here - College of Arts & Sciences - Bethel University

to be honest, they just bore me a little. i've voted for it in the past, and i'm sure i will in
the future. if you want to run these args and make me happy, you should do some solid
work on the alt and link levels. i want to know why your k is competitive and i want to
know what my ballot is going to do.
Any additional comments:
if you're running a spec, you need to find a way to demonstrate abuse. i'm just not
comfortable voting for potential abuse. regardless of why, i just feel like i always have to
intervene in some way. show me a case list on limits, run the disad you lost links to, just
do something to demonstrate how their interp is bad for the round. that said, no one said
you have to go for your specs, and i'm never going to punish you for running them, unless
you just really get it handed to you on an rvi or k or t or something.
Lane, Gina
William Jewell College
Background of the critic:
I have been the Director of Debate at William Jewell College since 1985. Our program
was a policy program until 2002.
Approach of the critic to decision-making (for example, adherence to the trichotomy,
stock-issues, policymaker, tabula rasa, etc.):
I try to be open to a variety of debate arguments, but I default to a policy analysis in a
net-benefits paradigm. I'm not a fan of the trichotomy. I think the critical element of any
debate is for debaters to compare argument impacts in the round and tell me what my
decision calculus should be. The most common mistake I see is debaters who run a lot of
arguments and leave them all in play to see what sticks. This almost always creates
shallow debate that invites judge intervention.
Relative importance of presentation/communication skills to the critic in decision-making
:
I flow at a pretty fast level, but you need to articulate well. Unlike other forms of debate,
I can’t ask for cards at the end of the round to reconstruct arguments, so I have to get
your arguments on the first hearing. You have the responsibility to communicate.
Relative importance of on-case argumentation to the critic in decision-making:
99