Judge Philosophies

Greg Abbott

Number of Judging
YEARS
High School 10
College 10
Number of Judged
TOURNAMENTS
High School 0
College 1
Number of Judged
ROUNDS
High School 0
College 4

Greg Abbott Unaffiliated Many Years of Judging
Zero Experience in 2003-04


Paradigm. My default value is to be a policy-maker, primarily because the text of the resolution and the context of academic debate appear at first glance to call for a policy-making evaluation. If we had a resolution such as “Resolved: that neutrinos have more mass than current theoretical models predict” then my default value might be hypothesis testing.

However, my ultimate responsibility as a critic is to evaluate which team does the best job of debating, not policy-making. (A strict policy-making perspective would be an invitation for a judge to base his/her decision on information not presented in the debate). If you want me to view the debate through a lens other policy-making, I’m more than willing to listen. Remember, though, I will not adopt a decision-making criteria which makes it impossible for me to decide which team did the best job debating. For example, I am not likely to adopt a decision-making paradigm which would have the effect of eliminating clash, or which would permit the introduction of an entirely new affirmative case in the 2AR.

Counterplans. As above, these are my default values which are all subject to change based on in-round advocacy. Counterplans should force a choice with the affirmative (i.e., be competitive), they should be non-topical, and multiple counterplans are grouped together as one competing policy argument. (Multiple counterplans are permissible only if the Negative justifies it on advocacy grounds " but if they do, multiple affirmative proposals become permissible). Permutations are merely a test of competition " there can be multiple contradictory permutations, but until they are dismissed, they represent possible policy proposals which the negative may attack as undesirable (in other words, the negative can grant a permutation and stick the affirmative with it, unless the Affirmative can kick out the counterplan on other grounds). As a policy-maker I prefer to evaluate consistent and coherent choices, so my default value is that contradictory counterplans are generally a bad idea. However, the Affirmative still has an independent obligation to justify policy change, so it’s entirely possible for me to vote Negative on any numbers of issues (case flips, unrelated DA’s, etc.) even if I disregard contradictory counterplans. Counterplans do constitute the Negative policy proposals, for purposes of evaluating things like DAs, unless they are kicked out.

Topicality. An important issue which in the past has been unappreciated and underutilized by the Negative. Topicality is a jurisdictional issue " an affirmative with a non-topical case does not justify "affirming" the resolution. Topicality is not, and can never be, a reverse voting issue " if there is a reverse voter in topicality, it comes out of abuse of standards for advocacy (e.g., reading contradictory definitions, lying about evidence, violating explicit promises upon which the other team relied in responding to the argument).

Other. Be nice " I detest ad hominen attacks. Be clear. Make choices in rebuttals " you’re not going to win every argument, so pick the most important ones and take the time to nail them down.

Good luck.