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RE:judging

        I've just finished reading Roskoski's response to the issue of
pre-round coaching and I have to express my overall agreement.  More
explicitly, I think that this type of pre-round coaching (not always to
such an extent as an 8 minute questioning period) is part of the reason I'm
paid by the team.  It seems to me that one reason grad students are hired
as ass't coaches is to balance out the coaching staff.  Head coaches and
directors of forensics who have been in the activity for long periods of
time are able to provide stability and a bigger perspective about the
activity as a whole and about the particular arguments.  Grad students have
presumably been actual debaters in recent years and may be more familiar
with what's in the evidence files and with particular teams if they have
hit them repeatedly.  They may also be spending more time working with
particular teams on their squads and may be more familiar with the
particular strengths of that team.  I know on our team, the debaters are
instructed to try to find one of the coaches prior to the round to talk
about strategies, and preferably even find several of us.  At team
meetings, strategies are the result of everyone's input, and the input of
coaches may be unique because it suggests what was effective from a
slightly more objective view and because, theoretically, coaches have seen
a wider spectrum of teams.
        While on the subject of judges/coaches, I'll bring up another issue
that seems to repeat itself - reputations.  I was dismayed to see and hear
so many debaters and coaches at nationals who made assumptions about how to
debate based on what school their judge was listed with instead of their
philosophy or at least someone's personal knowledge of the individual.  I
know my own teams have been guilty of this as well.  I also had a couple of
rounds where after the critique was given, debaters told me they were
suprised to see my philosophy and that I adhered to it given where I was
from.  One round, I even had a debater comment to me that they had gone
slow in the round, though my philosophy explicitly stated that speed was
fine, because I was from the infamous east central region.  Simply because
an individual is from a school that did not travel heavily nationally or in
the midwest does not automatically say anything about their abilities with
a ballot.  I know there are many judges who write one thing in their
philosophy and judge by something else, but debaters and their coaches
should not make unneccessary assumptions.  Let's also try to remember that
the opinion of someone on a judge is just that, an opinion subject to its
biases and preferences.  I'm not suggesting that teams should never ask
other people about a judge.  I know I would never suggest that to my own
teams.  Rather, let's just try to keep it in perspective. 

        peace, Debby Zelli, Capital U.
Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
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