DebateArt Debate Tournament

I'll follow Ragnar's lead. I've been nominated to judge your debates, so you should have some idea of what I'll be using as my paradigm.

Generally, I tend to award points based solely on arguments. Conduct and S&G have to be egregious to earn points from me, but each follows the usual: I need to see some pretty obvious insults to award conduct, and S&G only comes with some pretty severe difficulties involved in either reading or understanding of your argument.

Sources are rare for me to award, but will happen if one side is providing significantly more effective sourcing to their arguments. Note I say effective and not more - having more sources will not necessarily get you this point. If the debate over a single source results in a win for one side, that might be sufficient reason for me to award this.

As for arguments, I could take a while to explain this, but I'll keep it brief.

To start, I understand technical arguments. If you want to present things like topicality or kritiks in a debate, so long as they are within the rules the debaters themselves establish, I'm good with that. That being said, since I know how these arguments work, I expect that those of you who choose to use them will as well. Pointing out that your opponent doesn't understand or address one of these points correctly won't work well for you if the points don't stand well themselves. If I see a kritik without a violation, for example, it's not much of a kritik.

I don't like the term "Tabula Rasa" to describe judges and voters. None of us are clean slates; we come in with biases and those can and will affect how we see certain arguments. That being said, no matter how problematic I see certain arguments as being, I will not make arguments for the debaters. If I don't see it in the debate, it's not going to factor in the debate. That being said, I do not subscribe to the notion that a dropped argument is effectively held as perfect. I will compare points based on their merits, and while those merits can be reduced by responses, a well-warranted, well-explained point with a lot of debate over it may still stand out over a weakly examined point that goes cold dropped. All this being said, I will call out debaters on falsehoods or faulty analyses that go unaddressed, even if they do not feature as part of my actual decision.

I will go through the arguments presented by both sides and try to cover them all in my analyses. You can expect that I will at least give attention to as many points as I feel have merit, and will at least provide reasons why I'm not considering other points. I will talk about who wins a point, but, in line with what I just said, someone outright winning an argument isn't necessarily going to have more strength than a slight win on a different argument, depending on the impact and analysis. 

I'm from a microbiology background, just finished my PhD. While I, like Ragnar, appreciate brevity as well, I'm more focused on organization and clarity (not that he doesn't, I'm just saying I favor these). If it takes longer to explain something in order to achieve those aims, don't hesitate to go long. I'm far more appreciative of a few thoroughly explained arguments than a dozen rushed points with limited analysis. Headings help, use them, and if/when you do change those headings, provide the means to track both why you're doing it and make it possible for me to trace it back.

Finally, I'll bookend what I think is most important in the debate with things I expect at the beginning and end: clear burdens and weighing analysis. I can't tell you how many debates have been made so much more difficult for me to judge due to a lack of one or both of these things. Those without the former will force me to establish the burdens myself, and chances are, you won't like what I come up with. Those without the latter will force me to apply weigh each of their points based on my perception, which, again, you won't like. In particular, when it comes to weighing analysis, you're going to come off far stronger to me if you build in some assumptions regarding what your opponent may be winning. You shouldn't assume they're winning any point, but you're going to have a far harder time winning your debates against good opponents if you can't engage in that basic "even if" analysis of your opponents' arguments. 

If you have any questions, feel free to let me know.