American Debate Sediment 2: Punitive Judging

This is the second of a few pieces that I am working on to try to outline what I think are the biggest hurdles that Worlds debate development faces in the United States. It’s not an exhaustive list by any means, nor is it a list that I think is completely accurate.
Judging is hard work. I really don’t like it that much because it is exhausting. Doing it well all day is a real challenge for me, but when it’s good it is really good. The attention and care required are always paid back in the development of the debate students in later rounds. For students it’s becoming an essential part of my teaching of younger debaters to help them identify how a team creates victory out of almost nothing. 
Judging is a creative and developmental enterprise for me, but some judges I’ve worked with see it as a punitive exercise: They try to seek out the team that has made mistakes, messed up, or violated the rules in some way. These judges function like police – they look for infractions or violations of the “law.”
I remember winging on a panel 2 years ago at the Yale IV where the chair started the discussion, “The first thing we need to ask ourselves is: Did any team knife any other team?” After we decided there were no knives, the next question was, “Did any team not fulfill their role?” After about 10 minutes of this, we finally started discussing the quality of the argumentation. Another judge I was with wanted to give a team a 4 because “everyone knows” there is a “card out there” that 
The manufacture of knives and the seeking out of mistakes is a very comfortable way to judge, and one that is very common in many American debating formats. The trope of “I really like the argument, but you dropped this or that response,” or the dropping of another argument is enough to allow the judge to inhabit two worlds – the world of agreement and rejection at once, in a very pleasant way: “I agree with you, but the rules do not, and I must enforce the rules.” In this way, the judge removes herself entirely from the rather uncomfortable and more difficult position of saying that one argument was “better” than another one.
This is not the fault of the judge, nor is it really bad. This sediment comes from a format, or a system of formats that try to replicate and/or simulate a sphere of expertise. In expert spheres, people in decision making positions do this all the time. They say, “I am with you in principle, and against you in technical merit.” This happens in law, medicine, academia, and other such places. It is good training for those who wish to practice persuasion for expert fields.
We can see this also in the “tick box” judge – the judge who wants to give a team a 1 because, “They didn’t do anything wrong.” Sometimes this is articulated – as it has been to me a few times – because a team “did their job,” or “really fulfilled their role,” which puzzles me to no end. This is the other end of the “cop” judge, the one who wants to reward those who can follow the rules. 
But do we give a job to the person who has the correct margins on their resume? The person who filled in the application to the letter? It seems strange to not attend to content right away. It seems alien to not want to discuss content at all in evaluating debate performances.
 This is sediment that we must figure out how to remove from our Worlds experience. Why? Worlds debate, whether it planned to or not, has evolved to simulate a public sphere. The presence of a panel of judges simulates the discussion of the issues in a public before a decision is rendered. The need for arguments to sustain 8 different speeches also points to a format that doesn’t believe that there will be limited voices with access to the ear of the “public” involved in the discussion. This is practice that is tuned toward helping people persuade general audiences.  Both formats are desirable, but we must resist the urge to push all formats toward the form that makes us feel comfortable.
The discomfort of having to say, “I didn’t buy what you were saying” or “I didn’t understand what you were saying, so I dismissed it” would be unacceptable in a policy debate – the judge must be an expert, and if the judge misses an argument or doesn’t understand a technical issue, shame on them.  In a “natural language” format like Worlds, shame on the debater for not being clear enough or not explaining herself well enough to win. 
This explanation is measured with the ideal of the “reasonable person” standard, something derived from British law and applied to this debate game. The chair and the other judges must use it to temper their own potential expertise about an issue, or about debate in general, and render a decision that makes all the participants think about reaching general, intelligent audiences. The goal that a Worlds Grand Final should be a really engaging debate on a contentious issue is all the standard one needs. “Breaking the rules” is never a compelling case for anyone – in fact, it’s the opposite of establishing any position. 
How do we remove this sediment? I’ve had little luck in trying to get both of these judges to express their views on particular arguments in the debate. They feel, I think, that to express their own view of the argument is to “intervene” in the debate – code for letting your personal view or resonance with the arguments to trump the role of enforcer of good debating standards. 
Unfortunately, I lack the language at this point to explain to these judges that they have already intervened, that they will continue to do so, and that their intervention is what makes debate possible. This is based on the idea that the public, by virtue of their interest and care for the issue, must and will mutilate your argumentation. Fidelity to the proper, expert form of the argument – like scientific reasoning for example – is lost once that document wanders out into the public. Once there, people will mutilate it to make it make sense to them, or make it fit what they think.
This sediment will take a lot of time to wash away – many judges are simply incapable of making a decision without the rules being involved because of decades of training in the opposite direction. It is a big challenge, and I struggle with the proper language in which to frame it to these judges. There’s something strangely pleasurable about citing the relevant theory to make a decision instead of carefully comparing the articulation of a principled argument down a bench. 
Some might think that I am calling for less objectivity and therefore do not want a fair game. On the contrary, I do want less objectivity but only because throughout debate’s recent history in this country, fairness has been held above realism. And a game is only worth playing if it is fair to both the players and to the game itself. In short, there needs to be some risk to teach properly, and the risk is over-padded with fairness at the moment. There should be moments where your best arguments fail because they are “best arguments.” 
If you aren’t going to confront your limits in constructing persuasive discourse, when do you plan to do it? The judge who is not afraid to say an argument lacks quality – whatever that might be – is essential to this important moment of rhetorical development.

American Debate Sediment 2: Punitive Judging

This is the second of a few pieces that I am working on to try to outline what I think are the biggest hurdles that Worlds debate development faces in the United States. It’s not an exhaustive list by any means, nor is it a list that I think is completely accurate.
Judging is hard work. I really don’t like it that much because it is exhausting. Doing it well all day is a real challenge for me, but when it’s good it is really good. The attention and care required are always paid back in the development of the debate students in later rounds. For students it’s becoming an essential part of my teaching of younger debaters to help them identify how a team creates victory out of almost nothing. 
Judging is a creative and developmental enterprise for me, but some judges I’ve worked with see it as a punitive exercise: They try to seek out the team that has made mistakes, messed up, or violated the rules in some way. These judges function like police – they look for infractions or violations of the “law.”
I remember winging on a panel 2 years ago at the Yale IV where the chair started the discussion, “The first thing we need to ask ourselves is: Did any team knife any other team?” After we decided there were no knives, the next question was, “Did any team not fulfill their role?” After about 10 minutes of this, we finally started discussing the quality of the argumentation. Another judge I was with wanted to give a team a 4 because “everyone knows” there is a “card out there” that 
The manufacture of knives and the seeking out of mistakes is a very comfortable way to judge, and one that is very common in many American debating formats. The trope of “I really like the argument, but you dropped this or that response,” or the dropping of another argument is enough to allow the judge to inhabit two worlds – the world of agreement and rejection at once, in a very pleasant way: “I agree with you, but the rules do not, and I must enforce the rules.” In this way, the judge removes herself entirely from the rather uncomfortable and more difficult position of saying that one argument was “better” than another one.
This is not the fault of the judge, nor is it really bad. This sediment comes from a format, or a system of formats that try to replicate and/or simulate a sphere of expertise. In expert spheres, people in decision making positions do this all the time. They say, “I am with you in principle, and against you in technical merit.” This happens in law, medicine, academia, and other such places. It is good training for those who wish to practice persuasion for expert fields.
We can see this also in the “tick box” judge – the judge who wants to give a team a 1 because, “They didn’t do anything wrong.” Sometimes this is articulated – as it has been to me a few times – because a team “did their job,” or “really fulfilled their role,” which puzzles me to no end. This is the other end of the “cop” judge, the one who wants to reward those who can follow the rules. 
But do we give a job to the person who has the correct margins on their resume? The person who filled in the application to the letter? It seems strange to not attend to content right away. It seems alien to not want to discuss content at all in evaluating debate performances.
 This is sediment that we must figure out how to remove from our Worlds experience. Why? Worlds debate, whether it planned to or not, has evolved to simulate a public sphere. The presence of a panel of judges simulates the discussion of the issues in a public before a decision is rendered. The need for arguments to sustain 8 different speeches also points to a format that doesn’t believe that there will be limited voices with access to the ear of the “public” involved in the discussion. This is practice that is tuned toward helping people persuade general audiences.  Both formats are desirable, but we must resist the urge to push all formats toward the form that makes us feel comfortable.
The discomfort of having to say, “I didn’t buy what you were saying” or “I didn’t understand what you were saying, so I dismissed it” would be unacceptable in a policy debate – the judge must be an expert, and if the judge misses an argument or doesn’t understand a technical issue, shame on them.  In a “natural language” format like Worlds, shame on the debater for not being clear enough or not explaining herself well enough to win. 
This explanation is measured with the ideal of the “reasonable person” standard, something derived from British law and applied to this debate game. The chair and the other judges must use it to temper their own potential expertise about an issue, or about debate in general, and render a decision that makes all the participants think about reaching general, intelligent audiences. The goal that a Worlds Grand Final should be a really engaging debate on a contentious issue is all the standard one needs. “Breaking the rules” is never a compelling case for anyone – in fact, it’s the opposite of establishing any position. 
How do we remove this sediment? I’ve had little luck in trying to get both of these judges to express their views on particular arguments in the debate. They feel, I think, that to express their own view of the argument is to “intervene” in the debate – code for letting your personal view or resonance with the arguments to trump the role of enforcer of good debating standards. 
Unfortunately, I lack the language at this point to explain to these judges that they have already intervened, that they will continue to do so, and that their intervention is what makes debate possible. This is based on the idea that the public, by virtue of their interest and care for the issue, must and will mutilate your argumentation. Fidelity to the proper, expert form of the argument – like scientific reasoning for example – is lost once that document wanders out into the public. Once there, people will mutilate it to make it make sense to them, or make it fit what they think.
This sediment will take a lot of time to wash away – many judges are simply incapable of making a decision without the rules being involved because of decades of training in the opposite direction. It is a big challenge, and I struggle with the proper language in which to frame it to these judges. There’s something strangely pleasurable about citing the relevant theory to make a decision instead of carefully comparing the articulation of a principled argument down a bench. 
Some might think that I am calling for less objectivity and therefore do not want a fair game. On the contrary, I do want less objectivity but only because throughout debate’s recent history in this country, fairness has been held above realism. And a game is only worth playing if it is fair to both the players and to the game itself. In short, there needs to be some risk to teach properly, and the risk is over-padded with fairness at the moment. There should be moments where your best arguments fail because they are “best arguments.” 
If you aren’t going to confront your limits in constructing persuasive discourse, when do you plan to do it? The judge who is not afraid to say an argument lacks quality – whatever that might be – is essential to this important moment of rhetorical development.

Tournaments are it?

What else can a debate club do besides tournaments?
In the history of US debating, debate was a pipeline to academia. There was scarcely a faculty member who hadn’t been a part of, or at least participated significantly in debating as an undergraduate in speech communication departments. Whether this was a choice, or forced, or what, I’m not sure. The history of that still needs some development. What I am sure of now is that this is no longer the case, and the debate club goes to tournaments model might need some shoring up in the modern speech communication department. 

Here is one of my attempts at offering an alternative narrative as to what debate programs do. I had three students put papers together about or related to debate experiences where they accessed theory in order to help them account for experience at tournaments. This seems to give an intellectual edge to what some might not be convinced are intellectual endeavors. It also helps answer concerns about the emphasis on competition that a debate club brings by definition.
Other attempts include community and school outreach, which I hope to post some videos of as well. I think that the modern debate program is doomed if it doesn’t offer a menu of events that differ in perceptible ways from victories at tournaments. Basing your program on competitive success is not sustainable.

Tournaments are it?

What else can a debate club do besides tournaments?
In the history of US debating, debate was a pipeline to academia. There was scarcely a faculty member who hadn’t been a part of, or at least participated significantly in debating as an undergraduate in speech communication departments. Whether this was a choice, or forced, or what, I’m not sure. The history of that still needs some development. What I am sure of now is that this is no longer the case, and the debate club goes to tournaments model might need some shoring up in the modern speech communication department. 

Here is one of my attempts at offering an alternative narrative as to what debate programs do. I had three students put papers together about or related to debate experiences where they accessed theory in order to help them account for experience at tournaments. This seems to give an intellectual edge to what some might not be convinced are intellectual endeavors. It also helps answer concerns about the emphasis on competition that a debate club brings by definition.
Other attempts include community and school outreach, which I hope to post some videos of as well. I think that the modern debate program is doomed if it doesn’t offer a menu of events that differ in perceptible ways from victories at tournaments. Basing your program on competitive success is not sustainable.

American Debate Sediment 1: Student Judging

There are several issues standing in the way of the creation of an American national circuit of WUDC debating. All of them are quite serious issues, and they are going to take a generation to fix.

Fix? Not really the right word. Brush away, clear away, something like that. For these are best considered a sediment on top of American debating; a sediment left there by decades of debate practice influenced by a positivist view of language within a legalistic, punitive system of rules.

The sediment is thick. The metaphor here is not dusting, but more nautical archaeology. Nautical archaeology of ancient Greece or something. It’s a lot of sticky mud. And pulling it off too quickly threatens the treasure below. There is a high risk the patient will reject the new organ of WUDC style debate that is being slowly transplanted across the country.

This is the first of a few posts about these concerns. They are in no particular order.

Student Judges


Debate’s history in the United States has always been a faculty directed program. There was a brief period of time in the history of Colonial Colleges that debate teams were student run, at the dawn of tournament debating. The rise of the Speech Communication department along with the G.I. bill ended that, but it still remains as a relic only at the most elite of American Universities (the most persuasive theory being that elites who attend elite schools do not need any directed or professional speech instruction; people will simply believe them based on class, wealth, power, or simply networking with friends of dad solves the need to be persuasive. Also the name on the degree doesn’t hurt).

This sediment has led to some very comfortable rules. Judges are all graduates, done debating. They are responsible employees of the University. They are to speak as a teacher, or perhaps an expert. They judge the debate based on expert opinion on debating.

Worlds Style debate has no such system or luxury. The development of the consensus system is a judge training system built into the format. It also serves as a simulated public – a very different idea than the judge as “debating expert.” There are no experts in Worlds debate; there are simulated publics, there are “reasonable persons” judging each debate. Breaking judges are selected, in theory, based on the most attentive and responsible of the judges at the tournament.

I don’t know where or if the fear is a motive here. But one huge assumption is that debating is to be preferred to judging. If a student can debate, they should. Judging comes later. They could unfairly tip the ballance, they might not know enough to make a good decision – and they might not understand the rules of debating well enough to judge it. They might also be bad teachers.

The result of these fears is a comfort that is misplaced, putting one or two judges in a round as long as they know what they are doing. They are comfortable having expert single judges judge a room, which is problematic. All the arguments are directed toward a public ear, not a private expert reviewing the case. There is a shortage of judges because debate directors have to fight the feeling that putting a student in as a judge is a waste. Deliberation solves this, because deliberation forces the students to make and remake the arguments they’ve heard. They have to repeat them, explain them. They also have to articulate how they clashed with every other team in the round. In short, they have to develop a critical debating mind, and they do it through articulation with and to others. They also have to hear the articulation of others, and reflect on it. They must reflect and speak about the rhetoric of others. This is better debate training than any professor at the chalkboard can provide.

Couching judging as 50% of the experience of being a Worlds debater might help us overcome this. The argument must be made that the pedagogy depends on both. We must use the metaphor of the card, or the cross examination, or research, or something like that to convince those transitioning over or adding to their existing adversarial debate program that student judging is a requirement, not an option.

Everyone benefits from this. The more judges, the more something that was lost can be located in a round. The more the judging students can see how judges work, and how decisions should be made. They gain valuable exposure to a variety of argument in practice. And they learn how to explain why and how it worked for them. Students before judging explain why they were persuaded circularly (i.e. “It’s good because it is true, and it’s true because it is good”). After making them judge, they are much better at giving reasons why they were moved, instead of just assuming it was truth moving them around.

Many of the older coaching generation will have trouble accepting students flipping from judging to speaking between tournaments. Questions of eligibility and fairness will appear. But in Worlds, no divisions are needed, as we are not learning an expertise-based argumentation style. Natural language argumentation is available everywhere. We just express the warrants with more explicit language (not swearing, ha ha, very funny you) and more direct expose of interactivity. And that might be a good thing. Well, it’s good if a reasonable person can understand it and assent to it.

Will a student be a bad teacher? The student is the only teacher available. Teacher, understood as a figure of authority, or someone holding onto a sacred and complex set of disciplinary rules, is not a good understanding. The experience is what teaches in Worlds style debating, not a particular expert judge. The experience of the debate teaches, both in the doing and the decision. Everyone learns from the interaction, and they learn something about how people are moved by words.