has, of late, to some extent displaced the previous concentration on discourse. While discourse focuses on the words employed, representations involve the broader images that those words create and convey. Nonetheless, the problems associated with representational focus in policy debate are rather similar to those linked to discursive focus. First, if one is proposing a plan of action, the representations employed are secondary and instrumental means of justifying an ultimate policy conclusion. Thus, even if representations are in part discredited, the overall policy [end page 50] conclusion may hold. Second, representations are always partial, always limited by personal perspective, and always prone to interpretation. There is no such thing as an absolutely clear, perfectly accurate representation of something. We thus can quibble endlessly about the correctness of an image. But the fact remains that we are forced ultimately to act on the basis of imperfect depictions and recognitions.

The critics’ only recourse, at this point, is to argue that the very introduction of the harmful representations in the first place is sufficient to disregard consideration of the plan in favor of punishing the offending team for their transgression. Faced with the logic of the “judge choice” theory, the representational-critique-as-voting-issue stance must out of necessity resort to a defense of the punishment paradigm.

While a rigorous examination of ballot-as-punishment is beyond the scope of the article, it is worth mentioning David Glass’s theory of “counter-topicality” as a possible complement to Harrigan’s “judge choice” theory. Glass contends that the negative ought to be limited to only those arguments that are competitive with the resolution:

This new conception of debate – that the negative is limited to arguments which compete with the resolution – has other consequences. First, it also limits the type of Critiques which can be run. Critiques would also have to be competitive with the Resolution, as opposed to being simply linked off of any word which the Affirmative says that the Negative deems objectionable. For example, given this year’s topic, criticisms of the United States’ endorsement of United Nations Peacekeeping Operations would be fair game, since you could not simultaneously endorse those criticisms and endorse the resolution. However were the affirmative team to use a “bad word”… for example, if an affirmative speaker made a sexist remark, criticisms of that remark would not be a basis for a negative ballot, because while it may be bad or objectionable that the Affirmative used sexist language, that bad act does not compete with the Resolution (you can simultaneously reject the sexist language and endorse that the resolution is correct).

Is the very fact that the Affirmative can “get away” with bad language in a Counter-Topicality framework an argument against the framework? There are other tools available to the judge to punish bad language other than to vote negative – such as docking speaker points. Second, one may argue that the issues of fairness and preparation are higher standards, because debate is impossible without them. Once you allow language criticisms, you simply fall back into the framework where arguments which do not compete with the resolution are acceptable – and you need to find an alternate line which allows those arguments but limits out the infinite number of performances which the negative may resort to as an alternate approach to the affirmative. Further there is no limit to the number of things about the affirmative team or about the language that the affirmative uses, or about the debate process itself, that the negative could argue is objectionable – and an increasingly large number of these may be much harder to predict than the use of sexist language; this is why the Counter-Topicality framework is preferable, and that the Negative must be limited to arguments which compete with the resolution. Such a framework still gives the Negative a lot to say, and it allows the Affirmative to reasonably prepare. (One “real world” example – if a Senator was arguing against sending troops to Iraq, but used bad language in making her point, would you reject her arguments and send troops to Iraq as a rejection of her discourse? Or would you simply think worse of her, but in the absence of arguments which compete with the idea that sending troops to Iraq is bad, endorse the policy position that we should not send troops to Iraq?)

Glass’s theory of “counter-topicality” is therefore consistent with Harrigan’s theory of “judge choice” in offering a foundation for logical decision-making. In order for the representational critique to reclaim its status as a voting issue, its advocates must either explain how it can be reconciled with a logical model of decision-making or defend that the necessity for punishment is enough to justify deviating from it.

Works Cited:

Glass, Dr. David. “Counter-Topicality: An Instrument of Fairness,” Rostrum, Volume 79, Number 7, March 2005, Available Online at http://www.nflonline.org/Rostrum/Pol0305Glass.

Harrigan, Casey. “‘Judge Choice’: The Illogic of Representational Critique,” Georgia Debate Union, November 6, 2009, Available Online at http://www.georgiadebate.org/2009/11/judge-choice-the-illogic-of-representational-critique.

Solt, Roger E. “Debate’s Culture of Narcissism,” Contemporary Argumentation & Debate, Volume 25, September 2004, Available Online via Communication & Mass Media Complete, p. 50-51.

Most judging philosophies are a collection of banal “dont change how you debate on my account” comments (which, incidentally, are question begging for so many reasons) along with some belief statements about various theory issues. Very few philosophies explain the process or method that the judge plans on using—especially those belonging to young judges. I think this speaks to the fact that there is very little emphasis in the community on consciously developing and then following a judging methodology. I think if people did think about this process more, and put that process into their judging philosophy, inexperienced judges would be more likely to have a strategy to follow after the 2AR finishes. More importantly, the methods of other judges could be inspected and discussed — we would have some data to inform our conversation. The best we can do now is “well, if you do x, you should do y instead,” which is only but so useful.

Paul outlines a number of questions that can help judges develop and describe their judging methodology.

How much of your decision do you prepare before the debate is over (mentally and/or written down)?

How do you decide which part of the debate to evaluate first?

Under what conditions will you call for a card?

What will you do with those cards besides read them (compare with the flow, write down warrants, write down citations, write down some kind of evaluative comment, look at un-underlined parts, reread the tag and other stuff on the page, etc.)?

Do you read the card first and then ask yourself questions about it? or do you have a specific question in mind every time you start reading a new card?

What kinds of questions will you spend the bulk of your deciding time attempting to resolve?

Do you generally decide who you will vote for at the very end, or do you decide earlier and then spend the rest of your time making your decision comprehensive / preparing for questions from the losing team?

Are you mostly an information gatherer or do you argue with yourself back and forth in your head (and if so, how do you conduct such arguments)

What if anything do you do to ‘double-check’ that you aren’t missing anything?

What conditions have to be satisfied for you to have confidence that your decision is sufficiently ‘careful’?

This is a fascinating battery of questions. I will describe my answers to each of them in hopes of beginning a conversation among high school coaches and judges about judging methodologies. I encourage other judges to share their responses to these questions and to pose new ones that they think might help illuminate a given judge’s methodology.

How much of your decision do you prepare before the debate is over (mentally and/or written down)?

Almost all of it. I actively think about the debate as it is unfolding and I usually have a mental checklist of things that the 2NR and 2AR need to do in order to win. I place a lot of emphasis on the “thesis positions” of each team, or their overall narrative or vision of the debate. I actively attempt to prevent myself from allowing the micro issues in the debate to overshadow the macro issues; when that becomes necessary, I tend to take much more time resolving the debate.

How do you decide which part of the debate to evaluate first?

By feel—I try to determine which part of the debate is most relevant to the resolution of the two teams’ thesis positions. This can depend a lot on the type of debate that occurred: it can be anything from “does the counterplan solve the case?” to “are the negative’s interpretation and the affirmative’s counter-interpretation mutually exclusive?”. Lately, I have consciously thought more about how to approach my decision—in a close debate (or a debate that I perceive as close), I will first map out the way I plan to make my decision and then determine based on that plan which issue to resolve first.

Under what conditions will you call for a card?

This also depends on the issue but for the most part I will ask for evidence under three circumstances:

1. A piece of evidence is contested either explicitly (“their evidence is bad”) or implicitly (“prefer our evidence”).

2. A piece of evidence is uncontested but relevant to a broader question. Most frequently, this occurs when one team concedes an argument and I must determine the relative weight of that concession compared with another argument. I do this less now than I used to because I tend to find that most evidence is implicitly contested even when “dropped”. If I decide that the evidence really isn’t contested, then I typically do not bother reading it except to provide commentary (see #3).

3. A piece of evidence is contested or uncontested that I want to explain or discuss with one or both teams. This is usually a situation where a card could have been used differently or where one or both teams did not understand something about the issue it was discussing. This circumstance does not influence my decision, only my post-round commentary.

What will you do with those cards besides read them (compare with the flow, write down warrants, write down citations, write down some kind of evaluative comment, look at un-underlined parts, reread the tag and other stuff on the page, etc.)?

I first identify the placement of the evidence within the narrative structure of the debate (in which speech was the evidence originally presented, to what extent was the evidence discussed in later speeches, how much emphasis was placed on the evidence by the team that advanced it, how much emphasis was placed on the evidence by the team that responded to it, etc.). I often will quickly read most of the evidence that was read on an issue (an entire advantage or disadvantage shell, for example) to remind myself of where that particular debate began. Once I refresh that context, I begin carefully examining the pieces of evidence that I felt were crucial to each side’s thesis position. For those cards, I read the un-underlined portions as well as the citation/qualifications. I type notes in a text document about each card and about each issue as a whole. The degree to which I consider the “undebated” portions of evidence (un-underlined, citation, qualifications, etc.) varies based on the quality of the debating and my overall feel for the debate. I attempt as much as possible to reflect with my decision a faithful reading of the debate that occurred, but I am definitely more willing than most judges to scrutinize micro-level arguments and filter them through a lens that I develop based on the way I resolve the macro-level issues.

Do you read the card first and then ask yourself questions about it? or do you have a specific question in mind every time you start reading a new card?

In most cases, I have a specific question in mind when I am reading a given piece of evidence. As I review it, other questions are often raised and I subsequently resolve those as well. In some percentage of debates (probably 33% or less), I resolve an important issue by reading the evidence on both sides and scrutinizing it piece-by-piece; this usually occurs in very good debates that are close and focused on an in-depth issue.

What kinds of questions will you spend the bulk of your deciding time attempting to resolve? Do you generally decide who you will vote for at the very end, or do you decide earlier and then spend the rest of your time making your decision comprehensive / preparing for questions from the losing team?

I think these two questions go together. As discussed previously, I concentrate mostly on resolving the two teams’ competing thesis positions. I almost always decide debates immediately (or more accurately as the 2NR and 2AR are unfolding) and spend the rest of my decision time confirming my initial impression and subjecting it to rigorous scrutiny. As I have described before,

[I] actively consider my decision as the debate is unfolding and then come to a contingent decision immediately after the debate has ended. In about 90% of the rounds I judge, this contingent decision is confirmed through the subsequent process of deliberation. In the other 10%, I ultimately decide that my initial decision was incorrect—usually based upon unexpected differences in evidence quality or because of an argument interaction that I had not initially grasped.

Are you mostly an information gatherer or do you argue with yourself back and forth in your head (and if so, how do you conduct such arguments)?

I play devil’s advocate and attempt to prove to myself that my initial decision is wrong. That process often requires information gathering but that is rarely my intention when reviewing evidence.

What if anything do you do to ‘double-check’ that you aren’t missing anything?

In close debates, I copy-and-paste the final rebuttal of the team that I am going to vote against into a fresh document and delete each argument one-by-one as I determine that I have sufficiently evaluated it. In debates that aren’t as close, I do the same thing but less rigorously.

What conditions have to be satisfied for you to have confidence that your decision is sufficiently ‘careful’?

This is something that I have attempted to formalize: I require three conditions to be met before turning in my ballot.

1. Have I given both teams a fair hearing by considering their overall narrative as well as the evidence they have advanced to support it? For me, this often requires evaluating the debate twice: first through the lens of the affirmative’s narrative and then through the lens of the negative’s narrative. When I stop myself and go back to be more careful, it is almost always because I decided that I was too quick to discount one team’s thesis position and therefore evaluated one or more micro-level arguments without giving one side enough credit.

2. Would I be comfortable with my decision as a universal norm? In other words, would I be satisfied if all judges resolved this debate in the same way that I resolved it? If my students were on the receiving end of this decision from another judge, would I be satisfied with that judge’s decision? This is a feel thing—if I am satisfied that I have met the “fair hearing” standard, I am almost always comfortable with imagining my decision as a universal norm. Occasionally, however, this standard forces me to revisit the decision and more thoroughly consider whether I am being faithful to the narrative that developed in the round.

3. Am I prepared to defend my decision and provide educationally enriching commentary to the students on both teams? This sometimes requires taking a few more minutes to outline my decision and to construct a bullet pointed list of suggestions for each team/debater. I have found that I can do this more quickly by working on this outline and especially the suggestions during the course of the debate.

While this issue is not nearly as salient at the high school level, both debaters and judges could do substantially more to make the average day at a debate tournament more livable.

Debaters

Everyone wants adequate time to prepare for their debates. Everyone wants some down time to hang out with friends, get some food, or just relax for a few minutes. These expectations are entirely reasonable.

Unfortunately, these expectations often become excuses for debaters to unnecessarily delay a tournament in a number of avoidable ways. No one wants to feel rushed at a debate tournament, but a bit more diligence on the part of debaters can ensure that everyone gets done in time to have a real dinner and get to sleep at a reasonable hour.

Some tournaments obviously require more grueling schedules than others; the Marquette Hilltopper Classic, for example, will inevitably run very late on Friday night because we attempt to squeeze in three rounds. But regardless of the tournament’s schedule, taking a few minor steps to make things run a little more smoothly will translate into more livable days.

The following are a few of the things that debaters can do to make debate tournaments run more efficiently.

1. Pack up completely after each of your debates. In far too many rounds, the 2AR finishes and while the judge begins deliberating, the debaters leave to talk to their friends or just sit there moving papers around. Yes, the judge might need to read some evidence. But the judge will certainly not need to read evidence from the disadvantage you kicked in the block or from the impact defense file you pulled out but didn’t read any cards from. After the judge delivers their decision, finish packing up immediately and stack your tubs so that they are ready to move. Leaving a stack of disorganized files and flows while you saunter off to the cafeteria to chill with your friends just means that you will need to spend five minutes finishing the last round’s clean-up when the next pairing comes out.

2. Keep yourself more organized during debates. This will dramatically decrease the amount of time it takes for you to pack up after a debate. More importantly, it will improve your debating — keeping your area organized and free of clutter and distractions will make it easier for you to find what you need when you need it. And by cutting down on the amount of uncounted preparation time spent looking for lost evidence, improvements in organization will also reduce the actual length of each round by a few minutes. (By the way, if you’re one of the many debaters that has decided it is a good idea to throw cards/blocks on the floor after you have read them, you deserve to be ridiculed mercilessly and probably tasered.)

3. Have a system in place for when pairings are released. Tubs need to be moved, scouting needs to be completed, strategies need to be discussed, and files need to be pulled and highlighted. If you need to move your tubs, do so immediately. If you are affirmative, be prepared to hand the opposing team your plan text and answer their questions about your case as soon as possible — don’t delay disclosure in an attempt to gain a competitive advantage. Do not scout previous rounds until you have disclosed: you can do that after you have provided the negative with the information they need to begin their preparation. If you are negative, go immediately to your room and begin preparing—you should have some idea of what the affirmative will be running or at least some idea of what generic strategy you might deploy.

4. Minimize the need for pre-round preparation by maximizing pre-tournament preparation. There is only so much you can do before the start of a debate: effectively constructing a strategy from scratch is probably not a reasonable expectation. Instead of spending the first five minutes scratching your head and brainstorming a strategy after finding out what case you are debating, decide before the tournament what your strategy will be against each major case as well as against cases for which you did not develop a specific strategy. Once you decide on a basic strategy, spend the rest of your preparation time pulling the necessary files, talking about argument interactions and strategic choices with your partner and/or coach, and writing out specific overviews or explanations that apply your strategy to the specific case you are debating. A well-prepared negative team does not need much time to construct their 1NC and plan their strategy. An unprepared negative team, on the other hand, can never have enough time.

5. Take advantage of scarce coaching time. Do not expect your coach to spend twenty minutes constructing a strategy and walking you through the debate. Too much coaching time is spent inefficiently: instead of discussing the upcoming debate, the preferences of the judge, and the tendencies of the other team, debaters bombard their coaches with questions about what to say, where a file is, whether the other team is good, and whether they are at the top or the bottom of the bracket. Eliminate these distractions by preparing before the tournament and ensuring that you have all of the files that you need. For most debates, a five-minute conversation with your coach is more than sufficient to prepare you for the round. If you feel that you need more time with your coach, chances are good that you were not adequately prepared before you arrived at the tournament and nothing that occurs before the round will be able to make up for that deficit.

6. Follow the tournament schedule as best you can. We’ve all been at tournaments—or run tournaments, for that matter—that publish schematics with unrealistic start times. When a tournament director yells “round four pairings are released — debate starts in 5 minutes!” in a crowded cafeteria, it is only reasonable for debaters and coaches to smirk and abandon any pretense of respecting the published start time. But for the most part, tournaments provide teams with at least 15 minutes to prepare for each debate. And while 30 minutes or an hour might be nice, there is no reason that a well-prepared team cannot survive (and indeed thrive) with this more modest allocation of prep time. Five minutes before the round is scheduled to begin, you should be in your room and ready to debate. Do not disappear in a transparent attempt to extend your prep time—if you do this, so will everyone else. Most importantly, doing so shows disrespect for the tournament and for your peers.

7. Diagnose your problems and correct them. Despite your best efforts, sometimes you will just be slow when packing up, moving tubs, or getting ready for a debate. When that occurs, don’t shrug your shoulders and give up—figure out what the problem was and correct it in the future. Some teams are always late for their rounds. You do not want to be one of these teams: judges notice and will not be happy.

It doesn’t take much effort on the part of debaters to cut ten or fifteen minutes from each round. In a typical day, that can translate into getting out almost an hour earlier in the evening. Whether that extra time is spent at dinner, relaxing in the hotel, cutting cards, or sleeping, it will be much more useful outside the tournament than it would be at the tournament.

Judges

Judges are often just as responsible as debaters for long days at tournaments. There are a number of steps that judges can take to reduce the amount of time we spend on an average tournament day.

1. Pick-up your ballot before you begin coaching. This is one of the biggest pet peeves of most tournament directors and it is easily correctible. While sometimes you will get sidetracked and take a while to grab your ballot, make an honest effort to do so immediately after pairings are released. If you are also serving as a coach, you can do this while students move their tubs and scout so that by the time you arrive at their room they are ready for useful preparation.

2. Minimize the time it takes to finish pre-round coaching. This can be tricky and relies mostly on the debaters to improve their pre-tournament preparation. Especially if you have several teams to coach, make sure that you prioritize the teams that need a little more help and that you don’t waste precious time on “coaching” that doesn’t require your presence—lost files, scouting, etc. If the debaters can do it themselves, coaches should allow them to do so. Time spent with students should be focused on adding value to their preparation: discussions about advanced strategy/tactics, the judge’s preferences, the opposing team’s tendencies, and keys to concentrate on are much more helpful (and can be done much more quickly) than discussions about basic strategies that could have been done at home.

3. Adhere to posted start times. This is a tough one for many of us, especially when time is short and there are many teams competing for your attention. However, the net result of our unwillingness to begin rounds on time is that we all end up suffering through grueling days that make us ornery and lead to burn out. That extra five minute spent coaching your team is not worth the overall harm to the livability of tournaments. It is reasonable that sometimes you might need a few more minutes before a big round and most people will understand if the circumstances warrant it. But coaches that make a habit of coaching their teams well past the scheduled start time are doing the entire community a disservice.

4. Begin rounds punctually and enforce reasonable prep time limits. Too many judges allow coaches to work with their students well past the posted start time for a round and are unwilling to tell debaters that a round needs to start. Once rounds finally begin, too many judges allow debaters to suspend their preparation time on demand—it has become the norm for some judges that prep time does not need to be used when looking for evidence, organizing flows, figuring out the order for a speech, starting/rebooting a computer, going to the bathroom, getting water, etc. Some of this “uncounted” prep time is reasonable but most of it is egregious. When did looking for evidence, finding your flows, and organizing your speech order stop being considered “preparation”? Judges don’t need to keep a running clock, but they do need to enforce prep time limits.

5. Minimize the amount of times you leave a round. Judging is a thankless job and everyone is tired and hungry: it is not unreasonable to take a quick trip to the bathroom or judge’s lounge during prep time. But some judges make a habit of leaving at every available opportunity to smoke, grab some food, talk to friends, or just wander the hallways. This is usually not a problem but it can become one when it results in the lengthening of a round. Think about it this way: would you rather spend that extra ten minutes during each round wandering the halls? Or would you prefer to have forty extra minutes at the end of the day? The answer should be obvious.

6. Make quicker decisions. This is a much more controversial suggestion and one that I will discuss in-depth in a future article. Paul Strait’s recent post at the CEDA forum raises a number of excellent issues regarding the length of decisions. I have been known to take more time than most high school judges but I have been consciously re-evaluating the way that I judge to reduce decision times without sacrificing decision quality. This is a much less prevalent concern than it is at the college level, however—most high school decisions are made relatively quickly and even the most lengthy decisions are finished in well under an hour, not the two-and-a-half hours that has become the upper limit in college.

7. Turn in your ballot before discussing the debate. This is another tab room director’s pet peeve and it is something that judges can easily remedy. While I admit to violating this norm once-and-a-while (usually when there are no ballot runners and the tab room is a very long way away from the room that I am judging in), I have made a conscious effort this year to ensure that my ballot is in before I deliver my decision and I can honestly say that it hasn’t inconvenienced me at all. If anything, the few minutes that it takes to turn in a ballot gives me a chance to collect my thoughts and therefore provide a better critique to the students. Especially if you are regularly taking longer than most other judges to decide or to deliver your decision, this step can make a big difference—it ensures that you are not delaying the tournament but still enables you to engage in an educationally enriching discussion with the students you have judged.

Judges, like debaters, can make small changes to their routines that will meaningfully reduce the length of the average tournament day. While we are not facing the same kind of “crisis” as is the college community, we could certainly do more to make our tournament schedules more humane. I encourage debaters and judges to honestly assess the ways in which they are contributing to unnecessary delays at tournaments and to take steps to correct these behaviors.

Having spent a little bit of time reviewing the packet and ballots (both available on Joyoftournaments.com for everyone to see) I think that overall the implementation of the 100 point system was a success.

St. Mark’s provided a scale to be used for assigning points.   The scale translated into the following.  Take the points you would have given a debater on the 30 point scale, subtract that number by 20 and multiply that result by 10.  So if I had wanted to give someone a 27,  27-20 = 7.  7 x 10 = 70.  Now obviously because the scale is larger you get to play around and say assign a 71 72, 73 etc.  The ballot also requested that you not give two debaters in the room the same exact speaker points; the goal of this was that in every single debate you should be able to differentiate in order who debated the best.

Looking at the ballots and the packet I got a good sense that this system is clearly superior to the current system of .5 increments.  The concern of widespread variance was solved for by the scale provided by the tournament.   You were more able to get a grasp of who debated better in any given debate (by forcing each debater to get separate points)  and you were able to better see the differences amongst a medium 27.5 debater and high 28.5 debater in a debate.

My biggest criticism of the system might be something that is more cosmetic then anything but speaks to relative point inflation.  The top 7 debaters at St. Marks averaged above a 90 (or over 29 in the 30 point system) in their 6 debates( looking at total points not even the high /low).  While I think that all of those top 7 speakers deserved their speaker awards (heck one of them was one of my kids) I’ve become concerned that there might be a psychological barrier associated with the 90 point mark.  I’m not sure if people feel comfortable having a high 28.5 be less than a 90 total points.  This in turn could cause points to creep back up into the 85-100 scale and lead us back to the same broken point system we currently use.  Because this is obviously the first high school tournament this is not a reason to dismiss this system and on balance just some food for thought about the system.

The way I see it we have 3 options

1.)    Stay with the current .5 increment 30 point system- to me this is the worst of the 3 options, this system is broken and has been for a while.  I suspect it will take tournaments a while to adjust I’m glad St. Mark’s started this move in HS.

2.)    Keep this point scale (the -20 x 7) at most major hs tournaments and hope it adjusts itself to normal ( I suspect it might)

3.)    Go to a decimal point system where you have 28.1, 28.2, 28.3.   While it doesn’t have the shock factor of seeing a 93 and 73 given out in the same debate it is functionally the same and might prevent 29.2 from being the average points of the top speaker at a tournament

If someone has an in depth position either way on the system and how it worked at St. Marks e-mail me and we’ll consider making it a feature post.  If you all liked / disliked it send me an email with a reason why and I’ll compile those into a long post to not totally clutter the comment section on the right.

Let’s apply the Chaudoin method to the Carroll evidence that has been heralded as the bringer of death for Consult:

Before doing that, let’s observe that this “piece of evidence” fails the old debate test of “claim + warrant = argument.”  I feel like a novice saying this, but, there’s no warrant in that card.  Also note that this is really unfair to Jamie because we’re talking about a footnote, not his actual argument.  I blame the author of the post for this silliness in the first place.

1)      Do the predictions logically flow from the assumptions:

No.

This footnote seems to conflate “allowing a veto” with “subservience of foreign policy to the whims of other countries.”  It also seems to ignore the potential for the US to decide when to consult and when not to consult.

2)      Are real world data consistent with these predictions?

No.

This footnote doesn’t mention any, so this is really a nonstarter anyways, but we could easily think of some pretty prominent examples where allowing other countries to veto foreign policy would have saved us some serious mockery.  Had the US actually consulted the UN on Iraq II, Jon Stewart would be out of a job.

3)      What are some more rigorous academic arguments related to the subject? (Khalilzad and a Friedman rant/op ed don’t count).

-          We might check out articles by Chapman and Reiter, or Chapman alone that are about the rally round the flag effect and international effects of consultation.  We might develop a better notion of “cooperation” by reading Carrubba’s “Courts and Compliance in International Institutions” etc.  Ikenberry’s “After Victory” is about hegemons “smoothing” their power trends by binding themselves to particular institutions.

Here’s another quick way to apply the Chaudoin method.  Ask: “Does the piece of ‘evidence’ I’m reading have all the depth of a Fox News transcript or does it actually make an argument?”

—-

In academia, the term “evidence” means “observations about the world that may or may not be consistent with the hypothesis they’re designed to test.”  In debate, the term “evidence” means “some shit somebody got published.”

Observe the difference…

Professor: “I think that X causes Y and as evidence I have measured X and found it to be correlated with this measurement of Y.”

Debater: “I think that X causes Y and as evidence I present to you this article from Foreign Affairs that says ‘X causes Y.”

It isn’t hard to tell which one I think is actual evidence and which one is paraphrasing someone else’s publication that may or may not contain evidence.

It isn’t accidental that debaters use the second interpretation as opposed to the first one:

Reason 1 (not debate’s fault):  Debate is about prediction.  “I think if you do policy X then Y will result in the future.”  It is not about empirically testing hypotheses.  “In the past, did policy X tend to result in Y or Z?”  It is hard to predict the future and doing so with empirics necessitates certain assumptions that may or may not be “true.”  This is a fundamental problem that is not debate’s fault because assumptions aren’t testable.

Reason 2 (sorta debate’s fault, but not really):  The core principles of debate do not lend themselves well to in depth evaluation of evidence or to in depth research sources.  In 8 minutes, I can probably summarize the theory and evidence in a Foreign Affairs article.  (Actually, I could probably explain the entire volume with “none and none” but I digress).  I would be hard pressed to do the same with American Economic Review article.  Google scholar some and see if I’m wrong.  I could give you the tagline like “Risk aversion explains behavior in a first price auction laboratory settings better than prospect theory” but I would not be able to cover the theories involved or the evidence, at least not so that you could reach the same point on the research frontier as the article.

I won’t say speed or emphasis on taglines are bad.  They most certainly are not.  Conciseness and organization are just as important as depth.  (I vaguely remember some cards about speed and memory, irony much?)  But realize that the setup of debate ensures a ceiling on the quality of evidence debate.

Reason 3 (probably debate’s fault):  I’m going to assume the 3NR is at the frontier of debate thought both because I know (two of) the authors and because it seems pretty darn astute.  Bill, I’m sure you rock; we just haven’t met.  But even the frontier minds emphasize only one half of theory testing: logical consistency.

A theory can be evaluated in (at least) two ways:

1) Logical consistency:  I start with these assumptions.  I derive this prediction.  Logical consistency asks “does this prediction logically follow from these assumptions?”

This is the one that debate focuses on almost entirely, probably because we all possess good logic skills and that’s part of why we selected ourselves into the activity.

2) Empirical consistency: Are real world data consistent or inconsistent with the hypotheses derived from the theory?

There are two words to look at, “data” and “consistency.”  Bill and Paul’s responses to Roy’s Toulmin revision get at this nicely.  “Data” refers to observations from the world used to measure a certain concept.  “Consistency” refers to the way in which you think about sets of observations to determine whether or not they are consistent with a theory.  Some potential objections are “the researcher didn’t measure something correctly,” “the researcher did not account for this other thing,” etc.

Two easy solutions:

1. Focus on implementing the Chaudoin method (I don’t know who Toulmin was, but he has the word “tool” built in and he’s probably old and won’t care if I steal his method’s spotlight.)  After reading evidence as a debater or judge, ask “does the claim follow logically from the assumptions used to generate it?”  Next, ask “how convincing are the empirics used to test this theory?”  I would be willing to bet that 50% of debate “evidence” fails the first test and 95% fails the second.
2. Cut longer cards.  You don’t gotta read it in the round, but the judge probably will afterwards.
3. Read journals that are more academic:  Google something like “political science journal rankings” for a list of the top political science ones (APSR, AJPS, IO, etc) or do the same for economics (AER, QJE, JPE, etc) or for any other relevant disciplines from sociology to biology.

Implementing the Chaudoin method will win you 50-60 more rounds next year.

Full disclosure: I debated competitively for a long time before moving on to a PhD program in Political Science.  I study empirical methods and game theory which for sure affects my opinions on this subject as well.

Also, I’m trying to get Roy to put me on as a guest writer on the 3NR, so maybe commenters should back me up.

Let me make this clear I am strongly in support of a more expansive speaker point scale. I think there are differences between 28s, and 28.5s and the current system does not allow a judge to differentiate between the quality of those speeches. My fear with this scale is that in a 6 round tournament (which is the norm in hs) this system has the potential to “mess up” who clears and speaker awards in general.    I feel like the community does need to do a couple of things to make this work (not just for this tournament but to transition away from the 30 point scale in general).

1^st- Have judges add to their philosophies on the judge wiki what their speaker point scale will look like / translates to in the 100 speaker point world.  This makes it a little more transparent, helps with filling out pref sheets, and could in general guide people who are undecided about what their scale should look like.  I will explain what my system will look like and the rationale for it.

To me the 100 point system resembles a test. 100 speaker points means you’ve been perfect, you debated without flaws, completely error free. Below I will list how I will give speaker points and what they would translate to in the current system

100-98                   29.5-30

97-94                     29

93-88                     28.5

87-80                     28

79-70                     27.5

69-below- 27 and below

My rational for this scale-  My problem with the 30 point scale (and I feel like this is a problem for many) is that in reality debaters are given one of five speaker points, 27, 27.5, 28, 28.5, 29.  Most points given do not go above 29 or below 27.  This system provides little room to differentiate between the best speech I saw at a tournament and the worst.  As you’ll notice with my scale (and how it would translate in our current system) the range gets larger as the speaker points go down. The difference to me between a 29.5 and 30 is quite negligible; both displayed either perfection or near perfection so their range should be smaller. But it is within what we call now 28.5, 28, and 27.5s that I want to have a larger range of points to choose from.  The reasoning for this is that I want to be able to differentiate more between a solid 28 and a low 28, or a strong 28.5 and low 28.  Now I’ll be the first to admit I’m not 100 percent (no pun intended) sure what the difference between an 88 and 87 is, it is something every judge will have to use their gut for but I feel like the goal of moving to this system was rooted in being able to expand the scale we currently use.  I am not saying my scale is perfect and I hope to get additional input from people about it, but so far it seems ok to me.

Brian Delong posted how the average speaker point assigned at the Kentucky college tournament was an 87.  That seems pretty high to me.  In my scale that translates to the highest possible “28”.  I’ve been out of college debate for a while but know the quality of that product hasn’t improved that much in 3 years.  I feel like 100 scale was chosen because it’s how we grade stuff.  If the 87 is the average speaker point assigned then the test we’ve given is too easy.

Dr. David glass posted on edebate sometime in the last year an idea that does have some merit for tournament directors.  If you do plan on transitioning to the 100 point scale eventually, continue using the current 30 point scale but have judges also assign what they would have given under the 100 point scale, publish those results and give the community an idea of what the scale looks like.  That way when we do decide to make a full transition in 1,2,5 years we have an idea of what these numbers mean to most people.  The goal of this post is to get that ball rolling in HS so that speaker points are not a big shock at St. Marks or at future tournaments with the 100 point scale.

Things I hope don’t happen within this system:

1.)     Judges choose 100,99,98,97,96 as their move away from the 30 point scale

2.)     Judges  just multiply their current system x 3.3 and translate their points

3.)     Any other potential weird thing.

If you think about it like a test I think it should be all good.  If you give out block 99s your test is way to easy

2^nd- if tournaments do decide to move away (like St. Marks has) provide some guidance on the ballot, your own scale or range of what points should look like.  The first time this was done at Wake Forest a couple years ago I don’t think that scale was too great.  Tournament directors can / should do a breakdown like I did above and indicate on their ballots what at their tournament they feel an 80-87 means at their tournament. It means there is 1 scale all judges are asked to use and that lowers the chances of huge problems with points.  I know the anti establishment rebels in you hate this idea, but ultimately you are guests at their tournaments and much like you are asked to respect other rules at their tournament this should be one of them.  Doing this ensures (or attempts to) that nobody gets screwed by an outlier (someone giving 99s and 100s only or someone giving 60s and 70s only).

Speaker points have always been incredibly important for deciding seeds and teams clearing, it behooves the community and judges specifically to take some time and think about how they plan on assigning points in this system and to provide some transparency to the rest of the community about it.  I welcome the new more expansive point system era, but hope we take the change seriously or risk total speaker point chaos.