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Re: Random Thoughts on Reading Evidence

I think judges should read evidence too:
l. To prevent diminish lying just as opponents read cards for this 
purpose to possibly look up later. This keeps community cleaner.
2. To prevent diminish mistagging. 
3. To clarify point. This esp. applies when evidence is cross applied
or critical to key arguments. 

However, debate is supposed to be fundamentally an oral advocacy activity.
If the arguments aren't clear in the debate, the judge should not be 
making them clear for the debaters by reading a lot of evidence after the 
round. This encourages spewfests flurries of blurry evidence unclear 
argumentation etc. RECONSTRUCTING OR CONSTRUCTING lots of arguments after 
the round makes the debaters irresponsible unresponsive and blippy during 
the round.

So there are pros and cons to reading evidence. 

I too have recently called for evidence and found both sides ready such 
incredibly poor stuff that it just made making the decision much harder.
Steve Hunt
References:
Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
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