Chicago Debate League Judge Philosophy Form
Name: Robb Berry
Appx. No. of rounds judged this year 10?
Affiliation/Profession: Head coach, Northside
Number of years in debate: 8
Any schools/debaters you should be blocked from: people reading timecube
1. When it comes to knowing debate jargon (counterplan, disadvantage, permutation, inherency, etc.), I consider myself
1
2
Still learning: try to limit jargon
3
Fairly comfortable, but with advanced debate theory, be careful
4
5
Very comfortable with debate jargon: don’t worry
2. I _______________ fast debates.
1
Dislike
2
3
Am indifferent to
4
5
Enjoy
4
5
Frequently read evidence
4
5
3. In the CDL, judges may ask for evidence after a debate. In making my decision, I
1
Never read evidence
2
3
Occasionally read evidence
4. While the debate is taking place, debaters should:
1
2
Ignore my nonverbal expressions
3
Watch for occasional non-verbals
Pay attention—I have expressive non-verbals
(nonverbal expressions include: smiling, nodding, frowning, shaking head, putting pen down, etc.)
5. On this year’s topic, I consider my knowledge:
1
Very limited (avoid acronyms)
2
3
Passable (I have basic background/history)
4
5
Extensive (Have researched myself)
(please see attached as addendum to the above/in lieu of questions 6-8.)
general background
8th year as head coach at northside college prep
case & disads
these debates are nice. i like them. please know the following before engaging in them:
- i would love to see impact calculus starting early, perhaps even in the 2ac.
- claiming 100% probability is not the same as winning 100% probability.
- i am fairly comfortable assigning zero risk to a scenario in which the team doesn’t win a link, whether disad or advantage.
- i think politics disads are pretty lazy. i’ll vote for ‘em if i have to, but i won’t like it. smart analysis on the no link
argument is usually enough for the aff to make this go away – it’s rare to see remotely compelling or specific evidence that passing the
plan will affect the scenario.
- i will love you for alerting me when you’re moving from the overview to the line by line. i’m a cheap date like that.
t
i tend to look to reasonability first; intuitively the “CI = race to bottom” resonates with me, and if the aff is reasonably topical based
on community norms i’m probably not picking you up for an arbitrarily limiting def. i’d also rather see an in-round abuse story than a
potential abuse story; what you justify is important, and i’ll certainly vote there, but i think the specific and definitive in-round impacts
– if you win that they stem from being untopical, that they’re not inevitable, etc. – are more important.
k/fw
i get that they’re intended to be generic on some level, but specificity of the link goes a long way with me. i really don’t want to vote
against a team because TRPC spit them out as aff – if your K is based on state action or economic engagement, you’re more likely to
get my ballot by talking about this specific form of state action or economic engagement. i think the neg loses the strategic value of
the K when the impacts are articulated solely as death/death-of-rights; now it just becomes a normal impact debate. negative teams
pushing the impacts of the K as aff impacts inevitable/error replication (in the world of fiat) or something having to do with the five of
us in the room (outside the world of fiat) have tended to do well on my ballot. Negatives critiquing the aff’s omission of something or
other have an exceedingly high burden, re: the perm debate especially; i default quite strongly to the aff being responsible for what
they say in the 1ac, not the limitless number of things they don’t. Affirmatives challenging an overly generic link or the solvency of
the alternative have done the best in front of me. “Squo or a competitive policy option” is not a compelling framework response, at
all.
cp/theory
i don’t see perms as an advocacy, unless the plan or the counterplan is explicitly such, and so I’m comfortable voting on a disad that’s
connected to a non-winning counterplan. i tend to lean neg on counterplan theory aside from process or consult; i lean aff on those
exceptions absent the neg winning that the process or consultation is functionally competitive. functionally competitive depends on the
round, though; if you’re claiming advantages via discourse then textual competition may be functional competition as well. please,
please note: the more blippy, top-speed, weakly warranted, and/or weakly signposted your theory arguments are, the more likely i am
to just make a holistic decision on the practice in question.
performance/non-traditional/goofball affs (yes, these are different)
certainly willing to hear them, but proceed with caution…
- i think debate is good, that it’s educationally valuable in its current form, and it’s hard to get me to vote on the thesis that it
isn’t or for arguments/practices that erase that value
- i think debate is not inherently exclusive. it may lean in certain directions, but the game itself does not systematically
exclude people, and it’s hard to get me to see that as an internal link to “vote to endorse our disruption” or something similar
- i can be persuaded by smart analytics, properly argued, on the above two issues
- i’m more likely to vote for a performance aff if it affirms this year’s topic, rather than treating the resolution as a metaphor
for something
- i’m more likely to vote for a performance aff if it defends a benefit garnered through some action, rather than merely
critiquing something or negating the resolution
- i’m less likely to vote on affs criticizing the topic’s omission or exclusion of something
- i will vote for an aff breaking any or all of these if the neg fails to prove that the aff, in whatever form it exists, is
undesirable
it’s largely for that last reason that i’ve lately been a decent judge for performance affs. straight-up framework as a strategy is
something i don’t particularly enjoy out of the 1nc as it’s kind of lazy, but i’m happy to vote on it if you win it. in a perfect world i’d
love to see negative teams engaging with the substance of performance or kritikal affirmatives when those affirmatives are defending
benefits garnered from actions germane to the resolution, and going hard on the framework or t fight when that conditional isn’t met.
affirmatives that ignore the resolution largely on the justification that they’d rather talk about something that’s not the resolution are a
really tough sell for me; i will indulge your discussion because it’s probably legitimately interesting, but competitive activities have
rules that you ignore at your peril.
other stuff
- speed’s fine. lack of clarity, lack of signposting – those are not. please do not debate as though i have the speech doc in
front of me; you need to tell me when you’re moving between flows or to the perm debate, etc.
- i’ll rarely call for evidence. i think the onus is on you to articulate what it says, what it means, and why/in what context it
helps you. if both sides do a crummy job of the above, i’ll ask for something post-round, but that takes the round out of your hands
and none of us wants that.
- no prep for flashing as long as it’s quick
- don’t be a pud in cx. i couldn’t care less whether someone can explain their card in their own words, because there’s an
author likely smarter than them who wrote it, and that’s good enough for me; asking that question makes you look like a dope. don’t
make your goal embarrassing the other person, because that’s really likely to backfire in terms of speaker points. don’t beat a dead
horse; ask your questions, and if they’re being evasive because they’re confused or trying to be shady, i’ll notice. don’t be
condescending, and don’t try to be funny if you’re not.
- if your novices would think an argument’s funny, or if you’re a novice and you think an argument’s funny, that’s a sign you
probably shouldn’t rely on it to win.
- my facial expressions are not always representative of what’s happening in the round. sometimes they are. if you say
something nonsensical, such as “global warming and nuclear winter cancel each other out, so you gotta vote aff,” they probably are.