My primary focus is on solid linkwork and unique and high-magnitude impacts.

 

 

Jim Hanson

Judging Philosophy 2017

 

Executive Director

Climb the Mountain Speech and Debate Foundation

jim@climbthemountain.us

 

President

West Coast Publishing

jim@wcdebate.com

 

I have coached and judged NDT-CEDA, NPTE-NPDA, Policy-CX, LD, and Public Forum Debate at the regional and national circuit levels including national champions and major national tournament champions. I debated high school policy and college CEDA and NDT debate long ago. I have been involved in the speech and debate community since 1976 as a frosh in high school and continue that tradition by helping new speech and debate programs as well as existing ones to succeed with my work with Climb the Mountain and West Coast.

 

My Default Decision-making: I weigh the benefits of the topical parts of the affirmative/pro advocacy versus those of the competing negative/con advocacy.

 

EVERYONE: STYLE ISSUES

1. Please speak loudly; speak with emphasis and meaning.

2. Please give clear thesis statements for your arguments especially any position you want to go for in the last speeches.

3. Please extend evidence by the tag with a reference to where it was on the flow (eg 5th answer).

4. I dislike 1) arguments that advocate purposely or actively killing thousands of people (e.g. "spark" “wipeout”), 2) rudeness, 3) “They are stupid” comments. I really dislike personal attacks on opponents and usually results in loss of speaker points and if carried too far could be the cause of a loss.

5. I think teams tend to cry “no new arguments” too much especially when they have a one card turn that turns into 5 minutes of additional links and impacts in later speeches. I am lenient about new arguments until the very last speaker in the debate. If you want me to “box-in” your opponent, then you will need a good explanation of what you could not argue because of the new argument and why that was so critical.

6. Good cross-examination/crossfire matters a great deal to me. Questioners should ask questions to expose holes in their opponents’ cases and use followup questions to answers to gain an advantage and ask questions in a way that is clear but tough for the opponents to answer. Respondents should directly answer the question or talk about good arguments they have made related to the question. Citing sources and specific warrants in your answers is a bonus—as is answering right away without delays because you are trying to figure out an answer.

7. Speed:

--Open Policy, LD, and NPTE-NPDA: National Circuit style is fine for me although I prefer a rate at about 80% of high speed debates.

--In Novice/JV divisions of Policy, LD, and NPTE-NPDA and in ALL divisions of public forum debate: I prefer a rate that is a bit faster than normal conversational speed but not much faster.

 

PUBLIC FORUM DEBATERS MAINLY: KEY TO MY DECISION

Cases should provide quality evidence with warrants and impacts and should address key arguments about the topic—those arguments can be creative and unusual but since it is public forum they should be real ones that experts/the public are discussing.

Read evidence (quotations) in the rebuttal speeches and directly answer your opponent’s case arguments—don’t just cross-apply your case contentions.

Summary speakers should primarily/nearly exclusively defend their cases rather than also attacking their opponents’ cases (which was just done by the rebuttalists).

Winning the debate means winning the contentions with the most impact. Explaining how/why your strongest arguments outweigh the opposing teams’ arguments is a good idea.

 

NPTE-NPDA ONLY: TRADITIONAL VERSUS LINE BY LINE REBUTTALS

NPTE-NPDA debaters: If you are going to debate national circuit line by line style (which is totally fine), then do it throughout the debate—line by line right through the last speech. If so, I support in NPDA-NPTE, MO’s and LOR’s splitting the block. MG’s should put out lots of offense and PMR’s should go for the 2 to 4 key answers on each position. If a team splits the block—then deal with it—don’t argue abuse because I am highly unlikely to vote on block splitting is abusive (however, if a tournament's rules ban splitting the block, i will follow the tournament's rules).

 

POLICY, NATIONAL CIRCUIT LD, NPTE-NPDA: TOPICALITY AND THEORY

1. I have a strong predisposition that affirmatives must be topical. I’m lenient on topicality including for post-modern/performativity/“we support but don’t traditionally fiat a plan” types of cases. However, affirmatives should not count on me voting that topicality oppresses you or that your case outweighs topicality; I’m very predisposed to believe that an affirmative does have to be topical.

2. My predisposition is that the negative must show a clear violation and that it has significant harmful effect (my default is not "competing interpretations"). Show the topic size explodes, becomes unpredictable for prep, kills core negative ground (eg the negative can't run "usfg action is bad" arguments; if you can't run a particular politics disad, i'm less likely to care).

3. I think my basic view of theory is: as long as an advocacy is clear, then argue it—don’t waste time arguing theory. Attempts to win theory with me on arguments such as “Conditionality bad” and “T is a reverse voter” and “A-Spec” tend to be uphill battles. To win such an argument, you should show that your opponent’s strategy destroyed your ability to debate effectively--not just that you lost an ability to run "x disad" or "y counterplan." Theory arguments that I find more convincing are: plan is so vague, it is not clear if any arguments apply; the affirmative severs or changes part of their plan; the negative runs two positions that straight turn each other.

4. My default is the negative gets the status quo, a counterplan, and a kritik alternative.

5. My default is that non-permable counterplans are ones that are functionally opposite to part or all of what is advocated in the text of the plan.

6. I have leanings (though not super strong) against consult/condition counterplans--I think plan is usually enacted normal means and if the cplan alters the normal means, then that is consistent with the plan since it did not endorse a specific normal means.

7. I strongly default to "its severance and that's a voter" when affirmatives use perms that jettison a "functional" part of their plan needed to make it topical. e.g. on the "pressure china topic" the aff. plan submits a complaint to the wto; aff. says the complaint would lead to sanctions (so the plan is topical pressure); then aff says "perm--do plan without sanctions." that is severence as far as i am concerned and it is a voter (and yea, that plan is probably also not topical).

8. International Fiat: Fine; I'm not likely to drop a Japan nor EU nor UN Counterplan.

9. Multiple Actor Fiat: More debatable but the Aff. will need to give good args why I shouldn't consider such counterplans.

10. Object Fiat: Probably bad but I think it is debatable and might depend on the situation. Affirmatives should be ready to defend US action but there's a limit to how much the negative gets to counterplan out of harms.

 

POLICY, NATIONAL CIRCUIT LD, NPTE-NPDA: DISADS

Links, links, links. Explain to me why the plan causes the disadvantage—that is by far the most important part of a disad to me (uniqueness and impacts important too but links MORE important).

 

POLICY, NATIONAL CIRCUIT LD, NPTE-NPDA: KRITIKS

• Negatives should have specific links (links are key!!!), clearly stated implications/voters, and strong answers to perms.

• I probably should either be able to envision an alternative or you should lay out a clear alternative—and it would be nice if it appeared in the 1NC. If it isn’t, I give the 1AR tons-o-latitude.

• I'm not really big on kritiks of a word (eg “your evidence said the word ‘man’ so you lose”). Absent a team dropping the arg/making real weak responses, I avoid voting on such issues unless the word is so bad it prevents debate (e.g. using an epithet to attack another debater in the round). Now, if both sides agree that representations are key, then "word kritiks" matter.

• Arguments about “pre-fiat” “post-fiat” “in-round is all that counts” and “fiat is illusory” aren’t real persuasive to me. Both sides made arguments in the round—so argue them. If the debate centers on representations, then show your representations--including the policy implications--are more important. K Debters: This means I almost always weigh the aff. advantage impacts against your K impacts.

• “This kritik completely turns solvency” arguments are often not persuasive to me especially if the affirmative can depict one of their advantages as being independent, as being something specific and empirically proven, happens before kritik consideration, etc.

• Ethical imperatives are fine but if you drop or lose badly nuclear wars/mass death/suffering--I have a hard time finding your argument persuasive. Put at least some defense against the consequences or you will have an uphill battle getting my ballot even if you have flaming "ignore the consequences" arguments.

• Affirmatives should try to perm kritiks, show how the benefit of their case’s advocacy is more important than the harm of the kritik, and how the perm uses the aff in a way that makes it solve the kritik.

• "Framework" arguments can help but in my opinion, they usually end up with one side just slightly winning and that usually isn't enough for me to throw out the kritik nor to throw out the aff. case advocacy. Wanna win a framework argument? Do like I suggest for theory/t arguments: show serious harm to your side; and frankly, most of the time the problem is the aff isn’t really topical—argue that. Otherwise, both side's arguments count.

• Negatives that run performativity/project kritiks against affirmatives often leave me wondering how they answer the affirmative case especially as of the 1NC/LOC speech (meaning, after you truly explain your K during the next negative speeches, I let the affirmative make new responses even if it is the 2AR in LD or PMR in NPTE-NPDA). Make sure you link your performance to the affirmative clearly; make it clear how the performance defeats the affirmative case.

My name is Robin Monteith and I am the coach for The Overlake School in Remond, Wa. I am a parent coach and was introduced to speech and debate through being a parent judge. This is my 7th year judging at speech and debate competitions. All years, I judged PF, LD, Congress, and many speech categories. I have no policy experience. I became a coach in the 2019-2020 school, and coach students in many speech categories, PF, LD, and Congress. My educational background is in psychology and social work.

I am looking for students to convince me that the side they are arguing on is right. I like statistics, but am also looking for the big picture, but with enough specifics to understand the big picture. It will help if you give a clear and highly organized case. Make sure that you don't talk so fast that you lose your enunciation. Also, remember that I am trying to write and process what you are saying so if you are talking really fast some of your arguments may be missed. While the point of debate is to take apart your opponents case, I do not like it when teams get too aggressive or cross the line into being rude. I value both argument and style in that I think your style can help get your argument across or not get it across well. Don't do theory or Kritiks. I am not a flow judge, but do take extensive notes. You need to extend arguments in your summary and final focus and I will disregard any new arguments presented in final focus and second summary as this is unfair to your opponents. In summary I like for you to summarize the important parts of the debate for me. Both your side and your opponents. In final focus I want to hear voters. Why do you think you won the debate. What evidence did you present that outweighs your opponents evidence, etc.

Preferred email: rmonteith@overlake.org