here - College of Arts & Sciences - Bethel University

Artime, Mike
McKendree University
Background of the critic:
I debated policy in high school for four years and went on to compete in parliamentary
debate for four years in college. For the past five years I have judged countless rounds of
parliamentary debate and, in the past two years, LD. I have judged some IE’s as well and
did not care for that experience so if you’re planning on doing a dramatic interpretation
of your PMC I will probably either fall asleep or walk out of the room.
Approach of the critic to decision-making (for example, adherence to the trichotomy,
stock-issues, policymaker, tabula rasa, etc.):
Primarily, I evaluate rounds utilizing a policy option framework, meaning that I weigh
the advantages to the Government proposal against any disadvantages incurred by the
plan (it is up to the debaters to tell me whether I should use probability, timeframe,
magnitude, etc. in deciding which impacts to evaluate). This does not mean that I am
opposed to someone running kritiks (which I will discuss later) or various procedurals.
With regard to procedurals I think that it comes down to a debate over competing
interpretations. More specifically, you need to win the standards debate in order to win
topicality, vagueness, or your favorite spec position.
Relative importance of presentation/communication skills to the critic in decision-making
:
While I am fine with whatever rate of delivery you want to use during the course of the
round I think that it is important not to sacrifice substance in the process. Going fast
should allow you to provide additional warrants to your arguments not to simply spew
out a list of what could only be described as assertions at best and just a collection of
random words at worst.
Relative importance of on-case argumentation to the critic in decision-making:
Defensive on-case arguments can help the Opposition mitigate the advantages of the case
and consequently to provide greater weight to their disadvantages. However, defense
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