here - College of Arts & Sciences - Bethel University

8. I do not wish to observe and judge ‘critical/performance styles’ of debate.
Norcross, Brian
Southern Illinois University
In the past, I have said the following sentence in language that people have found
ambiguous so I will make it clear. I hate fact and value cases and want to pound my head
on the desk repeatedly every time someone runs one in front of me. I have no idea how
to judge these rounds and inevitably wind up intervening for one team, as there is never a
good way to weigh the arguments. Offense wins rounds. Running only defensive
arguments and relying on mitigating their case is a good way to lose a round (although I
will be pleased that you made my decision easy). Impacts are good (you might even
want to weigh those impacts in the rebuttals, but that might be asking too much). I will
vote on most arguments, but fewer arguments that are well developed are better than lots
of bad ones. The reality is that I will try and judge the round how you tell me to, but the
further you get from standard plan / counter plan debate the more random my decisions
will become.
O'Grady, Brendan
Texas Tech University
Background of the critic:
Parli Rounds judged this year: 100+
Non-parli rounds judged this year: A dozen or so NFALD rounds
Years judging debate: 2 Parliamentary and NFALD Debate Styles
Years debated: 4 Parliamentary Debate
School debated at: South Orange County Forensics ('01'03), Arkansas State University
('03'05)
Approach of the critic to decision-making (for example, adherence to the trichotomy,
stock-issues, policymaker, tabula rasa, etc.):
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