Doggett,+Matthew

Matthew Doggett Director of Debate Hillsdale College Experience: Former CEDA debater and coach. 3rd year on the LD circuit.

Judging Philosophy/Things you want to know about me: I am very tabula rasa. I try to evaluate the round in front of me and through the lens that the debaters establish. I wouldn’t say that I am an expert on the NFA rules but I have read them. I think that it is not my job to enforce them or interpret them that is up to the debaters. For example, I know that NFA has a rule against speed (and I’m not the fastest flow), but I think a debater who establishes that the rule has been broken and that the rule is more important than some other argument in the round can win. I will vote off my flow, which means that it is your responsibility to make sure that I flow your arguments. It is not my responsibility to tell you if you are going too fast; it is your responsibility to watch to see if I am flowing. If I am not, you are probably going too fast. Here is what I think a debater will have to do to win my ballot. On topicality, the violation has to be consistent, and the flow must be very clean. I feel very uncomfortable deciding on topicality if I have any doubt. I will vote on reverse voters, but the affirmative is going to have to spend a little time on it, and provide a better reason than “time suck.” I would also prefer to vote somewhere else. On disadvantages, I will vote on risk. The negative has to show that it is plausible that a particular plan will set off a serious of events that would lead to nuclear war. I will tend to side with the affirmative plan if the case is conceded and the negative has not offered any kind of impact analysis though. On counterplans, I guess the most important thing to know is that I don’t believe that the NFA format allows for conditional or dispositional counterplans. I also don’t think that the negative has to solve a 100% of the affirmative harms, only that the counterplan will solve for most and has a net benefit. On kritiks, I haven’t seen anyone really run a good one yet. I think this problem has less to do with the debaters as much as that I haven’t read a lot of the material and I don’t think the debaters have enough time to develop them. Having said that, I will vote kritiks. I think the debater has to win the framework and the alternative to do so. On case, the negative has to put some offense on the flow if that is the position s/he is going to collapse. I just don’t think the negative evidence if defensive is going to be strong enough to completely take out the affirmative. Finally, I am a big fan of overviews. In the overview, you should explain to me why you are winning and how your arguments operate together to guarantee that. If you don’t, you run the risk that I do not understand, which forces me to intervene.