1. Don't steal prep. As a debater I had a general contempt for people who did this. As a judge I will wreck your points if you do so. Prep stealing includes
-talking to your partner
-looking for evidence
-asking your opponents questions
A trend seems to be emerging whereby debaters think that if you do any of those things while
-walking to the podium
-pausing after giving the roadmap right before your speech
-you do it quickly
it is somehow not prep theft. It is.
2. Give a good roadmap. How hard is that? Answer: not very. If you have to
-count the number of off slowly taking more than 2 seconds to do so
-retrieve more than 0 flows you forgot to bring up with you
-take prep more than once during the roadmap process
-be reminded by your partner you are dropping an entire sheet of paper
you are not giving a good roadmap. You have not adequately prepared for your speech. In California at local tournaments we still get the ballots with the check boxes on them and the last time I looked at one organization was one of the 6 categories. That means theoretically you could get a 25 based solely on poor organization. I will do everything in my power to bring this back.
Another thing- call case flows the same thing. There is nothing worse than when the neg has like 6 sheets of case, and the 2AC gets up to give their order and insists on using the stupid names they gave those things in the 1AC instead of the things the neg called them. Here's a hot tip- during the 1AC I was playing solitaire because I assumed the neg would go for a K or T pos. Then they surprised me and argued against your case, so I had to label tabs what they called them. Now you get up and where the neg said Hegemony you feel it is important to correct them and call it "competitiveness" and then what the neg called "economy" you call "aerospace". Well guess what- your advantages are both stupid and BOTH THE SAME THING. Now I have no idea which set of 1NC arguments you are answering where so odds are high I will just vote neg on sever perms bad to avoid having to figure it out.
3. Don't be a jerk during cross-x. Most people understand that this means being civil, but it means more than that. The best example I can think of is I once watched a debate where immediately after reading his 1AC Strauss took an enormous bite of a sandwhich and was unable to speak for some time. His cross-xer, one Jonah Feldman, correctly declared "shenanigans" on this practice. If you are the person being asked questions you have a duty (at least in my mind) to answer them in a reasonable, honest answer. Things that do not fulfill this duty include
-lying about what evidence says
-pretending you cant find evidence when asked to read part of it
-ignoring questions you dont want to answer
-saying "we don't take a stance" in response to straightforward obvious questions that you clearly have to take a stance on given your 1AC (most egregious example I can think of is not trivial things like who does the plan but things like after reading a war with china advantage refusing to answer the question how do we know china is a threat-NEWSFLASH- that doesn't get you out of the link after you said so in your speech genius- it probably makes it much worse that you label them a threat for no explained reason. 2nd most egregious example, quote as close to accurately as I can remember
2NC: What countries shouldn't have nuclear weapons
1AC: We don't take a stance on that
2NC: Yes you do, you read a proliferation advantage
1AC: Yes, that's not relevant to our advantage
2NC: What? That doesn't make any sense, explain what you mean
1AC: We don't take a stance on that
2NC: What do you mean, you don't take a stance on what countries or you don't take a stance on what not relevant to our advantage means
1AC: .... both
)
4. Know what your cards say. Ok maybe I lied in the title a little. But I generally think that you should not have read a card in your speech that you had not read prior to said speech. I.e. at some point you should have either cut that card (god forbid), organized that card into a block because you thought it was good, or at least highlighted the camp file you were going to read in your speech. Now I'm not saying if you read a card about the statistical rainfall around rivers in the middle east to answer water wars and someone asks you what those statistics were that you need to know it off the top of your head. But if you say "Obama spending capital now" in the 2AC, and the neg says "on what" you should probably be able to answer that without looking at the card.
No I take that back, you actually DON'T have to have read the card beforehand. It would be nice, but not required. You should remember what the card you read 5 minutes ago says even if you just read it for the first time.
5. Avoid stupid acronyms/abbreviations etc. When in doubt say the full word. Where is the line? Its hard to say. Is obvi ok? Obvi. Tix is definitively not ok. Dispo is, but condo rubs me the wrong way (why is condItionality condo and Condoleeza Rice condi?) Efficiency during speeches is important, but in your roadmap you have all the time in the world to say "poli".
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5 comments:
I just found this blog. You have a blog and you named it after yourself, that's funny.
In any case, if you're tired of hearing terrible douche cross-xs, you're going to need to do something more extreme than posting about it on a blog. I recommend a simple solution:
INTERVENE.
There's no other solution. Debaters will continue to press for advantages. The majority of them will have some variety of douchebaggery drilled into them in Evanston or something. They do all of those things you mentioned because someone told them to do it - which means that someone, somewhere likes it. It's difficult to dig up each individual "cross-x philosophy" before a round.
I personally came around to this when I realized that debaters have been taught to filibuster. They actually won't stop speaking when cross-examined, and they'll eat up the whole cross-x.
I say three things when intervening:
1. "Stop filibustering."
2. "That doesn't answer the question." and/or "That's a question you actually need to answer."
3. "Let me see the evidence."
I have recently found that those three well-defined points of intervention - as well as the simple fact that I'm willing to intervene - have saved me oceans of debate pain.
Nooch,
You are probably right. Doing so runs against my general grain. I'd like to think that jacking people's points would be sufficient to change their behavior, but that obviously has shortcomings (elims, people who already get bad points etc). Do you do this during elims when you are on a panel?
I do. I have done this once, mind you - this is a recent development.
I'd be more hesitant to say "answer the question" on a panel. That's something of a judgment call. I'd never hesitate to break filibusters - they're obvious, they break any sane interpretation of the rules, and only judges can really impose cloture.
I hesitate to jack speaks because it carries a competitive penalty. Often, I see debaters do this because they've been trained - they're often perfectly mild-mannered students who went to an institute where some horrible douchebag told them all of his "secret tricks" to douchepacking. It's terrible, but it's not really their fault. They think it's the correct thing to do - they were told it's part of the assignment.
"just following orders" is not a legit defense in a court of law or in debate.
Dallas has been interrupting CX's for a long time. I agree for the most part that its ok. It obviously has the potential to "punish" someone for doing what they have been trained to do by throwing them off and questioning the perceived objectivity of the judge- especially if you are not vigilant and fair in employing it. But that's a minor point.
The real issue is- do you want stupid judges doing this to kids you coach? While we can both agree that we are gifted, and handsome, men- not every other judge is equally gifted.
You make a good point when you mention that we are gifted and handsome men.
Still, I think even an idiot can - and SHOULD - implement three basic cross-x rules.
1. You can't talk over the person asking you questions (filibuster.) The cross-examiner has control.
2. You have to answer questions that pertain to what you said.
3. If you spend more than 30 seconds arguing over a piece of evidence that the judge can't see, you're being a dreadful bore.
I trust the worst judge I can possibly imagine to implement THOSE three rules.
You do raise a frightening specter, of course. It's incredibly important to distinguish between LIMITED RULE-BASED intervention and full participation. It's the difference between calling balls and strikes and actually stepping up to the plate.
I have heard stories about Dallas' cross-x interventions. They sound viscerally painful - a 19 year old's Dallas impression sounds even worse.
If they were going to do that, though, they'd probably do it in the post-round. I suppose it's better to know than have them jack their speaks for reasons I can't ascertain. Competitively, that's actually a much harsher penalty than saying "stop filibustering" now and then.
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