The following are a set of tenets for the technical judge. To proclaim yourself as “technical,” or that you believe in “tech over truth,” implies a belief in all the following.
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There is no distinction between a “claim” and a “warrant.” What you might identify as a warrant is merely a claim whose truth implies the truth of a prior claim. To argue there is any distinction is arbitrary. A speech is merely a long list of claims where the truth-value of some of them depends on the truth-value of others.
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Arbitrariness is to be avoided at all costs. The goal of technical judging is to render decisions that are predictable based on the content of the debate round. To that end, arbitrariness does a disservice to the work debaters have put in.
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Personal belief should always be trumped by arguments made in a round. It seems inevitable that some degree of personal belief is justified, e.g. your knowledge of the English language, but these views should be overturned by any claim to the contrary in a round.
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The sole consideration for evaluation is what debaters say during their speech time. The speech document, dead time, events that occurred outside the round should not---sans an argument in support of their evaluation---be considered.
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The content of an argument should never factor into its evaluation. Your personal belief that an argument is ‘recycled,’ ‘slop,’ or ‘a troll’ is irrelevant to whether a team has won the argument and its impact. You may chastise them after the round, or dock speaker points, but never withhold the ballot.
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A claim can be justified by mutual concession. A team’s failure to respond to a claim is a tacit concession of its truth. However, until the opposing team has had the opportunity to respond to a claim, it must be presumed false, since there is no evidence to its truth (absent intervention). This is why new 2AR arguments are false. Once a team has had the opportunity to respond, but has failed to, the claim is true. In the event of a tie, e.g. two competing claims that have both been conceded, you should attempt to resolve other issues first; if that fails, you may intervene based on the degree of persuasion of either claim or your personal beliefs.