An Understanding of the Different Types of Judges
Experienced debate judges (who were generally debaters in High School and/or College) generally carry a mindset that favors certain arguments and styles over others. Throughout time, the criterion upon which judges decide debates has changed. Currently increasingly popular within college debate, and trickling down into high school debate, is examining debate from an "offense-defense" paradigm. Because of this, it is customary for debaters to ask a judge what their experience and paradigm is for judging. Judging paradigms include:
Stock Issues
A stock issues judge believes that the affirmative plan must fulfill all their burdens. If the negative proves that the affirmative is lacking in any one of the issues, it is grounds for the plan to be rejected. Stock issue judges generally prefer a clear, eloquent presentation of issues in round, and dislike arguments that seem to not relate to the topic on the surface.
Policymaker
Policymaker judges tend to take the theoretical viewpoint that they are the "policymaker," and as such, they vote for the side that presents the best policy option. Typically, Policymakers vote heavily on disadvantages and counter-plans, and may not vote on kritiks or topicality arguments. However, more and more policymakers are beginning to incorporate parts of the gamer (see below) paradigm into their views, making them more open to kritical arguments. The basic policy of this paradigm is the weighing of the affirmative's advantages versus the negative's disadvantages.
Hypothesis Tester
A hypothesis tester is viewing the topic resolution as a hypothesis that the affirmative team tests through their plan. This paradigm represents a heavy focus on resolution debate instead of plan-focused debate, and opens up some non-standard options for negative teams to use against the affirmative. Generic topic attacks, inherency arguments, counterplans, counterwarrants, and conditional arguments are generally all accepted by judges with this paradigm.
Tabula Rasa
This is the Latin phrase that translates to clean slate, tabula rasa judges claim to begin the debate with no assumptions on what is proper to vote on. "Tab" judges expect teams to show why arguments should be voted on, instead of assuming a certain paradigm. While a generalization is unfair, most tab judges will be comfortable with fast speeches, along with counter-plans, disadvantages, and kritiks. However, it is best to ask a "tab" judge on his or her preference in regard to specific types of arguments.
Game Theorist
Games judges were common in the 1990s, especially among young college debaters judging High School rounds. As the name suggests, these judges believe that debate is a game, and any argument that forms a coherent syllogism is "fair play" in round. Games judges will have no qualms about voting for a policy that vaporizes the moon, disbands the U.S. government, or any other policy action that would normally be considered "absurd" as long as one of the teams can prove that the aforementioned action is the most advantageous choice in the round.
Appearance
Appearance judges, often known as lay judges, judge based on appearance and eloquence of speech. Appearance judging is normally discouraged in some parts of the country, however, some judges lack experience with the complexities of debate theory and delivery and therefore subliminally resort to this style of judging. Speeding, Kritiks, jargon, and counterplans are strongly discouraged, and disadvantages should be run slowly and with detailed explanation.
Understanding Judge Paradigms
Common Strategies and Myths of the Trade
The Dumbest Person in The Room
Maybe you have been told or think the judge is the dumbest person in the room in any debate. I am here to tell you now, that is a lie. At least ninety-nine percent of the time, I would expect your judge to be a reasonably intelligent, well informed member of society. Considering that juries on capital murder trials are selected from ordinary citizens of all walks of life, we can see practically any ordinary citizen can be expected to make decisions correctly, based on evidence and arguments and those decisions, carry far more weight and impact than any arising in the course of even the most prestigious debate tournament. In some murder trials, the evidence is incredibly complex and very technical, covering aspects of medical and forensic science, physics, logic, logistics, you name it. Yet, somehow, juries of ordinary men and women are capable of assimilating and evaluating the evidence and rendering a decision.Therefore, you may think the judge is the dumbest person in the room, but if the judge fails to evaluate your case properly, ask yourself again, who has failed? Especially, considering that debate judges tend to be more practiced and suited to evaluating cases than the average capital murder, jurist is capable of valuating forensic evidence. If there is any good reason to think your judge is stupid it is so you can remember to present your case in the most thorough and understanding way possible. If you fail to do so, it may turn out, you are the dumbest person in the room.
The Myth of the Blank Slate
Quite often we hear that judges are "tabla rasa", meaning blank slates. Tabla rasa is a philosophical concept which one can liken to the state of mind of a newborn child devoid of any knowledge or ideas which arise from experience and observation. In instructions given to judges they are told they should be tabla rasa but there is little explanation of what that means in the context of debate. Basically a good judge should have no preconceived idea about who will win, and should at least assume a position which can lean affirmative or negative with equal propensity. To be fundamentally tabla rasa, judges should empty themselves of all preconceptions and knowledge and assume a position which basically says, there is no truth, no knowledge, apart from what is revealed in this debate round. In my opinion, the tabla rasa judge does not exist, and if they did, that is the judge you may really think is the dumbest in the room because they are by definition, incapable of evaluating claims based on their own experience. Tabla rasa judges are not only a myth (I'm sure exceptions exists somewhere in the wide-world of debate), they are judges you would probably not want in your round nor on your jury if you were a lawyer.
The Judge's Duty
Jurists know, when they are selected to serve they have a responsibility to evaluate the prosecution and defense cases as fairly as possible. Debate judges also know this, and even though a debate case will likely not impact society as much as a criminal trial, the sense of responsibility is still profound for many judges. This is even more true for the least experienced judges. The pressure on novice judges is often overwhelming and I have seen them literally breakdown from fear they may not be capable of fulfilling their sense of duty. It is important, I think, that debaters recognize the sense of duty the judge possesses and realize they generally want to do the right thing and render a fair decision relative to what they perceive a neutral position to be.
Types of Judges
Debate theorists have many ways of categorizing judges according to their method of evaluating cases. You may have heard of policy maker judges, game players, tabla rasa, stock issues, etc. and you learn that judges may be one or the other or some combination of several. Debater's also have their own ways of categorizing judges, such as, old school, parent judge or mom judge, speech judge, etc. Some judges are combinations of the attributes and some simply defy classification. In many tournaments, judges will disclose their preferences on paradigm sheets or websites and debaters and their coaches have an opportunity to examine these disclosures prior to the round. Remember, it is the judge who makes the disclosure so the debater must put a certain amount of trust in the fact the judges are properly evaluating themselves. If I say, for example I prefer evidence over pragmatic analysis, you would be correct to rely more on evidence than just getting up and explaining your reasons for believing something. Nevertheless, the paradigm sheet does not tell you that if your evidence is from questionable sources, or biased, or generally in contrast to what I know about the topic I am going to put more weight on analytics as a sort of check on reasonability. If the paradigm sheet says I hate theory, you may be inclined to never make a theory argument but yet there is a very good chance I will be applying my knowledge of debate theory in determining whether each case falls within my expectations of what constitutes valid evaluation criteria and my ideas of how arguments should be weighed. And if it turns out the Affirmative is not topical you can bet I would still listen to Neg make that case as an apriori which must be resolved before Aff can even think about moving the debate down the road. Therefore, whether I realize it or not, I am willing to listen to and judge a theory argument even though I may hate having to do it. That is a key point. The judge may hate it but often the judge will do it if forced.
What we see is, paradigm sheets can be misleading, not because the judge lies or tries to intentionally mislead but because most judges are remarkably flexible and will evaluate a case using any means at her disposal. What the paradigm sheet gives you is some indication about how open the judge is to certain kinds of arguments or better to say, how easily the judge can be tilted toward your point of view using a particular argumentation style. One should never look at the paradigm sheet as an absolute guide to how to win the judge's opinion without realizing that if the judge is left no other choice, the judge will swing completely toward the other end of the scale in order to reach a conclusion. They must. It is their duty to do the right thing and reach a decision.
Evaluate Your Judge
So how does a debater know what kind of judge they are facing? Certainly, paradigm sheets may provide some insights, and probably one important way is to keep a file on all of the judges you have faced in the past as you are likely to face them again in the course of a season. Not every tournament has a place for judges to disclose their preferences and often the judge has never been seen before.
Start With The District Paradigm
Every district has a paradigm and you should make an effort to know it especially if it is a district where you do not normally debate. Know which schools in the district tend to dominate the debate category you do and evaluate that team style. Do they run theory and critiques? Are their cases heavy with philosophy or pragmatism. How important is evidence? Do they speed read or is speech clarity important? Properly evaluating this will go a long way toward telling you how you should present your cases because clearly the dominant schools win most of the cases and so the local judges are already predisposed to their style of argumentation. Additionally, you should consider that novice judges are trained by the local seasoned judges and so the paradigms of the senior judges are often passed on to the new judges. It is the random judge from outside of the district who will be the least predictable. If you know nothing else about the judge pool, the laws of probability suggest falling in line with the style of the most dominate teams will increase your odds of winning.
The Judge's Experience
Probably more important than anything else on the paradigm sheet or disclosure is the place where the judge reveals their experience and if they do not, see if you can find out. Do they judge national circuit debate? Do they coach? If so, who or where and for how long? How long have they judged? One very important indicator is do they coach or judge other forms of debate other than the one you debate. If, for example, you debate LD and the judge also judges or coaches PF you can pretty much forget about running theory, critiques, spreading, etc. If the judge also is involved in policy perhaps you have a better chance of using policy-like arguments and style. Keep in mind, a coach is more likely to stick to the "rules" than someone who is only a judge (such as a well experienced parent or former debater). In many ways, ex-debaters are dangerous (translated as least flexible) judges unless they have been out of debate for a number of years but actively judging the whole time. Recent graduates, according to my experience, tend to judge very closely according to their own style and so it would be helpful if dealing with a recent graduate debater to find out what their style of debate was. Perhaps ask an older rival who may have debated the graduate in the past. If you can't find that out, rely on the fact they are likely in line with their former coach's paradigm or their former district paradigm.
In most situations, you will have some idea of who will be judging prior to the start of the tournament so it can be worthwhile and practical to find out what you can about potential judges. Most national circuit tournaments require full disclosure and so not only do debaters disclose their cases, judges must also disclose their preferences. Today, it is rare to find so-called paradigm sheets on the national circuit. Instead, the preference is for narrative disclosure where the judge writes a paragraph revealing preferences. For me, this is only as reliable as the judge's ability to accurately assess themselves. I would like to know about their experience besides just their personal points of view on certain types of arguments. In any case, the point is, if your judge is a national circuit judge, see if you can find the judge's disclosure online and add it to your judges file.
