Point of Information

Stephan Brooks

Constraints: James Logan

Background
I participated in high school forensics for four years at James Logan High School. I was coached in every single debate event (CX, LD, PF, & Parli- Congress is not debate) and competed primarily in Public Forum and Parliamentary Debate. I have coached Public Forum debate for the past four years at my Alma matter, qualifying teams to the California State and NFL National Championships every year, with none of my teams failing to clear to out-rounds at either tournament. My teams won the 2007 & 2008 California State Championships in Public Forum. And while my personal focus is Public Forum, I prefer and enjoy judging Parliamentary Debate rounds more than any other event (random topics, more creative arguments, more fun in general). I have judged Parli rounds for the past five years at several California invitational tournaments such as: U.O.P., Santa Clara, M.L.K., Stanford, etc.

Also, in addition to my forensics and debate experience and in the interest of full disclosure, I like to provide competitors with my personal background if it helps them understand where I’m coming from at all. I am 23 years old, registered Democrat, fiscal conservative, social liberal, I studied economics in college, and I have worked a million jobs: real estate loan agent, personal body guard, retail store manager, debate coach, and more.

Approach to judging
I always tell competitors that I am a “flay” judge, which means that while I do flow rounds that I watch and value line-by-line approaches, I never vote or base my final decision strictly on my flow. I like to base my decisions on common sense and reward teams that won the key arguments in the round with logical reasoning and presented their side in a more persuasive manner- things that most lay judges tend to value. In other words…

I AM NOT A POLICY JUDGE. I will NEVER decide a round based on an unimportant sub-point that wasn’t responded to, let alone mentioned until the final speech of the debate. I DO NOT enjoy listening to debaters that speak at a rate of speed that can’t be comprehended by most normal human beings (speed is okay, spreading will get you killed). I DO NOT BUY BULLSHIT NUCLEAR WAR IMPACTS (I will buy LEGIT nuclear war impacts, but you better work pretty damn hard in the round if you’re gunning for one of those). Furthermore, LISTING LOTS OF ARGUMENTS ISN’T GOOD ENOUGH. In order for a team to have access to any offense in the round, they must explain and/or properly impact their arguments during the debate, and weigh them against their opponents’. And lastly, because I am not a policy judge, I RESERVE THE RIGHT TO INTEPRET YOUR ARGUMENTS using my own personal knowledge and common sense. This doesn’t mean I won’t vote on arguments I don’t personally believe in- I do that all the time. What it means is: if you tell me the sky is green, and I look outside and it’s clearly blue, well then, you sir are F@#$ed. Don’t BS me.

Argument preferences

In general, I feel that my judging paradigm in Parli fits the “Policymaker” profile of policy judges, and if you want my ballot, you should always remember to impact and provide clear voters. As for specific areas of the round and types of arguments are concerned…

THANK-YOUS:

No need to pretend. You’re here to win a round, you probably hate your opponents and will talk smack about them two minutes after the debate, and I’m only here because I got forced into judging because my school couldn’t afford to hire a judge. Just get down to business. Also, if you don’t shake my hand and thank me for judging after the round, you won’t hurt my feelings, trust me.

GOVERNMENT TEAMS:

If it’s a policy resolution, you better have a clear plan, and you better have some sort of solvency to go with it. I tend to vote for government teams that do a good job of demonstrating how their side will effectively provide benefits/advantages versus the status quo.

OPPOSITION TEAMS:

I’ll pickup opposition teams that do a good enough job highlighting disadvantages and negative impacts of the government case, as well as those that poke enough holes in the government plan. I also LOVE COUNTER-PLANS, because as a policymaker, I like voting for teams that improve the status quo. Run’em if ya got’em.

STANDARDS:

If either team claims that the standard should be “net benefits” you are effectively telling me two things. First, that you’re lazy and not at all creative, because “net benefits” is the default standard, and if you didn’t say it, I would just assume it anyways. Second, that I should just pick out and vote on the team with more arguments I personally enjoyed since you provided me no criteria or weighing mechanism. You might as well offer me a coin to flip. Please, tell me EXACTLY how I should score the fight.

THEORY:

Don’t run it. You’ll lose. Only run it if the resolution is desperately crying out for it, and even then you still might lose. You’ve been warned.

DEBATE GAMES:

Homey don’t play that. You shouldn’t either. You’ll lose.

ABUSE:

It’s the government’s job to define and provide fair grounds for debate. 60/40 is fair enough in my book. Government teams, play nice. Opposition teams, if you cry abuse, you better be right, otherwise you’ll lose because you wasted forty-five minutes of my life.

POINT OF INFORMATION:

It’s nice to be nice. As a courtesy, I believe good teams should always be willing to take 2-3 questions per speech. Also, don’t be an ass and spend thirty seconds telling the other team that you don’t have time for their question when you could have just answered the stinking question in that time. Shame on you if you don’t take any questions.

POINT OF ORDER:

No blood no foul. Don’t bother calling these unless the other team did something really egregious, like insult your mother. In virtually all cases, if the other team spouts some bullshit, I will catch it and drop them.

CLASH:

Do or die. If you remember one thing from this long judging paradigm of mine, remember that it’s very important to impact and weigh your arguments against those of your opponent. If you’re not telling me why the crap you’re talking about is more important than the crap the other team is talking about, I just might pickup the other team. Don’t let that happen.

Presentation preferences

I enjoy good ole fashioned line-by-line debate throughout the entire round, EXCEPT for the final two speeches. During the final two speeches, I could really care less about my flow. Voting issues only please- pretend I fell asleep during the first thirty minutes of the debate and you need to instruct me on how to fill out my ballot (depending on the hour and how many rounds I’ve judged, this might actually be the case).

As for rate of delivery, again, speed is fine, but please no spreading. I’m all about quality over quantity. You can read off a hundred different arguments, but if you don’t explain/impact them properly, or even appear to understand them yourself, I don’t weigh them as offense for your side.

I think that covers just about EVERYTHING. If you have any questions before the round, please do feel free to ask. Also, if the tournament rules allow, I typically disclose and critique after every round (and in most cases, I’ll do it anyways even if the rules don’t allow it).

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