Showing posts with label judging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label judging. Show all posts

New Judge Philosophy

I took a glance at my judge philosophy the other day (as I think everyone should, once a year or so), and it was starting to look pretty stale. I had added this and that over the years, but it was mostly the same thing I wrote 6 months after I graduated high school.

The new version isn't much longer, but I think it's much "denser" in terms of useful information about me. I tried to include all of my opinions that lie outside the mainstream, whatever that is.

One piece that is an important change from years past:
On Delivery, I have no problem with speed per se, but I'm increasingly troubled by the clarity problems that I used to tolerate as part and parcel to speed. I desire to hear and understand every word in the round. I'll make a good faith effort to inform you, verbally and nonverbally, if you are unclear, but there is a limit to how much I'm going to yell at you.


Also, instead of littering the page with random rants and pet peeves, I just included the following at the end.


A short list of other things that are on my mind

-It's much easier to flow when things have descriptive names. "Next off is Healthcare Politics" instead of "Next off!"
-I think that Plans and Counterplans alike need an advocate in the literature.
-Absolute defense is just as good as offense.
-Arguments about the existence "side bias" are always stupid
-Impact comparisons are just as necessary on theory.
-I've seen plenty of politics disads that could be killed with a good interpretation of fiat.

Ryan Judge 2.0: Dead Tree Edition

Since my laptop came down with a case of the gremlins, I was stuck flowing on paper this last weekend. Turned out not as bas as I was expecting. Obviously I got less detail on my flow than I did on a computer, and I still have to work way harder to get the damn columns straight than I should, but I didn't miss as much as I was worried about. I think I'm just a much better flow than I was in high school anyway.

I also realized that for novice debate (or bad upper level debate), flowing on paper is sooo much easier. When debaters go into "I am going to make arguments that may or may not apply to something" mode or jump all around the flow, paper makes it a whole lot easier to figure out what the heck is going on.

SO if you see me whip out the paper before I judge you... it's because my computer broke. Seriously.