Last changed on
Tue April 16, 2024 at 5:48 AM PDT
[UPDATE for 2024 UKTOC World Schools]
I'm so excited to judge you in World Schools this weekend! I'll be applying the judging rubric and guidelines for World Schools provided by the UKTOC staff, which you can also find linked on the sidebar of the tournament's homepage. I respect the conventions of the event and I expect you to do the same as a competitor. Overall, you should strive for excellent lay appeal in your delivery/presentation, and content/substance that an intelligent, open-minded, and well-educated audience would find persuasive.
___
Kyle Hietala (he/him)
kylehietala@gmail.com
CURRENT:
Program Director & Head Coach, Palo Alto High School
President, National Parliamentary Debate League (NPDL)
Vice President, Coast Forensic League (CFL)
FORMER:
Coach: St. Luke's, Spence, Sidwell Friends
Competitor: LD, APDA
____
SUMMARY
Experienced, ‘truthful tech’ flow judge from a traditional debate background. I’m receptive to many arguments, styles, etc., but I prefer strategic case debate or substantive critical debate. Any clash-heavy strategy focused on well-warranted, comparative, topical argumentation should work well for you. I'm not a great judge for contemporary progressive debate (e.g. AFF Ks, performance, tricks, frivolous theory). I'm fine with moderate speed if you slow down on taglines, enunciate, inflect, etc., but I won't flow off the speech doc. Above all, please be kind and respectful to others. And have fun!
____
VOTING
I usually vote wherever the most thorough warranting and responsive weighing was done. If there's no meta-weighing by either team, I tend to prioritize probability/timeframe over scope/magnitude. I tend to value analysis (quality, depth) over assertion (quantity, breadth) on the flow – I'm unlikely to vote for something blippy and underdeveloped, even if it was conceded. I tend to vote against strategies I consider clash-evasive (e.g. frivolous theory, tricks, conditional CPs, unlinked Ks). Keep in mind that my own rhetorical responsibility is to cogently justify to the losing team why they lost — so being clear is always to your advantage.
____
CASE/POLICY
I think debaters chronically misallocate time to stating the obvious about impacts (e.g. "extinction irreversible"), instead of comparing not-obvious details about warrants/evidence. Impact terminalization is fine, but I'm reluctant to vote for extreme impacts with brittle links – I'd prefer to hear probability analysis rather than nuclear war/extinction reductionism. AFF needs to show how their advocacy/plan creates solvency. I like framework-heavy case strategies that challenge net benefits/utilitarian policymaking, especially strategies focused on actor analysis and ethical obligations.
KRITIK
I like K debate, but I also find a lot of it to be obtuse. The link is the most important part of the kritik, because it tells me what you're critiquing/what your opponent did wrong. Links of omission are not links, and reject the AFF/resolution is not an alternative. I'm not comfortable with Ks that ask me to make judgments about a student's immutable identity.My favorite K debates are topically-relevant examinations of academic assumptions, especially in discourse/rhetoric.
THEORY/TOPICALITY
I'm receptive to theory/topicality when it's needed to check in-round abuse, but unreceptive to it for its own sake. An abundance of technical skill shouldn't excuse someone from playing fairly. I'm willing to intervene against debaters who think that baffling their opponent with frivolous theory entitles them to my ballot, and I'm also happy to intervene in favor of a debater who don't know the minutiae of theory shells, but are contesting something that is excluding them from the round.